Dec. 4- Travel to San Jose, Costa Rica
The morning began at 3:35am. I was packed and ready so I got up, dressed, and told my dad good morning. He and my mom had come to the house the day before so my dad, who doesn’t mind getting up at the crack of smack, could take me to the airport and both could take my son to church at “normal” o’clock since my spouse would be preparing for service.
My dad prayed for me before I hopped out of the car, I grabbed my luggage, gave him a hug, and proceeded to search through my backpack and carry-on luggage for my mask while waving like I had everything under control as he pulled away. Mask found, I headed through a massive crowd for that early to security with my ticket and TSA pre-check on my phone. Well, that was quicker than expected. I then did laps through the concourse because I’d rather be walking than sitting, especially knowing I’d be sitting for a while on the plane. People looked at me funny by the third or fourth lap, but I tried to look unsuspicious.
The view of the sun rising over Nashville was a nice incentive to getting up so early. I have had some anxiety flying because of a particularly turbulent flight from Denver a few years ago so my goal was to stay calm. I found my favorite Christmas movie, The Holiday, and was able to skip to my favorite parts. Both flights were easy. The views were spectacular and I spent as much time gazing out of the window as watching scenes in The Holiday.
When I arrived in San Jose I knew there were two others landing around the same time. I decided to wait for them to catch the shuttle to the hotel. It took me calling the hotel twice to finally figure out where the shuttle was and by that time I had communicated with Cathy via WhatsApp who was waiting on luggage. The other, Jane, was waiting for us. She had seen the shuttle driver holding a sign with her name when she came out of the airport. I didn’t see mine until heading back in that direction. (I feel certain he was not holding my sign as I exited, but whatever.) We waited for Cathy and then headed to the hotel. I ended up being roommates with Jane and we decided to have an early-ish dinner and invited those I had added to the Biomimicry WhatsApp group based on their arrivals to join us. The waiter sat us at a table for five; we were hopeful others would join us. They began to trickle in and then our table was full, but we continued to meet other participants and two instructors. We laughed so much and finally, after a few hours, decided it was time to go to bed. Our immersion would officially start with a shuttle to the domestic airport at normal o’clock in the morning. Costa Rica and Tennessee are on the same time zone, baby.