Day 1

Firstly, I love Costa Rica. Secondly, it's hell getting here. Not only did it take me the better part of 22 hours to safely arrive in Samara, but the trips were hellish. Turbulence into Liberia was pretty jarring, although I did manage to look out the window and check out where we were landing. I saw a Nicaraguan volcano that was oozing smoke into the valley below it - that was really cool. The main thing I noticed while trying to keep ahold of my stomache was that there's a TON of texture here. Everything is green except for the rivers (which are muddy brown) and there are a virtual ton of different colors. The texture of everything is by far the most impressive though.
 So let's start from the beginning. I flew from Juneau to Seattle, waited around for a few hours, and then took the red-eye to Atlanta. Once I got there, I walked for EVER to get to me gate (E34). On the way I stopped for a breakfast sandwish and the place I ordered from had this machine that was making fresh squeezed orange juice. Automatically! It was amazing. The girls behind the counter weren't sure what to do with me. Anyway, I found my gate and sat down and there was 1 other girl there, so naturally I asked her if she was Rachel and once I learned that she was indeed my classmate, we sat next to each other and made friends. It was really comforting to know that she was just as terrified and unprepared as I was. So we flew down and got off the plane in Liberia and were greeted by a wall of hot and humid that literally took my breath away. Customs was quick and uneventful, and luckily all of our bags made it. We were greeted by Alex, the van driver, who loaded our bags and offered us refrescos (agua, naranja, y cerveza) and then we took off! 2 hours later we finally arrived in Samara. FYI, for anyone who's thinking about coming to visit (Mom, Karen, and Granny) DO NOT DRIVE! People are crazy here. Hire a van or even better, see if you can fly into Samara Beach somewhere. I don't know if you can, but it's worth a try. The roads are super twisty-turny, and when your driver is screaming around corners in 5th gear it's really hard to focus on anything around you. The fact that we were exhausted and starving definitely didnt' help the situation, but it sucked in general.
  Once we finally got here, Alex gave us the 30 second tour of the town and showed us to our hotels. My hotel is actually pretty far away from the massage school - about 3 blocks, but whatever. Rachel and I took a siesta and met up for a late lunch at a random restaurant that was open. My first meal in Costa Rica consisted of DELICIOUS! It was shrimp stuffed avacado and was absolutely amazing. Rach had a really good chicken in a lemon cream sauce. And then we had coconut flan with bananas and strawberries and cream for dessert, which were both fantastic. By this time, a huge storm had moved in and it was pouring, so naturally, we decided to go for a walk and explore the town. We walked around for probably about an hour and spent most of our time walking the beach. It's really shallow and SUPER warm, which is awesome. While we were letting the waves lap at our feet, the two of us turned to each other and had a momentary freak-out that this is home for the next 4 months and that we can walk to the beach every day if we want to. It's so amazing here!
 So Rachel and I went back to our respective hotels and as I was walking in the door, the front desk woman told me that I'd recieved a call from the massage school, which was weird, so I thought nothing of it and went to head to my room when a random guy turned around and asked if I was going to be attending CRSMT. Turns out, he's one of the only men (that I know of) attending the school with us. His name is Christopher and he's from Boulder, CO and he's been touring Costa Rica for the last few days. Poor guy got one of his suitcases stolen off the bus earlier, so he has almost no clothing. Luckily he still has his books and laptop and stuff like that, but 60% of his clothes, his hiking boots, his sandals, and his toiletries were all taken, so he's in a sad state. I took him over to meet Rachel and we ate pizza and had daquiris and toasted our new adventure. We're all meeting up at 11 tomorrow to go wait outside the gate of the school. Campus doesn't officially open until 12, but we have to check out by 11, so hopefully Brenda (the head of Admissions) will take pity on us and let us in early.

So that's my first day in Costa Rica! Tomorrow after moving in to a house on campus, I plan to hit the beach and maybe introduce myself to Choco, the surfing instructor. For now though, I think I'll do a little reading and then hit the sack. It's been a while since I've slept, so I should probably do that.

Night!