Weird Things Happen When You Travel

It is true, they just do. Here are some examples from my last stint of international travel (Monteverde to NYC) to illustrate my point:

Weird thing #1: Oscar on the bus
I took the 2:30 bus from Monteverde to Alajuela on Friday afternoon because my flight left early Saturday morning. I got to sit next to Oscar, who really wanted to talk to me and tell me how pretty I was, but instead he feel asleep in the heat, thank goodness. Unfortunately, as the sun set and the air cooled, Oscar woke and chatted me up. I had no interest in talking to him but he did not seem to notice how I kept burying my nose in my book or gazing out the window. He insisted on telling me all about his world travels and even asked me if I was married. I guess he didn't notice that he was almost 50 years my senior. I was very happy to mention my wonderful boyfriend whom I was in route to visit. For the record, our old friend Oscar did nothing inappropriate or out of bounds, I just wasn't in the mood for geriatric chit chat.

Weird thing #2: Public viewing hotel room
I chose to stay at a hotel in Alajuela that myself and others from Monteverde have used regularly. They are nice, helpful, clean and pretty inexpensive. This time, however, I got a room with a shared bathroom in an attempt to save a few additional dollars. There were three windows in my room, each of them opening to an open space in the hotel, not to the outside. These windows had blinds that only partially obstructed an outsiders view, which meant that I had to turn the lights off to change, and as I snuggled into bed to read at night, I could make direct eye contact with anyone passing. Thank goodness my neighbors had the decency not to linger.

Weird thing #3: Costa Rica's new national sport
I shared my 5:15 a.m. taxi to the airport with a Swiss couple heading home after their third visit to Costa Rica. Our taxi driver was very excited to explain to us the new Costa Rican sport: fútbol vacero or something like that. Two teams, soccer field, most goals wins - nothing new there. But instead of playing with a soccer ball, they play with a COW. With horns. You are not allowed to touch the animal, but if you usher it into your goal, you get a point. Once we had arrived at the airport and unloaded our bags, our taxi driver proudly lifted his shirt to show where he had been gouged in the gut by cow horns.

Weird thing #4: Airplane adventure
The first leg of my airborne journey, San Jose to Atlanta, when smoothly. The flight from Atlanta to Newark was delayed about an hour due to poor weather in Newark. I called Ji who confirmed that yes, in deed, it was raining in his part of the world. The first hour and a half of the flight, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. , when pretty smoothly. Around 5:35 p.m., when we were over Pennsylvania, the captain explained that due to poor weather in Newark we would be entering a holding pattern over PA until about 6:15. He would keep us updated. Two minutes later he came on again to say that we were actually just gonna head right into Newark.

Then we were struck by lighting. Yeah...no one was really expecting that since we were above the clouds and had seen no rain or lighting at all. The ride was still pretty smooth when all of a sudden there was a bright flash of light, a shudder thru the airplane and a loud BOOM. People were freaked out (gasping, yelling, "of my gosh!"ing) but luckily two flight attendants happened to be standing in the aisle right next to me and I was able to observe them not flinch at all and overhear them talk about how an airplane is actually a pretty safe place to be in a lighting storm, they'd been on much worse flights than this, the plane is equipped with "static sticks", etc. Surprisingly, I did not freak out. Yes, I did feel that prickly heat that rises from your armpits to your neck after a sudden scare, but I was not nervous. This, for me, came as a surprise and relief because over the past few years I've been developing an anxiety around flying. But here I was calm as could be surrounded by a flurry of fear. Interesting.

We approached Newark, we were put in a holding pattern for awhile, then started our final descent. The sky got darker and the air bumpier as we slid beneath the storm clouds. I heard the landing gear lower. And then, all of a sudden, we were accelerating back up into the smooth, bright skies above the clouds. The captain gave us this explanation: "Folks, we came in to land but the rain was so intense we couldn't see the airport." That's all he said for a while, leaving me to wonder: and now what? but I still was not nervous. I was, however, beginning to get a little queasy due to the mild but constant turbulence for the past hour.

The captain explain further that we were going to circle around and try to land again. This process took about 20 minutes, during which time I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to calm my motion sickness. I was successful, but the little boy two rows ahead of me was not, and we could all hear him retching.

When we landed successfully on our second attempt three interesting things happened almost simultaneously:
1. The plane erupted into applause. This is not the first time this has happened on a flight I've been on, but it is the first time I've participated.
2. My eyes welled up with tears and I realized how stressed I actually had been. I have never been so happy to be in windy, raining, grey, Newark NJ!
3. A woman one row ahead of me across the aisle threw up, which is especially interesting since we were smoothly taxiing to our gate.

When I saw Ji-Soo waiting for me I latched on with both arms and did not want to let go.


Weird thing #5: Getting duped by a hasid
Finally, I am in NYC. Finally, I am with Ji-Soo, rushing to tell him every detail of the flight and the hotel and the past three months during which we have been apart. It is chilly out and he has brought me a vest to wear. I throw this on as we get out of the car and grab my bags. It is windy and raining but we are close enough to his building that I don't bother to dig my raincoat out of the very bottom of my pack.

We are one door away from Ji's building when a hasidic man approaches us and says in heavily accented English: "Excuse me, I can not carry. Can you carry a box for me just from here", he points to the apartment building we are in front of, "to the synagogue?", he motions across the street.

Ji-Soo agrees and starts to walk with the man, who then adds, "You just have to go up to the second floor. My son will give you the box." This was not part of our original understanding. Ji looks at me, cold and wet, a worried look on his face. We pause for a second to decide. The hasid adds quickly, "I give you one bread." I nod at Ji-Soo to go ahead not so much because I want to be nice, but because I can not turn away from what is happening right now.

Ji follows the man into the apartment building and disappears. It is only then that I realize that I've just let someone I care a great deal about walk into a locked building with people I don't know to do something I don't quite understand. I try not to get nervous, and am very relived when I see Ji-Soo approach the door, arms full with a large box. We finally make it to his apartment to enjoy our "one bread", which turns out to be a box full of chocolate bread rolls. Totally worth it. Yummy.