Touchdown!

This morning, at three am, my alarm so sweetly woke me to begin my trip down to Costa Rica. By 4am, Jeff had arrived at my apartment to take us both to the Montgomery airport where we hopped on a short flight to Atlanta. In Atlanta we boarded the four hour flight to San Jose. Luckily, traveling was fairly easy with no delays.

When we touched down in San Jose, we were greeted by beautiful mountains and brightly colored buildings. Upon our first step out of the airport the muffled yells of taxi drivers overwhelmed us. The drivers were all gathered together making only a small path for recently landed visitors to walk through. At the end of the line we caught sight of Ryan holding the diocesan shield. Ryan is a young American serving in Costa Rica through Young Adult Service Corps, a mission-based group hosted by the National Episcopal Church in the US. Alongside Ryan was our driver who took us on an adventurous ride, as most central American car rides are, to the Diocesan House.

The Diocesan House is located on the exact opposite side of San Jose from the airport. We were shown our rooms which are located upstairs in the Diocesan House. This is where we will stay in the summer if we choose a mission project in San Jose. It is beautiful! There are several rooms down a long hallway, each with bunkbeds in them. At the end of the hallway are the men's and women's restrooms with two toilet stalls and two shower stalls each. They say there is hot water, though I haven't taken a shower yet to confirm. I'll keep you posted on that in the morning.

After getting settled Ryan took us downstairs where our lunch was being prepared. While we were waiting, Bishop Monterroso sat with us and we enjoyed conversation together. He told us a lot about the education system here in Costa Rica as well has how he came to be the bishop. He is a VERY friendly man and allowed us to eat while we finished up chatting. Lunch was delicious! My vegetarian option was beans, salad, and a cold veggie dish with a sauce on them. Jeff had a huge plate with some sort of meat, he thinks it was chicken, rice, coleslaw type food, and plantains which were his favorite. I pulled a fat girl move and helped him finish his rice after I completely cleared my own plate. Bishop Monterroso will be meeting again with us later to fill us in on the vision and mission of Costa Rica.

We had to walk off our lunch a little, so Jeff and I wandered around the Diocesan House taking pictures to show everyone when we return. Jeff asked Ryan to show us to a grocery store where he could get his caffeine fix of Diet Coke. On the walk to the little store we passed a protest of motorcyclists. The Costa Rican President's office is just around the corner from the Diocesan House so motorcyclists were parked near there protesting the motorcycle tax raise the government just implemented. Don't worry I snapped a few pics!

When we got back from the store my three am wake up call finally hit me full force, so Jeff and I retreated to our rooms for an afternoon siesta. When we woke up we went downstairs for dinner. It was also delicious. I had a bean and cheese burrito with salad and the same veggie dish as earlier and everyone else had grilled chicken, rice and beans. For dessert we had vanilla icecream with chocolate and fruit. There is another group of people here sharing the space with us so we got to have dinner with them. The other group is from all over central America- Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala.

We are getting up in the morning to explore several potential mission sites around San Jose. It is sure to be a full day and I will keep everyone posted. In the meantime I am going to enjoy the sound of singing from downstairs.

Peace.