Arrival

It was tax day (April 15th) in the U.S., so I thought it the perfect time to leave the country. Beginning at 5am from Carthage, MO, my parents drove me to the airport in Tulsa, OK. From there, I flew to Houston, TX to connect with my international flight. By 2:30pm I had landed in San Jose. After passing through Immigration, collecting my checked baggage, and walking through Customs, I entered the hectic world of Central America.

Fending off the various taxi drivers vying for my business, I located the driver sent by the Costa Rican Language Academy (CRLA) who would be taking me to meet my host family. Soon, we arrived at the house and I started to take my bags out of the car and carry them inside. However, I realized that I only had my checked bag and not my carry on. With the sights, sounds, and smells of a new country assaulting me on all sides, knowing not a soul, and speaking only limited Spanish, it took me several minutes to understand what had happened and figure out where my other bag could be.

After a while, it dawned on me that I had never retrieved it from the customs conveyor belt at the airport, and I was able to contact the CRLA Liason (Leonel, who made me promise that if I found two girlfriends while I was here that I would share one with him) and get him on the case. To make a long story short, after several calls back and forth and much broken Spanish/English between Myself, Leonel, Airport Officials, and the Costa Rican Police, Leonel made it out of the Airport with my bag and returned it to me safe and sound.

My host Mother, Doña Carmen Boza, was very warm and empathetic, and though spaking no English, quite welcoming and helpful in the situation. Her home, typical of a middle-class domicile in CR, immediately became a peaceful atmosphere for me to reside.

Back Yard

San Jose, Costa Rica