Nos Llegaban - We´re Here!!!!

---

After enough pre-trip nonsense, we´ve finally made it to Costa Rica and are currently in San Jose, the capital and largest city in CR.

Getting There

We took a 6am flight from Cleveland to Houston and then Houston to San Jose.

The flights were fine, and flying Continental probably prepared us well for the bus travel in our near future... overcrowded, surly flight attendants, screaming kids, but we´re here and in one piece so what more could you ask for? Well, I could ask that the person in front of me on EVERY airplane not be the FIRST one to put their seat all the way back, but alas, that´s life.

Other than that, the only snags along the way were

the ipod problem

and

the oops backpack affair

1. Elise is, shall we say, technically disinclined. When entering the all important RENT soundtrack into her ipod she magically erased everything else (all 2500 songs), so now our trip will include much discussion of starving artists living in New York, who all suffer from disease but can muster up the strength to at least sing about it.

2. Not in Costa Rica for 2 minutes before our first near catastrophe. Elise and I have nearly identical Eagle Creek Daypacks and we almost only had one. As we left the airport I nearly left mine behind after customs. But I recovered it and all was right again.

SAN JOSE

Living: Hotel Aranjuez
A nice enough first place to stay slightly outside of the city center. The room is small and basic and without a washer and dryer (just like our apartment in Chicago). The only warning we´d give to future visitors is to request a room far away from the main courtyard since lots of talking and coffee mug clinking takes place there VERY early in the morning.

On the plus side we experienced our first omelette bar of the trip, and probably our last.... yay, free breakfast.

Eating: Cafe Mundo
A friend of a friend of a friend or something gave us a contact here who agreed to meet us for dinner. His name is Say and he owns a hostel in San Jose, where we will be staying on our last night of the trip. The food was very good, don´t think it was typical Costa Rican food, but who´s complaining. Say not only bought us dinner which was VERY nice, but gave us a TON of valuable advice for our travels.

That about covers San Jose, we´ll see some of the city today before heading off to our next destination.

I apologize for the dryness of this posting but we haven´t done much yet, and I promise more insight in future entries. Not to mention when we get a computer that we can load pics we´ll do that too.

I´ll close with what will be a regular feature of the Gregg and Elise blog -
The Brown-o-Meter
an accuweather forecast of how tan we are...
1= Casper the friendly ghost ;10=Wesley Snipes.

Elise = 1
Gregg = 3.5 (but i´m just naturally brownish)

adios,
G and E

---

Comments

[Gregg's "brother"]

Heaven
Can't think of a better trip than one with the Rent soundtrack and an omelette bar--great tunes and protein galore!

[Anna]

My Hotel Experience
I stayed at the same hotel. I slept naked as a roommate with my friend who didn't know me THAT well. My bags did not arrive in CR until the follwoing day. I had to wash my undies. Learned a crucial lesson - always pack a spare pair in your carry-on. Alas, my bag was delivered 36 hours later by bus to Monteverde. Did I mention all my stuff was soaked through and we were in the frickin rain forest!

[Pam]

Advise
I feel the need to give you advise since you are giving the browning report. Use sun screen and be careful. Little brown boy still needs to be careful in the sun. Little white girl needs to be doubly careful. Thanks for the report and just enjoy the experiences.

[Catherine]

Funny Stuff
Glad to hear you made it safely. How cool that you were able to meet Say. I have been hearing about him for years. Gregg I love your writing style...very funny. Take care. Thanks for Project Moo Elise. ;) Love, catherine

[dad (gregg's)]

dreary day in Glencoe
Nice to hear from you and that you are safe and sound in CR. I'm not falling for that Costa Rica $3.50 mentioning crap (D'oh) I'm nor surprised that Elise managed to lose all her music or that you almost managed to lose your backpack, but I'm pretty sure that it would be a disaster if it was the other way around. You could easily live for a month with no clothes, toiletries, etc, but not your music. As for the brown-o-meter, I am establishing a grey-o-meter for our weather here. 1= the color of most office equipment; 10= Dick Cheney's complexion after his pacemaker suffers the same fate as Elise's Ipod. Today in Glencoe, its about a 7. That's all for now. Have fun and be careful in Costa Rica (D'oh) Dad