I had a great flight in. First, I was still drunk while boarding the plane, so I didn't have my normal flight fear. Second, I was seated in first class even in my ratty clothes I wore. Third, I was on the way to Costa Rica!! It was a very smooth flight, and as soon as I woke up from my brief nap, breakfast was brought over to me along with, "is there anything else you need, very important lady?" Well, it didn't go quite that way, but that's how I felt.
I spent a few hours of that day in bed. Still hungover. I wasn't going to drink again for a long while. I didn't start working on the Costa Rica survey itself until the next day.
I went in to a Kenneth Cole one day and one of the employees offered to give me a printout of all of the inventory with the prices and even sign it at the bottom. I still wonder if they realized what exactly I was there for... I was thinking maybe they mistook me for a global manager of Kenneth Cole or something, but I had no problem with it. I was very thankful! I didn't even need to look at the prices they just told them to me automatically.
I did some work, but mostly had fun. My hotel (Courtyard Marriot) was located in a plaza with a ton of amazing restaurants, from sushi, to peruvian, cuban, italian, argentinian, etc. etc. I ate at the peruvian place and the cuban place AND a sushi place, and it was all amazing. I had soft kernals of unpopped popcorn at the peruvian place, and it was so wonderful. My taxi driver took me out to dinner at a place where everyone was dressed in 50's clothes and they served typical Costa Rican food. He kept asking if I had a boyfriend, if I ever had a boyfriend from someone I met traveling, and when I said no and no, he asked if I like girls, no... he just couldn't understand why I didn't have a boyfriend. I told him that's not unusual at my age in the United States. I agreed to go out dancing with him one night to a club downtown, and it was a great time. He taught me a few different types of typical spanish dances, and then of course, tried to make out with me while sitting at a table where everyone around us was making out (not unusual for other cultures) and I had to politely back away. Apparently he was hoping to become my boyfriend before I left Costa Rica. I appreciated the free taxi rides but explained that no I'm sorry, that's just not going to work out. He seemed pretty determined that it would before I left the country. As fun as it was, I obviously made it a point not to see him again!
While in Costa Rica, I also met another guy who was just wonderful. He was older, I never found out exactly how old (maybe my senior by 10-15 years?) - but he was the regional director for a company that creates tastes and smells for food companies; the largest client of theirs which is Kraft. I thought his job was pretty amazing, given my love for food. He was Columbian. He was polite, professional, and entertaining. We met one day while working downstairs in the lobby - it was 10 at night and we both had our computers open working away. The only ones there in the restaurant (restaurant was in the lobby). We started talking across tables, and he eventually joined me for a beer. After about 20 minutes, we both needed to head to bed, so we decided to meet up the next night to grab some drinks and keep chatting. I think that I had a mini non-sexual crush on him, or maybe I had a crush on his job, I'm not sure which - which I realized when at some point I noticed that I had a hard time not smiling when talking to him. We were so much alike; we both loved food and to travel, and our conversation never got awkward. He really enjoyed practicing his english - he spoke well but frequently got caught up on difficult words. The next night we were up until 1 am eating sushi and drinking mojitos, chatting away about our completely different lives that surprisingly were alike in so many small ways, and when we parted, it was like old friends saying goodbye, I'll see you next time. We both appreciated meeting good people and having great conversations while on our travels and I think that made our connection as strong as it was. Plus, he told me that he heard me speaking spanish apparently "without an accent". That definitely gave him some brownie points in my book!
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