After a very, nay, too short vacation to California I am back in Costa Rica, ready, yet not eager, to begin semester 4 of 4. My 10 day trip to CA consisted in not much else than laying around reading. The sun, regardless of what they say about 'sunny CA' was not out for about 7 of my 10 day stay and, just my luck, it hasn't been out in Costa Rica either since my arrival on Sunday. The gloomy days have definitely not brightened my spirits. Speaking of arriving... the good ol' USA made my life miserable again. I've been trying to figure out what I've done in my life for Karma to have kicked me, again, while I'm down, but I haven't quite come up with anything good. My trip to immigration this time was extended beyond the usual checkpoint as Ms. Butch didn't believe I was the lovely face smiling back at her from my Green Card. Maybe I shouldn't blame her... it was 11 p.m. when I pulled up to her drive through window. After playing 20 questions she led me away to magic door number two where I had to sit and wait while Antonio Banderas and Jackie Chan talked about their big guns. After another fun game of "Avoid telling the whole truth to the immigration agents" I was given a pass to rejoin the milling masses eagerly awaiting to see if the airline managed to screw up the baggage. I'm not bitter. The best part of my trip however, was by far the uber-cute flight attendant who, seeing me staring longinly at the conveyer belt pleading for my bag to come around, fed me the line "You have gorgeous eyes, don't ever cover them up." There is no sarcasm in that last line. I flew with TACA and I have to say, unless their tickets end up way more expensive than Priceline.com I'm picking them for all my Latin America to US travel. Direct from CR to CA, zero baggage fees, great flight attendants, extra legroom, free headphones and alcoholic beverages, and meals! whaaaaa??? ... all in economy class.
The second part of my trip was not without its 'fun' shall we say. My flight left LAX at 1:35 a.m., a time of the morning when I thought the airport would be empty. Guess again. An hour after joining the line, I managed to get to the check-in counter only to find out they had over booked my flight! I was offered a $600 voucher to fly the next day and, if it weren't the World Cup final I would be missing, I would have taken it. Instead I waited an extra 10 minutes for the computer to spit me out a seat number. Armed with my seat number and dangerously low on sleep, I make my way down the plane aisle, plop in my seat, and close my eyes. Ah sleep... wrong. TACA shows a movie and the t.v. screen just happened to be right above the seat in front of me. All movie long I had flashes of light penetrating my eyelids. When we were all finally woken up at 6 a.m. for breakfast I was about ready to use foul language on the very next person who spoke to me. But luckily... no joke here... it was another good looking flight attendant offering me a much needed cup of joe. Cafe Britt, Costa Rica's best coffee. Yum. We were an hour and a half outside of Costa Rica making a 'quick' pitstop in Guatemala to let people off and pick up others. A scheduled 4o minute stop though turned into a fun packed 3 hours of staring out the airport window at the menacing black cloulds and, no joke here, the only two airplanes that landed in the entire 3 hours I was there. Our plane had managed to catch itself a faulty landing gear somewhere thousands of miles above the earth and we had to wait while the genius mechanic stood looking at the plane and scratching his... uhh... head. My 9:35 a.m. arrival to Costa Rica turned out to be a 1 p.m. arrival when I no longer had a ride home, or made it back in time to catch the plans I had made for the World Cup. Nor did I even WANT to watch the damn game. I got home, threw myself onto the bed, and fell asleep to the sound of pouring rain.
I cried that day. I didn't want to be here. Maybe the exhaustion was part of it, but somehow I had managed to distance myself from everyone down here in the 10 days I was home, and when I arrived it just didn't FEEL right. I have fought with my best friend every day for the past week, and now lying here I can't help but wonder if being on bad terms with him isn't affecting my sleep.
I began teaching on Monday. I work evenings teaching English now to earn some extra cash and hopefully save up for a down payment on a car when I get back to CA. I was a little nervous my first day but after a few minutes of the first class I got into it. It helped, of course, that that class already had a pretty high level of English. At the end of the day, though, three classes down, I enjoyed it, which was a surprise for me. My bosses have graciously kept me away from children which I can only be thankful for. As the semester progresses, I'll reevaluate my skills as a teacher. A couple of weeks ago I was so worried I wouldn't even be able to explain the difference between a verb and a noun, but maybe I won't be that terribly bad. It helps, of course, that I speak Spanish.
I have two weeks until my classes at the University begin up again. So in the mean time I'm just taking it easy, sleeping until 10 (mainly because I'm up until 3), working every now and then on my thesis, and praying every day that today will be the day that the sun comes out and lights up my life.
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