my first night, getting ready for be, i was greeted by a cockroach. my first reaction was to take off my shoe and squish it, but instead i just laughed and let it be, haha, i am in costa rica.

visiting for the fist few days has been really good, i pretty much stay in the house, and then with any little trip that they need to take, i accompany them. whether that be to the pharmacy, to buy bread, whatever. i love them so much.

i stayed at my cousin, hannah{s house a night and we went to san jose so that i can get my id as a costa rican.

i love costa rica, the people, the noises, the rain, i{m just drinking it all in, and trying to remember to be present to whomever i am with.

Travel Day

Thank you to all who came to pray/ say goodbye, it really means A LOT to me.

I slept for about two hours the night before i left... only to have it brought to my attention that i am traveling with two different airlines, meaning that i would have to deal with luggage in ohare before catching my flight to Houston.. But God is awesome as the woman that i went to to check in was really patient with me, and changed everything in the computers so that they only place that i had to deal with luggage was in Costa Rica, and explained the layout of ohare so that id be able to catch my plane in my less than hour layover.

I had been at peace with goodbyes, up until sunday night- monday when i left... I didn{t realize how hard it was going to be on Kristoffer and Santi, which made it even harder on me. and saying goodbye to Gabby.... oh man, i was in denial about that one... I{ve never been to Costa Rica without Gabby, I{m pretty sure that the longest time that we have been apart is 3 weeks... It{s super hard, but I know that it{s going to get better for her and for me...leaving was incredibly hard... I swear i turned around 20 times to wave goodbye to my family "one last time"

i cried as i waited for my flight, but then when i boarded, i was super excited, cuz i was on my way to costa Rica =D.

throughout the day i met some really neat people.

The woman who sat next to me on the way to Ohare is a yale graduate on her way back to puerto rico for work. She was most encouraging, and even gave me a pack of tissues, after i broke down in tears reading the letters and looking through the pics that i took with me. In houston i met a guy on his way to Nepal, which will take him almost three days to get there. .. puts my travels into perspective. When i asked for change for a dollar to make a call home to let my family know that i had made it safely to houston, one of the little workers, shared with me how to make a call from houston without having to use the pay phones ;) I also met a man, who does missions in South Africa everyonce in a while to help them with their computer stuff, he was pretty neat. i met a woman from Japan on her way to a surf camp in Costa Rica, we helped each other out filling out the immigration papers on the plane.

LIGHTS, the lights flying into costa rica are just amazing at night, surroundedby the mountains :) i love it.

I went down to baggage claims only to see someone lifting each bag onto the carousel, it was quite interesting. but then they announced a carosoul change in spanish, so i went to grab my space at the carosel, and was able to grab my bags even before the tourists heard the message in english. I went through customs with out any problems... i forgot to give them my customs papers... oops, owell, they didnt ask for them...

i was greeted by my grandma, aunt,cousin and two uncles, which was really nice. i was so excited, to see them all, and just the fact that I AM IN COSTA RICA =)

there were more cousins and aunts waiting at my aunt annas house. It was a struggle at first to get back into the hang of spanish, but im getting there.

It was a long day, but I give thanks to God that everything went so smoothly