Well I'm finally prepared to start writing about our adventures of last weekend.
Krishelle casually mentioned on Thursday that Uncle Will wanted to go to Costa Rica and had found a great deal. Although I was never officially invited, by the time I got home from work I frantically started playing with the idea to go. Ten hours later the three of us were on a plane, leaving all our cares behind.
The excitement began on the first flight which we were unable to sit together on. The man next to me was about six thousand pounds and smelled like vodka, and Hillary Clinton sat directly in front of me the whole time complaining about the president and that you can't find good alcohol in Utah. Well they put on the movie "Mr. Bean's
Holiday" and I hesitated but decided to watch it. Unfortunately I found it surprisingly funny and spent the entire movie with my hand over my face, mortified that anyone might think I actually found the fourth grade humor pretty dang
hilarious. Uncle Will and
Krishelle didn't watch the movie so I spent the rest of the trip explaining ever scene and line in perfect detail.
We had a layover in Atlanta and caught dinner where nothing too exciting happened other than the waitress dropping my plate in front of me saying, "Here ya go baby" and then yelling like she was a rock star "HOT!" which we of course quoted no less than five thousand times for the rest of the trip.
The film from Atlanta to San Jose was "Hairspray" (gag) and of course none of us have stopped talking like John Travolta dressed in drag ever since ("Has
fam gone and got to your head!?"). The film was
interrupted by an apparent emergency in the back of the plane which we found out from the flight attendants who mentioned there was a woman back there who didn't speak English, was completely
unconscious and had thrown up all over herself. We tried to get
Krishelle to go back there and say she was a doctor to find out what was going on but she wouldn't do it.
We made it to Costa Rica on Friday night and insisted on touring the cities. We had some prostitutes just outside our hotel (we lovingly referred to them as "
prosties" for the rest of the trip). We went to the worlds most horrible McDonalds where the icecream we ordered alarmingly came from outside. When they gave it to us uncle Will asked "where did this just come from" but I don't think we got an answer so we just ate it next to the brownish orangish puddle of something that had apparently spilled all over the floor at some point during the day. We each got shot and mugged five or six times so after about an hour we turned in.
The sun came up at about 4:00AM and we were out of bed shortly after that on Saturday morning. We tried to go to this jungle zip-line-adventure that sounded really dangerous but it wasn't working that day so we ended up going on a calm jungle tour after it was recommended to us by a guy in the tourist office who told us not to go past first street because beyond that point the city is . . . "different. It's not as fun there," which of course is code for "go one step past first street and you will be shot.
We did some great
souvenir shopping and bought stuff that none of us needed and will probably fall apart in a few weeks anyway and then we were off to the seven hour jungle tour. We sat on the back of the bus and were introduced to our tour guide John Pierre ("but you can
yust call me
Yay P").
The tour was amazing. We were with about fifteen other Americans (we gave names to every one of them). One old woman who was about sixteen feet tall and had her pants pulled up almost to her shoulders told me early on in the tour that she hates snakes. We immediately decided her name was Mabel and that we were best friends so for the rest of the day we tried to sit with her and stand next to her to develop the relationship but she just wasn't interested. We also met a nice man who we called Reed who told us he's a Mormon from New Jersey (after which Uncle Will gave him an intensive bishop interview by asking about his activity).
We tried desperately to get a picture of Mabel and her friend who we named Clarence. I posed in front of them while
Krishelle was about to take the picture but then Reed insisted on taking it so
Krishelle could be in it too. I told him to get a lot of the background in hopes that Mabel would make it in. The result is the picture at the top of this blog.
We took a tour in these basket things through the
forest and back over the tops of the trees for about an hour and twenty minutes. Half way through, one lady who we name Juanita insisted on getting out at the turn around point because she was afraid of
heights. I wish I could have seen the look on her face when they told her she had to walk forty minutes back through the jungle to get to the bus.
We also got to walk through much of the
forest and see some great wild-life including three toed sloths which Mabel tried to call out of the tree by saying "here Kitty Kitty!"
Yay P told us that the sloths bury their
feces and one woman we name
Vira said, "Well that is just so sanitary" as if the sloths were afraid of germs and equally as concerned with making her trip to the jungle clean and fun. God bless Americans. We need it.
The rest of the day we shopped and saw more of the city. On Saturday night we ran into a couple of Russians, one who spoke Ukrainian, and it was fun to talk with them.
Sunday morning we got up and found a church nearby and attended Sacrament meeting. It was nice except for the closing hymn which was "Away in a Manger" but sounded a lot more like "Green
Acres" to me.
The flight home was sad and we all secretly hoped that we would miss it and have to stay in Costa Rica for a week. But alas, we flew home with few problems other than the intense turbulence over Colorado. I dug my nails deep into
Krishelle's and Will's arms for about two hours and I wished I was with the lady in Atlanta who delayed the flight twenty minutes because she just had to get off right before the plane was about to take off. We all assumed she had the runs and had lost control in her pants. Of course every head was leaned out into the aisle and whispers echoed through the entire plane as she got off.
We got back to Salt Lake late and realized that the flip flops and shorts we were wearing were not going to cut it in the snow that had fallen and hasn't stopped falling since.
soale. Como
se dice? Como
se dice?
Vamos a comer! Mira
que cosa tiene la
mujer esta! I left the iron on. HOT!
The second annual Moby Dick Turtlenog party was a complete success. After months of stressing and a long week of cleaning and setting up, it all came together about ten minutes after it was supposed to start on Saturday night. The turnout was great, including a nice cameo of a few family members who immediately said after walking in "it looks like mom in here" (referring to the decorations; I am my mother's son).
