International Friends

Being in the Peace Corps is hard work. So sometimes, we have to take vacation...and that's what I did! One of my favorite "freshmen" who is now out in the work world took off a week of "real work" to come to sunny Costa Rica! Obviously, we headed to the beach.

Emily Bucci got off the plane (she hates planes!) a little outside San Jose, Costa Rica and after a little soft serve ice cream from the airport Subway, we got straight on a Costa Rican bus and headed for San Jose Center!

Then we walked to the Nicoya Bus Station in the part of Costa Rica called the Coca-Cola, which is a kind of dangerous part of the city (Luckily, Emily didn't know that until later.) It was here that Emily had her first enconter with Costa Rican bus station bathrooms...and we'll just leave it at that.

We got to our first hotel in Nicoya with no problems, we slept soundly and woke up early (but not too early if you know me!) to head to PLAYA SAMARA! Playa Samara happens to be one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica and we went there. Using my trusty Lonely Planet Guidebook, we sat on the beach and began to call hotels to see if there were any vacancies. Unfortuneatly, everything was full! We thought we were going to have to sleep on the beach...just kidding. :) After a short walk around we found a place that fufilled most of our requirements: comfortable beds, air-conditioning, close to the beach, and hot water. :)

However, after we got settled there and went to explore the beach, we found a MUCH better hotel RIGHT on the beach with ALL of our requirements PLUS cable tv, PLUS it was actually ON the beach and a little farther from the center of Samara so a little more tranquilo. We headed there the next night.

We spent our days catching up (there's a lot to catch up on when you haven't seen someone for a year!), tanning, swimming, reading, laying in the hammocks and every night we checked out the night life. It was definitly my MOST relaxing vacation since coming to Costa Rica and I obviously did NOT want to leave the beach when the time came!

But thanks to Emily Bucci's plane tickets, we eventually had to leave. We spent one night in San Jose. We had to walk through the center of San Jose with Emily's rolling suitcase (which she loved! sorry emily!), but then she really did love the cute hotel. We freshened up and Emily was a great friend and humored my vacation self-interest because I REALLY wanted to go to the movies! So we went and she even saw a movie twice because I REALLY wanted to see it! And then we ate a far too expensive authentic Costa Rican restaurant!

The next morning we ate McDonald's pancakes (because nothing else was opened, but we didn't mind becase I never eat McDonald's EVER and Emily loves McDonald's pancakes even if she is Costa Rica!) and we toured San Jose center. Emily was a great tourist and bought a few Costa Rican souvenirs.

Finally...we had to head to the airport, but it was my most relaxing vacation EVER just what I needed. When Peace Corps gets hard, go to the beach!