Today we were up at 4:30am and began our long travel day from San Jose to NYC where we would stay until Monday night. We got on an airport shuttle (once again red in the face about how much stuff we had) and made our way to the Delta terminal. First we had to pay a tax of $26 to leave the country which they only accept in cash. We were remarkably high in spirit and energy considering the time and that we had barely slept for 3 nights (late night packing --> tent --> hostel --> early airport shuttle). We cracked each other up as we stood in line with the help of a Tica who clearly took her job of managing the line extremely seriously. She hated the sight of even a few inches between you and the person in front and so she helpfully motioned you forwards until she felt you were all appropriately close to each other. This was hilarious to us, and still is, but the ridiculousness is kind of hard to explain. All went smoothly and we headed through the airport and decided to stop for some breakfast. Choices were limited to Burger King seemed like the breakfast pick. We decided that the BK Classic Breakfast of beans and rice was not quite our style so we opted for a crossainwich, which was surprisingly delicious (maybe we were starving?)
For some reason being in Samara has given us a strange ability to turn any stranger into a friend. A 41 year old guy resembling Chevy Chase (hence our nickname for him, Sparky) opened up to us about the touch decision he was making about turning down some decent job offers for the risky business endeavor of overseeing a project in San Jose. He said he was super stressed and stuck in work mode and was genuinely interested to hear about our adventure and our current perspective of going with your gut and doing what feels best in the present. We hold Sparky near and dear to our hearts and we wish him all the best! And to his girlfriend too (who was not with him but he said calms him down and serves as a stress reliever) – Sparky, if you’re reading this then put a ring on it! And we told you that you were a blog-worthy encounter!
We boarded our flight and headed to Atlanta for our layover. We didn’t sit together on the plane but we both made friends with the people sitting by us who seemed eager to share a lot about their lives with us. Kelly sat next to a very spunky woman from New Jersey who was extremely supportive of our journey and filled Kelly in all about her siblings and family dynamics and her outrageous Obama-loving grandson. Jenny chatted with an extremely nice woman who was born to Missionary parents in San Jose and was now living on some mountain in Georgia – she had been visiting her sister. She was clearly an overprotective mother and offered to switch seats to make Jenny more comfortable and to use her sweater as a blanket...both of which Jenny declined. She then said that she couldn’t watch airplane movies because they were full of sex and bad language which made her disappointed - this made Jenny happy she had kept her sailor mouth to herself during this conversation. To Jenny’s other side was a cursing Irish professional skydiver and filmmaker who had travelled to film a dance documentary in San Jose. He is thinking about writing a book: Dance, Drink, Skydive about his travels to San Jose, to Ireland to see his mother, and to Colorado to improve his skydiving skills. It is amazing how many different people with totally opposite stories are sharing journeys and fleeting moments with one another in life! We continue to try to learn something from everyone we encounter, no matter how different they may be from us.
When we got to Atlanta we were amazed at how different it felt to be in the same airport we had been in only 2 weeks prior. It seems extremely built up with lots of hustle and bustle that we were not used to in our Costa Rica time. Next stop: New York City. All we can really say is HOLY CULTURE SHOCK! We knew it would feel strange to go from our humble home on a dirt road surrounded by small structures roofed with palm to the biggest metropolitan city in the US, but we really were not prepared for the overwhelming nature of this transition. We had been living about as close to nature as possible, rarely riding in cars or even seeing them much. Now we were driving from one enormous highway to the next in NY traffic with skyscrapers looming overhead. Furthermore, we had split up for the first time on our adventure and we were heading our separate ways.
Kelly was going to her dad’s best friend Joe’s apartment on the Upper West Side. She was driven in a black town car he had scheduled for her as her Indian driver discussed his upcoming arranged marriage, but a "progressive" one as they would meet the day before the wedding. All that was missing in Kelly’s experience was a chanel suit.
Jenny hopped into a sketchy shuttle with a Jamaican driver who talked at length about murders, near death experiences, Asians eating cats, and the dangers of getting pregnant, all the while slipping in outrageously discriminatory sentences about every culture possible. Jenny kept her mind off her of potential fate of being dropped off at some scary murder den in the Bronx and focused on the fact that she was heading to a hotel to see her boyfriend, who had unexpectedly decided a few days prior to meet her in the Big Apple.
If anything will ever make you miss the simplicity of a place like Samara, it’s New York City. This was definitely going to take some getting used to!
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