Oh man Oh man Oh man

The last few days have been surreal. Let's start from the beginning 

My boyfriend and I were supposed to have a direct flight from Costa Rica to Washington DC on Monday, where we would rent a car and drive to Baltimore for a family vacation with his family. I've been looking forward to a nice direct flight out of Costa Rica all week, we even paid a little extra to upgrade to first class. 

We got to the airport, checked in, navigated our way thorough customs, which took over an hour, and was more then ready to go. We were told our flight had been delayed an hour because of mechanical issues, but we should promptly take off at 2pm. I ran around the airport grabing last minute souvenirs, excited to get back into the states. I checked the monitors around 1:15 and noticed our flight status had changed from delayed to canceled. My little heart sank, not sure what we were going to do I proceeded to a information counter who directed me to a gate. At the gate about 75 of us were told the flight was canceled because of issues with the plane. I've always been someone that keeps their wits about them so I lead the crowd, with securities broken English directions back through customs where we picked up our luggage. We had to walk through the arrival section of the airport and find our way back to the ticket counter. Airports are confusing, especially a Costa Rican airport. I lead the charge and finally made it back to the counter, it was a 20 minute confused walk. Most people were pissed and we didn't get good directions, but I pushed through, kept my head on, didn't get mad, and was the first customer that made it back to the departure counter. We spent the next 45 minutes with an airline agent rerouting us from our cushiony first class upgrade direct flight to a flight leaving at 5:55am the next day with a 4 hour layover in Houston arriving in DC at 5pm. 

By this time I was more then frustrated but refused to take my frustration out on the ticket agent. There were offering free hotel accommodations at a cheap motel in the heart of San Jose Costa Rica. We decided to use our travel points  for a room at the marriot instead. Our hotel was closer you the airport and we were instructed to be back before 4:30am, since we had to go through customs again.

We arrived at the Marriott around 4pm exhausted and tired. I had to do  a blog posting, so we spent the next 3 hours in the room, ordered room service and went to bed by 8:30pm to ensure we would get up on time.

We both slowly made our way out of bed into the same travel clothes from the previous day  arriving at the airport by 4:15am. There were more lines and confusion but at least the plane was on time, we boarded at 5:55am and set on the Tarmac for 2 hours. This plane also had engine issues. My boyfriend looked at me and told me he wanted to catch another flight, he didn't feel safe. the two of us, and only the two off us, deboarded the plane. We waited at a gate for 3 hours while airport workers ran around  with our passports trying to find a different flight. Finally we got word that we were now booked on a 2pm flight through Atlanta that would get us to DC at 11pm. 

I told my man I needed something to hug and love on, he said he was going to get a snack and came back with a cute little stuffed Sloth that I hugged for the rest of the trip! It made me feel better. I'm just a big kid 

We decided then and there we would grab a hotel by the airport and drive to Baltimore the next morning. After 10 hours of waiting we finally boarded the plane and got an upgrade to first class for all of our trouble. The flight was smooth, no engine issues and we were all smiles. We arrived in Atlanta and had to go through customs again which almost cause us to miss our connecting flight to DC. We made it just as they were boarding the last group of people. 

Another 2 hours and we finally arrived in DC but we weren't out of the woods yet, it was 11pm and our hotel restaurant closed at 12am. Rushing into a cab we convinced him to speed to our hotel and checked in. As soon as I saw the hotel menu I knew I wouldn't be able to get a great meal of food there so we got out our trusty iPhones and found a Afghan restaurant 2 blocks from our hotel that was open 24 hours.

We dropped our luggage in the hotel and strolled to the restaurant where we both chewed down on some sagg and potatoes, lentil curry and much much more, wobbling back to our hotel around 1am we quickly went to bed.

I'm back in the states and so happy about it. The best part about traveling is coming home to your own country where things are familiar.

Today we are driving up to Baltimore, we are both pretty pooped, but that's the fun of all of this.

I guess all I can say is, the adventure never stops!

I'll be posting my favorite corn recipes tomorrow.

Peace & Love 

Mary