My first 2 days ..

I meant to blog yesterday, but I was exhausted from the flight here and no sleep the night before.

I arrived on July 9th. The flight was wonderful (Jet Blue), very nice people and the plane left on time and actually arrived in San Jose 20 minutes early.

Going through customs went very quickly and I went outside to meet Karen and Gustavo. They had gotten stuck in traffic and were running a bit behind, so I had an opportunity to look around at the people. Everyone was very polite, children running here and there and lots of Maleteros (Men who work for tips by helping you with your luggage, hailing you a cab or letting you use their cell phone, in case you need to contact your family/friends)

They kept calling me "Reina" (Queen), how nice :)

Karen and Gustavo arrived and we started our drive back to Escazu, suburb of San Jose. The moutains are magnificent, the town situated in the valley, with 2 volcanos on either side!

We had a wonderful lunch with fresh coconut water (still in the coconut) called Pipa, along with fresh black beans with plantains. Everything is relatively cheap, as our American dollar is worth about twice the Costa Rican Colone.

I stayed the first night with their friend Robin, who owns an awesome bakery, her house is attached behind. I completely blew my diet yesterday..I had passion fruit custard pie.. UNREAL!!

The night was a bit rough, parts of the downtown area are very loud and next door to Robin's house is a gym and they were listening to music most of the night, at some point I passed out :)

Crime is a big problem in Costa Rica, and most of the people live with very little..definitely important to remind myself of how much I have and how little we truly need to be happy.

This morning (July 10)

I moved my things into my permanent residence, which is next door to Gustavo's mothers house, it is a lovely two story town house, where I will be living with Jim and Cynthia,who are playing the roles of Cesare and Cornelia. This house is very charming and is owned by Gustavo and Karen. We have a nice full kitchen, dining room, living room with a piano, 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths..

During the day today Karen and I went to the Feria (which is a HUGE farmers market) I bought so much fruit and fresh vegetables; I spent the equivalent of $8 American Dollars and could barely carry it all. Most of the fruits and vegetables we can't even buy in the USA.

We then went to lunch at Karen's cousins house and then came back for our first music rehearsal with the entire cast. WHAT an interesting and super talented group. The girl double-cast with me is a Micro-biologist, her husband a dentist! The color of the voices, the desire from all of them.. so exciting, this is going to be a wonderful production.

Well, it is getting late...will write again tomorrow.