Finally here

Folks,

Hi, well we’re finally here. I’m writing from our hotel room in San José.

The journey
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We were exhausted after our flights. We had a 6 hour 40 minute flight to New York, followed by a one hour 40 minute flight to Atlanta, and then a final 3 and a half hour flight to San José. All with breaks in between. All in all we were travelling for around 24 hours.

Leaving Ireland
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We fairly much got everything done leaving Ireland. The house was cleaned, emptied and handed over to the estate agent. The car was returned to Irish Life on the way to the airport!

San José
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After all the planning, packing, stress and travelling we’re finally here in San José, and I have to say that, to be honest, it’s a bit of a disappointment. I had read beforehand that it’s a pretty uninspiring city. On first impressions that’s a bit of an understatement. As Jack put it, it’s a hole! It looks very old fashioned. Everything seems to have been built in the sixties. There is a lot of poverty. Loads of homeless living in cardboard boxes, literally. It’s quite dirty and polluted. There’s some quite obvious prostitution. All in all, it looks to qualify for ‘hole’ status. We did venture out to some of the suburbs, which are a definite improvement on downtown. Still, given that it’s where we’re likely to be living because of the language schools (and there are lots of them), it seems a shame given that the rest of the country is so beautiful.

Travels continue
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Anyway, for the moment we’re not making definite plans. We’re on holidays, and still recovering from the last few weeks. We are flying to Quepos on the Pacific Coast tomorrow, and staying in a villa in Manual Antonio, a popular tourist town. Hopefully we will chill out for a week before deciding what the next stage is.

The weather
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It’s been quite mild, but not hot, all week. There was a warm wind as we arrived, and it’s mostly been cloudy. As the week’s gone on though, there have been some showers, and I think that it’s clearly the beginning of the rainy season. I’m expecting that when it gets going there’s going to be an awful lot of rain. I’ve never seen gullies in the street as big as the ones here. I saw one small woman standing in one, using the pavement as a counter to sell handbags, it was that deep!!

Anyway, it’s now after midnight, and, guess what! We’re packing again! Keep in touch. Until next week!

Adios,

Éamon & Jack