CR Part 3: Tiiiiiiime is on my side

If you've ever traveled alone, you've probably experienced the following.

(Pre-trip)

Everyone: "Wow! You're going to Costa Rica- how fun! With who?"

Me: "No one, just me".

Everyone: "Oh....well i'm sure you'll meet lots of people"or (after a 30 second pause in which the person wants to say the first comment, but goes with) "Wow, I wish I had the guts to travel alone".

It's funny that no one just says, "awesome" "have fun". I can only imagine it's because we live in a society where we spend the majority of our lives along side someone. Whether it be work, in your home, shopping, or even taking a pee in a public restroom! There's always someone around. Though it can be incredibly annoying at times (especially when you need to let one go in the Olive Garden bathroom), I think we all find peace in knowing "we are not alone". So the idea of voluntarily being alone for an extended amount of time scares most people.

I for one was welcoming the thought of not having to worry about if someone else was enjoying their vacation. Not asking, "what do you want to eat? Or not having to justify how I read a bus schedule wrong. If I misplanned, miscalculated, misunderstood something, it was only me, myself, and I that would have to deal with the consequences....and I, could care less what they would be.

I was doing an awesome job of not letting myself slide into thinking about the fact that I was indeed alone on a bus in the middle of what looked like no where after 48 hours of travel. After my second bus bound for Montezuma CR, I had to board a ferry to cross the Nicoya Pennisula. After a series of hand signals with the young gentleman driving my bus and a few visual cues from people who had clearly taken this journey before, I climbed into the bottom of the bus to find my luggage and dragged it along the gravel to the ferry. At this point Im still calm, cool, and collected. I find a seat on the top level of the boat and settle in for a ride....how long I'm not sure. They probably already announced it....in Spanish. Now, at this point I'm a little torn as to what to do. Previously, I had a terrible experience on a small water-crossing vessel. I puked the entire way from the island of St. Maartin to the island of Saba (google that if you haven't heard of it- it's a fasinating place). Do I take my beloved Dramamine (in order to pass out) or stick it out as to not miss any important information? I decide to stick it out being that I hadn't felt any sudden shifts in the boats movements. I take out my "The Power of Now" book to calm my nerves. I'm interrupted every 4 minutes by the "announcer" that was hired for this boat- I'm assuming he is an announcer and not the captain because I can't see how a captain would be able to navigate the boat and make so many announcements! If I was to follow "The Power of Now" philosophy I was reading about, I wouldn't be worrying about my future or dwelling on my past. So.....what was happening "now"? Well, "now" this announcer won't shut up! What could he possibly be saying?

The man: "If we start to sink, there are life vests on the side of the boat."

Me: Check.

The man: "If we hit an iceberg, women and child first on the life rafts".

Me: Amen

The man: "Empanadas with a surprise filling are being sold at the back of the boat"

Me:Roger that

The man: "It's never to early to drink some cervezas"

Me: (looking around) Apparently not

I look to my left and see a young couple making out. I look to my right and see a family of 4 all cuddled up on the bench. No one looks worried, in fact everyone on the boat looks extremely happy....with someone else! Here's where the panic sets in....I'm the only one alone. I do some breathing exercises and some positve self talk. Perhaps walking to the side of the boat would make me feel better. The view of the pennisula was beautiful. Ahhhh, "Power of Now", let's capture this moment on camera. Now, I hate looking through my pictures from vacation and seeing only scenery. It's a reminder that you were alone. I also hate asking someone else to take the picture, because then I think that they think I'm a loser for being alone. The final option is the long arm shot. That just says loser all over it. So, I sit back down. Is it too late to take the dramamine?

I lay myself down on the bench, and try to take a nap. I'm back to feeling perfectly content, alone, when the announcer says "please do not lay down, or put your feet on the seats"....IN ENGLISH! Really?????? This is the only announcement in English. Now I feel like Big Brother is watching.

I took a stroll around the boat and found this German threesome I saw on my bus ride. I'm going to stick with them for the following reasons: Germans always speak like 5 languages, and never seem to be confused or bothered by anything. As long as they looked happy, I would be happy. Not long after my self-imposed mental torture, our boat docks.

Here's what this boat ride taught me:

1. I was in Costa Rica, but I was still thinking like an uptight American

2. I probably should have doubled up on my dosage of Paxil for this trip

3. Costa Rican people are extremely affectionate with each other

4. If my Spanish lessons go well, maybe I could move here and be the announcer on this boat

5. Hand gestures are a universal language

6. Your mind likes to mess with you

I view this boat ride as a minor mental slip-up. I had made it so many hours on this trip just being happy, that my mind wanted to make me suffer. We have an insane ability to want to connect to negative thoughts. From the moment I stepped off that boat, I knew tackling this issue would be part of my journey. To be continued....

How Michelle got her groove back…Part 1

...and it wasn’t how Stella did it. A failed relationship prompted a last minute trip back to one of my favorite destinations- Costa Rica. I needed to clear my head, start fresh, and who are we kidding here- meet some Ticos! (Costa Rican men). On my last few days in the states all of my friends wished me luck and advice on letting lose and enjoying what Costa Rica had to offer me.

I packed for this trip as if I was going to be on a deserted island. I brought every form of entertainment possible assuming that I was going to be spending a lot of time alone. My first night in San Jose set the tone for the next 17 days. After checking into my favorite hostel, I opened my bag-o-fun, and pulled out my brand new pastels and sketchbook. I had a revelation 3 days prior that I was going to find my inner artist on this trip. As I was looking at my pastels and trying to remember how to use them, one of the girls staying in my room invited me out to dinner along with everyone else staying at the hostel. Not one to turn down an invitation, I tossed my pastels on the ground and agreed to go.

My first night in Costa Rica and I find myself at an Asian restaurant. My new comrades hailed from all parts of the globe. They were in San Jose either on vacation, volunteering, or going to school. As the Asian man, who speaks fluent Spanish, asks everyone what they want, I’m feeling quite insecure. Not only have I not had the opportunity yet to flex my little to no Spanish skills, but, I also never eat Thai food, which the menu mostly consists. So, I not only feel like I’m going to embarrass myself when trying to form a sentence to place my order, but I have to ask him what 90% of the menu entails. Here’s what I end up saying: “Yo quiero una cerveza por favor.” And yes- that’s how vacation starts, self consciously ordering one of probably 100 cervezas over the next 2 ½ weeks.

That night I party like it’s 1999. Literary, like I’m 19…and I pay the price when my alarm rings at 5am the next morning. I arrive at the “Cola Cola” bus station after paying the taxi driver way too much money because I’m too hung over to count my change in colones.

The “directo” bus takes me to a ferry, and then another bus, and what for it…..yes, another bus which takes me to my final destination of the tiny costal town, Montezuma. How do you say “that was not f**king “directo” in espanol? I’m not going to lie, my Zen was being compromised after 8 hours of confusing travel. I re-centered my Chi and asked the first person I saw where La Escuela del Sol was located. I was embarking on 2 weeks of Spanish and yoga classes. The gentleman pointed in a direction. I asked “cuentos minutos?” He said 10 minutes. Now, for this trip I did not use my super cool backpackers backpack. I instead opted for a regular suitcase being that I was staying in just one location. So, me and my extra-large-generic-version Samsonite hit the road for this 10 minute walk. I don’t think the company of my suitcase did any trial runs for rolling ability in Monetzuma. If they did, they would have made the wheels much bigger (think child’s tricycle) and not made them from plastic, but rather industrial grade rubber. After rolling over rocks and through the mud, and oh yes, up a few hills, I made it to the school. I also had lesson number 1 in what is called “tico time”. It’s a dimension of time that only makes sense to those native to Costa Rica. 30 minutes later, soaking wet from sweat, covered in mud from my mid back to the my ankles from the flip in my flops, I had made it to my destination!

To be continued…

A naked monkey and some vomit

Last week I began my journey of personal renewal with a trip to Costa Rica. I was in phase three of making my way to Latin America- waiting on the ticket line at JFK. I had already driven my car to the city, found parking in Queens, and had a friend drive me to the airport. This all took place before 6 am mind you. Nothing had gone wrong in my journey thus far, so I was doing a good job at maintaining my "zen". As I'm peacefully waiting for the line of travelers to move, I hear a commotion at the front. I look up to see a woman with two little kids around ages 4-5. They are running around and around the luggage. At first I thought, "aah, they're cute! I momentarily wanted one, and had a quick day dream about what an amazingly cool mom I would be taking my kids all over the world.

They were called next to check in their bags. The mom unsuccessfully tried to get her kids to move with her to the ticket counter. My day dream about motherhood is interrupted by her yelling at her kids to get off the luggage. Now at this point, everyone has been standing on line for at least 30 minutes. I look around to see the annoyed shift in weight and watch-glancing from the rest of the line. The mom finally ushers her kids to the ticket counter. She's trying to hand over passports and get their tickets while her kids are jumping from the top of one piece of luggage to the next. I look up to the sky and plead with God to ignore that silly day dream I had about dragging my kids all around the world.

Everyone on the line looks like they are watching a tennis match- and a second ticket person is unsuccessfully trying to get the kids to get off the luggage so she can check it in. After about 10 minutes this circus is over, and the lady starts walking away calling for her kids to follow. She's half way to the security check point when I spot one of her kids swinging from the door that you put the bags through to check them in. Now- I didn't want to be involved in this, but she was missing a kid, and it still wasn't my turn, and everyone on line is acting like they don't see this- so I'm about the call after her when the ticket person spies the little tyke just as he's about to jump onto the conveyor belt that takes the luggage to who knows where.

Deep breath- I'm glad that's over. I return to my place of peace and solitude as I make my way towards the gate. I'm right on schedule and am giving myself a pat on the back when I see this same little family sitting at my gate. They are now joined by the father who is feeding them pieces of a banana as they climb over each other scaling the glass wall that looks out onto the runway.

I'm reminded of a comedy routine I saw when the comedian was joking about sitting on the airplane mentally sizing up every person that walks by either hoping they do or do not sit in the seat next to them. What are the chances that I'm stuck sitting next to this family? There's a good 100 people in this flight. That's a 1/100 chance right? Or is it 4/100 because there's 4 of them? I wish I was better at probability.

Lightening striking, winning the lotto, my name being picked for a contest- none of those things have happened to me, but I did win a 5 hour flight to Latin America next to oblivious mom and dad and their 2 little monkeys! Me, mom, and monkey number 1 were seated together, while dad and monkey # 2 were seated behind us.

For the first hour, the boys were literally climbing back and forth over the seats. This made me very dizzy so I closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts. It was hard to go into a peaceful slumber when every 10 seconds mom is yelling at the boys to stop, but not actually doing anything about it. Time for the Ipod. I take a deep breath and I'm one song in, when mom taps me on the shoulder because they need to use the bathroom. I get up, give a "it's no problem" smile and hope the kid falls into the toilet.

Breakfast is being served and I'm hoping this quiets down my seat mates for a bit. I was pleasantly surprised by the spread offered by Air Mexicana. I make another affirmation to not let anything bother me and dig into my meal (the only source of joy at that moment) Here's how the next few minutes unfolded.

Me- (blissfully eating)

Mom- "no you can't do that!" "no, let me cut it for you!" "sit back down!"

Me- deep sigh

Mom- "oh no! "oh no"

Dad- "Is everything OK?"

Mom- No!!! give me the barf bag!

Dad- (not really registering the urgency in moms voice) slowly bends down looking for the barf bag.

Me- (thinking)- really???

Mom- "it's too late!"

Monkey #1- vomiting

Mom- "oh no oh no!"

Then it gets eerily quite for this little group. I'm wondering what mom is doing with her back turned away from me.

A few minutes later, I'm trying to get the rest of my breakfast down when mom taps me on my shoulder and says they need to use the bathroom again. I look down at my tray which is open and holding my meal, water, and coffee. I'm not sure what she wants me to do. She sees the problem and says "never mind, I'll just put it right here". I'm not sure what she's talking about, so I look down and see a baggie full of vomit at my feet. She laughs and says, "hopefully that won't spill!" I'm utterly repulsed and put my fork down.

I really didn't want to pull out the big guns so early on in my travels, but I'm left with no choice but to pop a Dramamine and mentally escape from this nightmare.

Thank fully another 2 hours pass while I'm comatose. Apparently while I was out, mom had the kid remove all his clothes so she could wash the puke off in the bathroom. I groggily woke up to the puker standing in moms seat, leaning onto mine, with a huge smile on his face. I gave a courtesy smile back and shifted my weigh to get more comfortable. The kid turned around and there in my face was his bare behind. I jumped up, shocked to see his wee wee, and looked for mom. She was no where to be seen. She left me alone with naked boy. Since mom was gone, I was his source of entertainment. He was leaning on me, playing with my hair, and jumping from seat to seat. I gave a "help me!" look to dad, but he was busy reading the paper. This was a pretty uncomfortable situation.

I was pretty sure mom was going to be embarrassed to find her naked son using my lap as a trampoline. When she arrived back at our seats, I was getting ready to convincingly tell her "it's no problem, please don't worry about it, naked little boys jump on my lap all the time!" But instead of apologizing for this awkward situation, she said, "You know, I thought I brought everything I needed for this trip" (then she laughs). Normally I would do a fake laugh back to show I understand and can relate to what she is saying, but instead I give her a look of death and use all of my energy to tell her she shouldn't be worrying about what she didn't pack, she should never have left her house...period.