Costa Rica Adventure - Day 1

[squirmelia]

On Thursday 23rd August, I flew from London to Miami while watching a Japanese teen comedy about time-travelling inside a washing machine. I also spent hours gazing at the clouds, while I was amongst them and occasionally I caught glimpses of turquoise patches of ocean that were almost glowing.

My time in Miami was limited to having my fingerprints taken and eating a dulce de leche ice-cream while gleefully escaping from the cool air-conditioned buildings of the airport for a few minutes to bask in the warmth of the sun. Perhaps I should have tried the birthday cake flavoured ice-cream, but I didn't know whose birthday it was.

From the plane window, I saw the thin strip of sand that makes up Miami beach and remembered sitting on that beach and swimming in that sea, a few years ago, on a TV-watching business trip.

I tried learning Spanish animal noises, reading articles about Stardust in Spanish, muttering the names of strange fruits my guidebook described while imagining what they would taste like, and using gnaborretnis at every opportunity, but none of that particularly helped me to learn Spanish.

The flight from Miami to San José was much shorter than my previous flight, but it was unexpectedly dark when I arrived in Costa Rica. From the taxi window, the city of San José seemed full of concrete, shopping outlets and restaurants, the kind I had seen previously in Miami, but I also saw houses with ramshackle corrugated tin roofs and cages around the houses, as if the houses were dangerous.

I arrived at the hotel to find the other people on the Costa Rica Adventure were already at a restaurant, so decided to dream of forests.

Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I flew from London to Miami while watching a Japanese teen comedy about time-travelling inside a washing machine.

Somehow, you just know that this is a good post to read. And squirmelia.

Post a link?

[criesbella.livejournal.com]

delighted you get to have these adventures, hon :)
x, a/nyc

[laslandes.livejournal.com]

great writing :)

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/bubble_fiction.htm).

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yep. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Where do you find this stuff?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

It was showing on the aeroplane. :)

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

i remember that trip; i had a zine then...

Wouldn't have guessed you for a tourgroup sort. Or do you like having a plan to move to?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced I'm a tour group sort either! I'd never been on a tour before. It had its good sides and bad sides, but I did often prefer just wandering by myself.

Good things about it were that I didn't have to deal with booking hotels or any of the transport, since that was all arranged for me, especially since I don't speak Spanish. Also, having people to eat dinner with was nice occasionally. Often if I travel alone, I don't bother going to restaurants, so perhaps miss out on some of the local food. Oh, and also having people you can trust to look after your stuff on the beach while you swim in the sea is also good.

Bad things were that I got sick of guided tours and not having enough time in the places I liked the most, such as the cloud forest, and not always being able to do my own stuff. I also got tired of having to be around people so much.

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

When i travel alone (so, when i travel) i don't go to restaurants either, as in the sort where you sit and wait for a waitress to serve you. So i miss out on eating at nice places, which is too bad, because i do like that sort of thing, good food i mean, i'm just not comfortable doing it alone.

One of the things i like about hostels is that there are people around when i want people, and then i can be on my own when i want to be... i mean, common breakfasts, and i've had some nice conversations with people over breakfasts at hostels.

i would have guessed that a tour group would mostly consist of friends or couples, and so you'd be alone in the group, people would mostly be interested in talking to the people they already knew rather than in meeting the one person travelling alone? Or wasn't that the case?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am the same with restaurants - I manage occasional restaurants when alone, but always feel a bit uncomfortable.

I think the group consisted of:
5 couples (including 2 couples who were on honeymoons)
4 other girls (including me)
2 other boys

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The secret to dining alone is bring a magazine. Or a newspaper, but that's difficult on a small table.

Providing, of course, you have the ability to become engrossed in what you're reading, but not so much so that you forget to eat: this is why books don't work. Or New Scientist.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Writing when dining alone works quite well, I find. :)