No turning back now!

view from our future home
our future home
our temporary bedroom

9-10/1/12

Well I made it! I’m currently in my little bed at the end of day 2 (This is true while I’m writing this but once it’s published I’ll be in the office as I do not have the spoils of internet in my room). It’s 8:20 pm but if I were to have guessed I would’ve assumed it’s around midnight. It’s been a super long couple of days but I’m so happy to be here and in the process of getting settled.

Yesterday was a whole, whole lot of traveling and for basically just sitting all day (on a variety of chairs in a variety of vessels) I sure was exhausted and pretty stinky. A long layover and terrible in-flight movie aside, the day went smoothly and without incident.

At the airport in Dallas for my layover I met Alissa, the other intern here at the camp, and made the next chunk of the trip with her, which was quite nice. A friend of Mary and Marion’s, Fernando, picked us up from the airport and drove us the two hours from Alajuela to San Carlos.

Alissa is from Coppell, Texas. She went to school at George Mason and graduated in May. We both have no idea really what to expect in terms of a routine but are pretty open and ready for it to all unfold. She has a blog if you want to get her perspective on all of this: www.alissasheehan.wordpress.com

We are currently staying in the building that groups use to gather and eat when they visit because the house we will be living in is still being furnished. As of right now there are two bed frames, a sink and a couple plastic lawn chairs. If anyone feels led, go ahead and ship down a fridge or stove…

Today the secretary, Keytlin, took us (we road the bus and she was our guide) into Ciudad Quesada to learn the lay of the land and take care of the important things: money and cellphones… so sad. Apparently are priorities are consistent worldwide. I brought an old phone of mine and thought it might just be easiest to get a Costa Rican sim card. Went to a place, bought the card for cheap then realized the phone wasn’t activating. We left the phone with them and went to the super mercado… We bought a random assortment of things trying to keep in mind that we had to carry the bags through town, back to the cell place, then to the bus… fail. I truly think plastic bag handles are capable of slicing through fingers if carried far enough with enough weight in them. Went back to the cell place and waited “one minute please, you wait just one minute miss” thirty times over. After the cheese got dangerously soft and the raw chicken’s temperature started to climb we decided to come back tomorrow because we were bound to get food poisoning from some one of our inconveniently heavy groceries if we waited any longer. So fingers crossed we don’t go back to find that I’ve made yet another Costa Rican one iphone richer. (see earlier posts from 2009 for that nightmare…)

Had delicious tamales for dinner, figured out we only have internet near the office/Mary’s house, and came back to crash only to discover it was only half past 7.

Until tomorrow!

Molly