San (Noway) Jose

Welp, we arrrived to the fine city of San Jose safe and sound. We were welcomed by a downpour of rain, psychotic drivers, and speedy mopeds. All I have to say is, thank the lord for creating the person who invented the Garmin. It would have been hell trying to find our way to our first hostel, Costa Rica Backpackers, from the aeropuerto. In fact, I doubt we would have made it at all. Chances are we would have been either a) captured by banditos, b) been swindled by currency exchange conmen, or c) literally drowned in the heavy rain. I did have a plan for scenario a. I was going to bring my Northrop Grumman badge and tell the bandito that the stars meant that I worked for el presidente de los Estados Unidos and that they would die if they hurt me.

Anyway, we are here at our hostel and have made friends with an English girl named Holly AND a spotted cat that is sleeping on this random futon. Hopefully going to meet more friends and jsut hangout at the hostel tonight. Everyone is very kind and nice so far.

Ian´s Editorial Side Note- I don´t know a lot about the internet so I am using Lisa´s spot to add my own thoughts. I probably won´t even know how to read this when I get back. Anyway, having really only spent time in the 3 most popluar cities in the U.S. (Baltimore City, Ocean City, and Atlantic City) this has been a relative culture awakening for me already. For starters people don´t speak English. Who woulda known? Even people that are staying with us from England speak something that resembles English, but I have no idea what they are a saying half the time anyway. So my 8 day strategy for everyone I meet is to smile and nod a lot. When we first arrived it was raining, our room looked like a scene from The Wire, and the city was more then intimitating. Then I got a beer. And that beer was just called ¨Pilsner¨. And that beer also cost $1. Lets just say things turned around rather quickly. Although the Friday afternoon beer normally improves things, this beer actually made the sun come out and filled the common area here with people from all over the world. I´m glad we decided to do this hostel thing to try and meet folks as opposed to staying in swank hotels and have drinks with umbrellas. There is some really old guy with gray hair down to his knees, a tie dye T-shirt, and some sort of mesh sack that seems to live here. Needless to say this man will be my friend by tomorrow, if only for my Father´s sake. Tonight there is some sort of dinner and fire show by the pool. So I am sold on both those things. That is all I got. Lisa walked away, lets see if I can figure out how to post this.