Thinking Travel

Photo by Elsie esq.

Hello from 37,000 feet. As I write, we are flying up the western coast of Florida on our way to Atlanta. I spent the week in San José , Costa Rica for work and am now on my way to Madrid to attend the Global SIETAR Congress and vacation for a few days.

Five things I did while in San José:

1. Gave three intercultural workshoplettes (short workshops), two at the Tri-Association conference and one at the Anglo-American Bilingual School. The participants were awesome.
2. Visited a rural elementary school in Cartago with a colleague who used to work there. We spent time with a Kindergarten class talking about Halloween.
3. Celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with my Canadian, Costa Rican, and U.S. colleagues.
4. Got soaked while walking back to my fancy-schmancy hotel from the mall that was across the street. When I say soaked, I mean I looked like I’d showered with my clothes on.
5. Got up very early every day. But it wasn’t bad at all because it’s light at 6am (because it gets dark at 6pm) and the hotel had Britt coffee pods in my room.

Five things I learned while in San José:

1. If you go to Costa Rica during the rainy season (October is the rainiest month) bring or buy the biggest umbrella you can. Because if you don’t, you’ll get soaked. I speak from experience.
2. Ask if your hotel offers breakfast with the room price, even if they don’t offer the information. Don’t wait until your last day in a nice hotel with an excellent buffet to find out that you can have more than black coffee in the morning. Again, I speak from experience.
3. Why is it that whenever I give a workshop that includes taking about the “cultural iceberg” the movie Titanic is on the night before? This has happened more than once. And I always seem to get in on the part when the ship hits the iceberg.
4. There is an excellent Asian restaurant in San José.
5. The Intercontinental Real has the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. Seriously.