Day 1: Arriving in Costa Rica

Tuesday, February 15

We arrived at Dulles International Airport about 7:15 AM to discover that our backpack had been left behind at Brian and Kristy's home. I thought Larry had brought it up. He thought I had brought it up and Brian loaded all the bagage into the car....so no one knew until we got into the airport and thought, "Where is the backpack?" While we went on to check in, Brian and Kristy returned home to pick it up and bring it to us....They really came to our rescue! The backpack just had too many important things in it to leave it behind.
After getting the backpack at 8:15 we got to go through our first body scan machine ever, putting our hands over our head and having to stand for about 30 seconds and not move. We boarded the TACA Airplane at 9:15 and took off on time at 10:00. We both enjoyed sitting in the emergeny exit seats and could really stretch out and relax. We enjoyed a lunch of chicken and rice, cheese and crackers, dried fruit, and cookies.We enjoyed watching a movie, "Salt" with Angelina Jolie. Excellent thriller. The flight began bumpy because of the wind, but smoothed out quickly and we sailed into San Salvador 4 hours and 15 minutes later, landing at 1:15 after losing an hour. San Salvador looked dry and brown except for where it was irrigated by rivers. We saw a volcano there when flying in. We boarded the plane again at 2:45 and enjoyed the sights of the coastline, mountains, and blue Pacific Ocean heading to Costa Rica. Landing a little early, a few minutes till 4:00, we picked up our luggage, visited the duty free shop, and passed through customs who were doing macrame and not looking at the scanner of our belongings. Our home exchange family, Tatiana and Marco, greeted us with a big Hixson sign outside the airport terminal.We rode to their home for about an hour and a half through unbelievable rush hour traffic in San Jose , but getting to see a wonderful sun set around 5:30. Upon arrival to their home we met their two children, Juan Pablo and Gloriana, Tatiana's 89 year old grandmother, their cook and housekeeper, and got a tour of their beautiful home. We sat down for a lovely traditional lite evening meal of wraps put together with cheese, ham, bean sprouts, lettuce, and tomatoes. They also served toast and honey from their bee farm up north. The honey was wonderful because it had no pesticides. The bees only gathered honey from the nearby rainforest. Delicious. After dinner that night they took us on a ride through San Jose and pointed out parks, government buildings, shopping malls, and other points of interest. We had ice cream cones and returned home around 10:00 PM and gladly went right to bed. It had been a wonderful first day.