April 1 Costa Rica Here We Come!!

When I talked with Kassidy the other day, she sounded super surprised that I’m still planning to come.  Apparently this job is changing my habits some because she said it was very unlike me to just jump up and go somewhere.  Lol, no wonder I’m driving my friends and family crazy.

After a long, restless night, Justin took me to the airport at 6am for my flight.  I packed a hiking backpack with a lot more stuff than I intended on bringing and I dropped all of my other luggage off in the Crew Lounge so I can go straight back to Boston on Friday.  The flight was booked 52 out of 150, so Duke and I got our own rows.  I intended to sleep, but started watching Saving Mr. Banks on tv and stayed awake the whole time.  The movie wasn’t worth it, although Tom Hanks is a fantastic actor.

We arrive in San Jose around 8am and catch the shuttle to National Car Rentals.  It was such a rip off!  When Duke booked the car online, it said the total was $56 for the week.  Come to find out, it is mandatory to purchase insurance of $24 PER DAY!  What???  The total came to $133, but we figured it was still cheaper than the cost for both of us to take the shuttle to and from Uvita.  So very unhappy about the situation, we took the car anyways.  A Prius.  Awesome.

Next hurdle, the car place gave us a horrible map.  Most of the roads in the city were not labelled on the map.  (I felt inclined to include a picture of it in this post.) To make things worse, most of the roads IN the city weren’t labelled on the streets either!!  It took us an hour to figure out how to get headed in the right direction and we took a little detour through the mountains.  Wow, the roads were curvy!

Once outside the city, street signs were much better and it was easier to decide which way we needed to go.  We stopped to take pictures once or twice.  The mountain roads were beautiful, although scary.  We stopped at Backyard Burger for lunch.  A poor decision.  The food was expensive and not good.  We spent $45 on a burger, a burrito, 2 coronas and 2 waters.  Ouch. 

The other thing that we can’t figure out is the currency.  It’s $500 Colones to $1.  So when the bill comes it’s 20,000 colones.  Very weird to get used to.

Eventually, we made it to the Tucan Hotel and to Kassidy!!  I’ll post more about the Hotel later.  We dropped our things off, changed clothes and headed to the beach for sunset.  A guy, Joel, joined us for the ride to the beach as well.  We hung out on the beach, played in the water and watched a beautiful sunset.  At night, Kassidy cooked a delish dinner for us, we had some wine and then went to bed soon after. 

Duke at the hostel:

Thus ended our first day in Costa Rica.

Trip to Costa Rica? Why yes, I think I shall

So my best friend, Kassidy, decided to take a 3 month job working in a hostel in Costa Rica.  She invited me to come, so I think I shall do just that!    My friend, Steve, was planning to come with me and asked if we could go the first week of April, so that’s what I’ve planned.  Steve and I would’ve had a blast living all hippy style, but unfortunately, he had to back out though.  A few days later, my brother, Duke, asked “what are you doing the first week of April”.  So now, Duke and I are planning to go to Costa Rica together for a week.  We’ve never travelled together, so I’m not really sure how it’s going to go.  It also seems like neither of us are planners because we didn’t talk about the trip again until a day or two beforehand.

I had planned to take a bus from San Jose to Uvita, where Kassidy is working.  The bus costs $35 each way.  Duke thought it would be a better idea to rent a car and Kassidy said it would be helpful if we had one so we didn’t have to walk everywhere.

So there’s what I have of a plan:  I’m going to Costa Rica on April 1 with my brother, we’re renting a car and then driving to see my bestie in Uvita.  End of plan.

March 19, 2014 Why can't I keep my mouth shut sometimes??

First day of a 6 day reserve block and the day after St. Patrick’s Day.  I get put on 7am airport standby (ASB).  6 hours in the crew lounge.  Awesome.  At least it’s in the morning because anything in the afternoon means I’ll only get used for a red eye.  There’s a “quiet room” in the crew lounge that has 6 big comfortable reclining chairs in it.  I went in and slept the entire 6 hours of my ASB haha!  It was a nice way to recover from my binger of a last week.

At 1am there was a business meeting in the crew lounge, so I decided to stay for it.  They pay us to stay for these meetings, but they’re 3 hours long so I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  Oh well, I was there.

The meeting was informative.  I took notes.  During the part where they were discussing new products, I couldn’t help it, I had to raise my hand and point out that one of our new offerings has a very inappropriate name.  It went something like this, but with a lot more studdering because I get shy talking about inappropriate sexual words, esp around the managers of my company.

Me: “Hi, I wanted to just make a point that I think you guys should look up the meaning of the word Skeeter.  Check it out, urbandictionary.com.  Every time I hand the cookies to younger people, they giggle and I can’t help but giggle too.  So I think you all should just check out the meaning of the word.” 

Speaker:  “what does it mean?”

Me:  “I can’t say.  Just look it up, urbandictionary.com”

Everyone in the room busts out their cellphones and as people read the definition, a subtle laughter fills the room.  The head of airports (all of our locations) looks at me and gives a thumbs up, the Boston supervisors are all laughing hysterically, and my face turns bright red.

March 16 - St Patricks Day!

This has been the funnest week ever!  Got to see Justin, went to Nashville, then DC, now to Boston to celebrate St. Patty's Day!!

Washington Monument from Plane

I met up with some friends from college and went to watch the Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade.  I love parades, it was great.

Why do i always look so short :-(

After, we walked down to Whiskey Priest for some drinks.  About the time my college friends were ready to go home, one of my flight attendant friends met me!  We almost went home after Whiskey Priest, but Jessa convinced me to go down to Fanueil Hall area.  What a crazy night!!

Obnoxious people we made friends with at the Priest.

um, jessa.....?

We talked some bouncers into letting us into a bar for free and enjoyed dancing silly all night.  Then some guys decided to kidnap us.  One dude threw me over his shoulder and then let go!!!  (notice, his hands are up in the air in this photo).  Our bouncer "friend" came over and almost killed the guys, then kicked them out "these arn't those kinda girls, you be f***in respectful" (imagine heavy boston accent).  That was pretty crazy, but we had a blast anyways.

I'm so sexy when I dance

March 15 Race Day!!

Boy we had to be up early, but fortunately, everyone had their shoes and train tickets and we were ready to go!!

It was freezing cold outside before the sun came up!  I wasn't happy we got there so early ugh and then all of the girls had to pee before the race so we were late to the starting line.  ugh.

We all run different paces so after the race finished, we all split up.  it was pretty tough finding everyone afterwards, but some how we managed.  I def struggled through the race because I didn't train well, but i finished third out of our group.  not bad.

The race sent us past all the major monuments and was a beautiful run.  My favorite thing was all the people sitting on the side walks watching us and drinking.  at mile 12, people started setting out beer and margarita's for us to grab as we ran by.  I was tempted, but knew I wouldn't make the last mile if I had a drink lol.

After the race, we all went to brunch.  I had too many mimosas, but it was yummy.

In the evening, we met up for dinner and celebrated one girls birthday.

March 14 - Marathon Expo and Exploring DC

We got up and went to the Expo on Friday and then went sightseeing.  I’ve really enjoyed spending girl time this week.  We had a lot of fun and took tons of pictures. 

We took Uber back to the hotel and then walked to CVS to buy snacks and other things we would need before the race.  Back at the hotel, Morgan and I were preparing our things for the race on Saturday:  put our bibs on our shirts, lay out our clothes, put everything in our race bag, etc… when Morgan realized she only has one shoe!!!!  We start frantically looking everywhere.  The other girls come to help us.  It’s 8pm the day before our race and Morgan has no shoe!  We call around to shoe stores and One is still open and has her same shoes, but it’s 30 mins away.  The two of us race downstairs and jump in a taxi to ride 20 minutes to the shoe store.  As we are pulling up, Morgan Then realizes she forgot her credit card because she packed it with her race day stuff.  Lmao.  Seriously, she was a mess.  Fortunately, the store stayed open a few extra minutes so we could rush in and buy the shoe (I had my card).  Ohhhh Morgan.

March 13 - Headed to DC for Rock N Roll Half Marathon

March 13

I had all day in Orlando on Thursday, which was nice.  I had a lot of things to catch up on.  I finished up and mailed out a corporate tax return I’ve been working on and did a few other things.  I had no idea what to pack for our 3 days in DC, so I packed a Ton.

I headed to the airport in the evening and showed up at the gate as they were about to close the door.  Walking down the jet bridge, I see Morgan and the girls.  They were positive I wasn’t going to make it on the flight.  Whoops.  Sometimes I cut it a little too close.  In my defense, they were closing the doors 15 minutes early. 

In the middle of boarding, Morgan says “do you want some of my margarita???”  I was in uniform, so I just froze.  Uhhh…. No, of course not.  Flight was good and then we took Uber to our hotel.  I’ve never Ubered before, but it was a good experience.  An suv picked us up at the hotel and all 6 of us girls road to the hotel.  We got the hotel on Groupon and I was very surprised at how nice it was.  Le Meridian in Arlington.  The beds were Very comfortable.

 Our room...

We changed and then went out for dinner and a few drinks in Georgetown.  It was really empty and all of the bars closed at like 12, which I was surprised about in a decent size city.

March 11 - 12

The girls wanted me to catch the 6am flight to Nashville.  Agh, I couldn’t do it.  Getting back from a 4 day trip is exhausting enough, but add on the late nights… I was beat.  I planned to catch the SouthWest 10:55 flight instead. 

Well, I woke up at 10:15.  Whoops.

Juli flew over on a red eye from California to Boston, met Nicole and they both took the 7:30am flight from Boston to Nashville.  Super hardcore if you ask me.  The next flight available for me wasn’t till almost 2.  I have no idea why no one flies over the lunch hour, but they don’t.  I got in around 4 and met the girls at the bar.  Listening to music at all of the bars was amazing.  They even had live music in the airport.  We had some drinks at the bar and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.  All of the artists are so talented, I have no idea how some make it big and others don’t. 

On Wednesday, we eventually made it downtown for lunch and were the only people sitting in a bar called Swinging Door.  It was fun because we got personal attention from the singers, who were great.

I had my first bloody mary.  I still couldn’t choke it down.  I’m determined to learn to like them.

The girls decided to stay another night, but I really wanted to see Justin again, so I flew home late in the evening. 

When I called to list myself for the 8:30 SouthWest flight, they told me there were only 2 seats available (this was an hour before the flight).  I pay $25 for a taxi to the airport, show up to the gate and find out it’s overbooked by 3 seats!  I was really stressed that I wasn’t going to make it home.  Another winter storm was coming through the North East so several SW flights were cancelled, so the airport was hectic and I had to wait until the plane was completely boarded to find out if I was going to get a seat.  I was preparing myself to sleep in the airport because I’d already paid $50 in taxi fees on this trip, I could not afford to spend any more.  Fortunately, I made it on board at the last minute and was extremely happy to be on board.

Note for future travel:  make sure the hotel has easy transportation to and from the airport or rent a car.