El Primer Día, 22 mayo 2009

May 22 2009
I sit here on this awkward feeling bed with even harder rectangular shaped pillows listening to the shrilly call of the birds in the park across the street this early morning. Yesterday was a long day of achy travel, meeting new people, and experiencing a city that had no resemblance to the one in my head. I woke up at 3am to catch my flight that boarded at 5h40. The flight to Washington DC was kind of long and dragged on. Of course Amanda, my travel buddy, did not show up and I had to travel alone but I am writing this now so everything went well, sort of. Washington was a disaster. I walked into the terminal and had to find my next flight without a boarding pass (from the change of United Airways to Taca). I walked down the long hallway and made it to the shuttle trains to each of the gates and where the flight screens are, luckily I didn’t have to take a shuttle. I walked up the stairs into the B section of the Airport and walked for what seemed like a half mile to my gate, B47, only to realize that my cell phone fell out of my pocket on the plane. After about an hour of backtracking and walking between A1 and B47 I was fruitless in my search and just accepted this as the bad thing that was going to happen to me on the trip.
The flight from Washington DC to El Salvador was the best flight of my life. I was towards the back of the plane and sat with an American, Kevin, and a girl from El Salvador, Sarai. Sarai spoke little to no English but we connected immediately. She was my age (our birthdays just eighteen days apart) and just came back from a Coldplay concert wearing her Viva la Vida t-shirt and playing her recorded video on her camera. Of course, as an icebreaker, I took out my laptop and we watched my bootleg “Reno 911: Miami!” together and we were both cracking-up for that hour and a half on the plane. The movie was hilarious and I think she laughed even more than I did. There were awkward sex scenes and many topless scenes, but overall the movie was a good choice. Right away she noticed “Ojos que no ven” by Alexis y Fido on my computer and we started talking about music. We both had a love for reggaetón, Bachata, and some American stuff. The flight then landed, we danced to the techno music playing over the speakers in the plane (or at least I did) and we walked into the airport together and said goodbye and promised to be Facebook friends.
The airport wasn’t that bad in El Salvador but had a weird mixture of trees, birds, and wii that seemed bizarre. One girl was wii bowling while another played Mario kart. We boarded the plane and this time I sat next to Gerardo Muyshondt, a native of El Salvador and the advertising director who created the Taca airlines commercials. By the end of the plane ride we were talking about Central American politics and walked together to the longest immigration line I had seen in my life. An hour of waiting and talking later I grabbed my bags and I met up with my driver who didn’t know the meaning of safe driving. It was drizzling out and the sky was a dark color while everything else looked damp. The streets were packed with 3 lanes of traffic while my driver did up to 130 kph on roads weaving in and out of traffic in a speed limit of 90. The constant wetness of Costa Rica rusts everything metal giving it that broken down look. The drive through the city made my heart drop when all I saw was shacks and pieces of metal creating “homes” the city looked like the rural portions of Mexico where homes were made of scrap metal but in Costa Rica they are placed back-to-back. The cars were basically the same as in the states with Toyota Corollas, Hondas, and even the French Peugeot. At one point there was a truck of cows that pooped in the middle of the street in front of us. I started to get worried, though, when the metal shacks and barbed wire and dirtiness of the city didn’t disappear. It just seemed to get worse as we drove farther down these potholed roads weaving dangerously between buses, motorcycles, and pedestrians at stressful speeds.
Finally I arrived in Moravia and walked into my new home. It literally took my breath away. I was greeted by William (the husband) and was glad to know that I understood his accent and almost one hundred percent of what he was telling me. He brought me inside to a beautiful home that seemed just like the ones we have back in the states. There is a big screen TV and a nice patio overlooking the park. I got along great with William but I didn’t seem to hit-it-off with Enrique. Later, his Señora showed up and I met her. Unfortunately I cannot understand her 80% of the time for some unknown reason and I feel helpless when she talks to me. But after a while I started getting used to it and her son William came home and said hello. She made some sort of potato and meat dish with plain white rice and black beans. It sounds tasteless but was actually pretty amazing. The rice, though plain, was kind of crispy which was weird but also so much better than what I was used to. The beans tasted vinegary and added some flavor to the rice while the potatoes were just amazing. I drank some type of iced tea or flavored water that was also pretty good. (The water in San José is 100 percent drinkable William kept on telling me). Then Johanna came in and she seemed pretty nice. They pulled out the American Atlas and roadmap and I showed them where I lived and William showed me the television and talked about the super and hyper markets. He seemed very interested in me and loved sharing things about his country. We connected the most, I think. Then we watched television and fixed my internet WiFi connection and now I can go on the internet when it’s not being temperamental. At around 9h30 I went upstairs to my room and saw William Jr. watching the WB with Harry Potter, he called me in and we sat and watched it together. I shared some chocolate rocks from Newport and a whoopee pie from a gas station and we bonded. Finally I fell asleep and here I am right now.