Flight and first day in San Jose, Costa Rica


Advertisement
Published: March 17th 2015
Edit Blog Post

Online it states that one is suppose to be at the airport 3 hours early for International flights, I found out at one of the nations busiest airports that I was extremely early. LAX has security down to near perfection with time management brought into the equation. I was absolutely stunned. I did however have to have my bag looked at because of the baby wipes that were inside of it. I asked if he needed to see my medical card for my Crohn's disease and he said no I completely believe you. I was shocked again that the TSA were being so relaxed and actually having decent customer service.

I get done, and I decided it would probably be wise to grab dinner, because Flight meals are rather disgusting and with a low residue diet for active Crohn's. I ate at Rock and Brew and the meal was decent, nothing too special. I order a plain burger and a pepsi. I am glad that this airport does carry pepsi and not Coke. I get on the plane and I see the 3 kids already asleep in their chairs. They were sooo adorable! Everyone was snapping pictures of this massive amount of cuteness. Our flight takes off and I realize that the movies were free for a 6 hour flight. I ended up watching the Imitation Game (highly recommend) and the newest release of the Hunger Games. I attempt to fall asleep and I do for about 2 hours. Again this is a repeat of my Ireland flight where I had hardly any sleep. I can never sleep on a plane, even with sleep medication.

The Plane finally flies over Costa Rica and I'm shocked to see soooo many mountains. I'm not even sure what I was expecting in regards to the geography of the land. I see a few farm lands and they are nothing like the farm lands we see in the fly over states. When you fly over the Central Valley or Fly over states the land has perfect circles, lines, and shapes. Here the lines are anything but perfect. I get off the plane around 6am and the first thing I get is a sim card for my iPhone. I read it was cheaper to do this, then pay for the International charges from US carriers. I buy 4GB of Internet and 20 dollars for phone calls and texting, at 12cents a minute for phone calls. AMAZING DEAL!!!! I then go to the exchange place to withdrawal some money, which is usually the worst idea ever, but I needed some money for the taxi ride to the Hotel. I go through customs and its the easiest customs I have ever been through in my life. I thought London and Ireland were easy, yeah Costa Rica kicks its butt big time!
Finally I leave the airport and the friendliest taxi cab driver comes up to me and introduces himself as Leslie, I introduce myself as well. He tells me we are hitting the morning rush hour traffic. I look at it and my first thought is, oh no this is LA. I look at the cars and you can tell which ones are rental cars and which ones are the locals. The locals have beaten up older cars that have a few dents, while the rental cars are much nicer and newer. As we are driving through the traffic I'm looking at all the open space for building and I'm thinking WOW you could really develop down here. We finally get to San Jose (the Capitol) and I see the housing is subpar, and reminds me a lot of Mexico. I notice the streets aren't exactly the cleanest and I feel bad that they live in these tiny box like homes here.
I get to the Radisson Hotel and it looks like an oasis in a land of out of date architecture. By this time it's 8am and I'm purely exhausted. I go up to the front desk and ask if its way too early to check in. Ramon tells me he has a room available and I can check in, wahoo I just won the lottery. I check in and I go to my room and its a room of simple yet somewhat modern style with a concrete wall. I drop off my stuff and take a tour around the hotel. They have an amazing garden patio and YES! I spot a hot tub 😊 I continue to walk around and I see they have a full Gold's Gym thats available to members and hotel guests. I go back to my room to take a little nap since it's so early in the morning. I fall asleep and the next thing I know I wake up at 630pm and I fall asleep again only to wake up again at 9pm, I had slept the day away.

I order some food and it comes fully wrapped in saran wrap. The chicken is amazing, but the fettuccinie Alfredo has a weird spice in it, that makes it ummm ok. So here I am wide awake writing in this blog. I have the TV on and everything is in Spanish except for ABC and HBO. I have a feeling I'm going to be using a lot of Netflix while I am out here at night.


Additional photos below
Photos: 7, Displayed: 7


Advertisement



Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 14; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb