Costa Rica 2011. Pura Vida!

I've been back from my vacation for just over a week, but things have been so hectic i'm just getting a chance to post about it!

As many may or may not know, this trip to Costa Rica was almost 10 years in the making. When my sister first bought her bungalow I got my first passport specifically to make a trip there with her. We just finally made the trip, and my passport expires in 3 months!

With all the drama the last couple months with my job's company change over (and not getting approved for the trip until 1 week before we left!), the "issues" that were revealed about my ex, and trying to pack to move out of his house and into my apartment, it was difficult to get excited and ready for the trip. Then 3 days before we left Tissi got out of the hospital with renal failure and a long list of supplements and I.V. fluids she had to get daily! I was so nervous about losing her on top of everything else. Thankfully Tim was going to pet sit for me, and he had experience in giving his dog I.V. fluids. That eased my worries some. I knew I would have my laptop, and I could check in daily to make sure she was doing ok. So I was FINALLY set to go!

I absolutely LOVE flying. I know that is unusual, but i've always loved the whole experience of it. What I am nervous about however is small private planes. Well, guess how we had to get from the San Jose airport to Quepos? You guessed it! A small plane that seats 12, and the pilot has to climb over everyone to get to his seat! I took a Xanax in preparation for the flight. The last thing I needed was to have a meltdown in the middle of a 20 minute flight! Thank goodness it wasn't as bas as I thought it would be. Well, either that or it was the Xanax talking! Either way we got there safe and sound.


We got to the bungalow in the afternoon. I had seen many pictures and videos of it and the property it was on so I knew what to expect pretty much. I was ready to unpack and forget the worries of the real world! We got changed and headed into town for dinner. I was immediately exposed to the rainforest weather with a downpour while we walked down to the bus stop. Nothing like being broken in to the culture right away! I had a traditional Costa Rican meal, casado especial con pollo (picture shown above). It was fabulous! We then headed down the street to a restaurant where a friend of Dawn's was playing with his band. We only stayed a few minutes since we were tired from all the travelling that day. Then we headed back to the bungalow for the evening to rest up for the beach the next day. It thunderstormed all night, which was relaxing for a good night's sleep!

The next morning we headed to the local beach (the pic of me above), and had lunch at a beachside restaurant where I had some more Costa Rican food. Can you tell enjoying the local food is one of my favorite parts of vacation? LOL That evening we headed back into town and had dinner at an Italian restaurant. We had some awesome pizza (which became lunch for the next few days with the leftovers) and some awesome gelato. Before we had dinner we went to a bar popular with the fisherman to hang out and have some drinks. To our surprise and pleasure they had a 2 for 1 happy hour! We made sure to enjoy this deal more than once during the trip!

Day 3 we headed to Manuel Antonio's national park. There is hiking thru the rainforest with lots of wildlife, and also some gorgeous beaches. We hiked to an overlook and got some awesome pictures. We also got to see a toucan, some iguanas and a couple sloths. Unfortunately no monkeys! That night we dressed up and headed to Gaia's rooftop bar for drinks and tapas and to watch the sunset overlooking the ocean. The second we got off the elevator I heard this banging on the metal roof, then felt some vibrations. It was an earthquake! It lasted almost a minute. I felt no fear at all, but instead immediately couldn't wait to find out what the magnitude was that I experienced, lol. It ended up being a 6.0 and was centered about an hour from Quepos. Unfortunately it was a very rainy night so we didn't get to see much of a sunset! But the view was still amazing, and so were the drinks and tapas. I had a drink made with guaro, an alcohol made from sugar cane that you can only get in Costa Rica. Yummy! Then we headed down the street to see 2 of Dawn's musician friends play acoustic at another restaurant.

The next day we walked into town for the farmer's market. It was amazing to see all the fresh produce and homemade cheeses and such! We stocked up on supplies in town for a cookout at the bungalow pool that evening. The rest of the day we just hung out at the pool and bungalow. That night we had fresh snapper and tuna on the grill, mango salsa and pico de gallo, and I had local rum and mango juice with slices of fresh mango to drink. Fabulous! I also got to enjoy a shot of some premium tequila with Dawn's property manager and his very hot Costa Rican partner. :-)

Sunday we headed back to the local beach. That is the day all the locals hang out there, so there was good people watching. That night we headed back into Quepos with Dawn's property manager for happy hour and an all you can eat sushi dinner! While we were there a thunderstorm started. I have never seen rain so hard in my entire life! Take the hardest rain you've seen in KY and double it. It rained this hard all evening and most of the night. I wanted to get a video because it was so amazing, but it was too dark.

Monday was my last day. That morning we slept in and had some fresh fruit and homemade banana bread for breakfast. Before we got out of bed the resident monkeys finally came to the bungalow! They used to come every day, but the construction behind the property has kept them away. I couldn't leave Costa Rica without seeing a single monkey!! Then I headed to a hotel down the street for a massage. It was one of the best massages i've ever gotten, and it was about half the price of one you would get here! Then I wandered around the hotel gift shop and got some souveniors for people and myself. Then we headed back into Quepos for dinner that night. For my "last meal" I requested the casada especial again. I wanted to end my trip with local flare!

I had to catch the bus at 4 am the next morning into San Jose. I was by myself with all locals that spoke only Spanish, so it was interesting! I had a VERY long wait until my flight left. Thank goodness I got to fly first class on the way home thanks to my tons of miles I earned flying to China twice!

All in all the trip was wonderful and much needed! I was able to clear my head and completely forget all of the issues and drama back home. When I got home I had a fresh perspective on things and don't feel as overwhelmed by everything. The best part of the trip was being able to experience both a different culture and different climate. I've never experienced culture shock, even when I went to China where their way of life is completely different from ours! I enjoy observing how other countries live their everyday life and how they do the same mundane daily activities completely different from us. I also love seeing how my body reacts to different climates. When I was in the desert 10 years ago my hair lost all of it's frizz, I drank water 24/7, and I had daily nosebleeds, lol. In the rainforest of Costa Rica the first thing I experienced was the discomfort of the heat. My feet and ankles swelled the first 2 days and hurt like crazy! Thankfully this went away as I got more acclimated to the weather. You body also gets used to the heat/humidity, and after the first day or so it didn't bother me. Unfortunately my hair did not fair so well in the rainforest! It was a constant poofy frizz ball! Picture Monica on the show Friends when they went to the Bahamas. That was pretty close to me without much exaggeration! LOL

I will definitely be going back now that I finally was able to make it there after a 10 year wait! There was so much that I didn't get to see and experience. Plus next time I would like to have some more time to just stop and relax. Now i'm ready to tackle my work issues, and most importantly my move to my new apartment finally!!

The shock of a lifetime...

Well, literally as soon as I posted my last post promising to keep up with my blog better, I had the floor dropped out from under me! I have been a bit dark and cryptic lately, on Facebook for one, which I am not a big fan of. However, some things have happened that completely surprised me and shook my world completely upside down. I'm sure people have been wondering what in the world has been going on. I needed to have some time to process everything before I made it all public, even with me always being open and up front about my life.

About a month ago I received an email from Craig. This was not unusual considering i'm still living in his house and taking care of things here, and he had just been home 2 weeks before. However, what the email said completely floored me, and was a shock to everyone that knows him.

He said I have some news that will surprise you. I'm going to be a father in 8-9 months. We will be getting married sometime in June. She is from the Phillipines, and we have been casually dating since August, more serious since November. When I come back home to live (which will likely be in September because they didn't renew his contract. How ironic is that??) she will be coming home with him. I wanted to let you know first, because i'm sending an email telling everyone in the next couple of days.

That was almost word for word what the email said. Very matter of fact, to the point, no explanation, like I was some distant friend. Needless to say I was confused and pissed! Unfortunately I read this email right as I got to work. Very bad timing! I went completely numb and my mind went blank. My entire body was shaking. I had to run out of the office before I lost it, so I took a VERY early break and stepped out and called Ginger to try to get some perspective (and to vent!).

Now some of you may be saying, well, you all have been broken up for 8 months (at the time of the news). However, you have to look at the circumstances that ended our relationship and my living situation. We ended our relationship 8 months before mainly because Craig wanted to stay in China and work for as long as possible to make as much money as possible, for another 3-5 years. This of course was unacceptable to me for our relationship. We had been growing apart for a couple of years, but I was the only one putting the effort in to try to keep us close. He had pretty much checked out of the relationship. However, every time I brought up our relationship (which was always me, he never brought up the topic) it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk about it. We had a huge fight (which was highly unlike us) over Christmas 2009, but did not have time to talk about it before he left. He was supposed to come home in a few months so I didn't think much of it, but unfortunately that trip got cancelled and he didn't make it back home until the end of July. When he came home I waited a week and a half for him to bring it up. It never happened. When I finally brought it up, it was again like pulling teeth. He was very matter of fact he wanted to stay in China, and staying in China would mean the end of our relationship. So that was that. It was a very amicable break up. We wanted different things and were in different places. He was not looking to get married and settle down and have children any time soon. I was running out of time to do so. So we remained friends because of the amicable break up. I always had known I could trust him, and he had always been completely honest with me.
Or so I thought....

Upon further investigation, which means I sent a message back and bitched him out on both how he gave me this new information and the timing of it, I came to find out that this was a complete accident, and he was completly freaked out about it. I questioned the timing of everything. August would mean he jumped off the plane and started going at it the second his feet touched the ground. All the while i'm here 2 months after the break up feeling guilty about dating again because i'm living in his house still, even though I was doing absolutely nothing wrong. He admitted to sleeping with someone right before he came home again(he didn't say who but it doesn't take a genius to figure it out). His "excuse" was that he knew the relationship was over from when he was home Christmas, and he had been telling me for 2 years we were growing apart. So, Mr. "cheating is 100% wrong on any occasion and would be the absolute end of a relationship and is a sin" had made me look like a fool.

So here I was, preaching about how trustworthy he was, even after the end of our relationship, and he was being very untrustworthy to say the least! I of course being a true redhead bitched him out. I pointed out that if he knew the relationship was over at Christmas then he should have ended it at Christmas. Or, he should've jumped off the plane and immediately ended things with me, instead of me prying it out of him after 1 1/2 weeks of being home. And most importantly, HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT IT IN HIS PANTS UNTIL HIS ASS GOT HOME AND ENDED THINGS. I told him I had had numerous occasions where I could have been unfaithful, and I promise I was much lonlier than he was, and I would have NEVER have done anything about it until we were officially over. Not to mention I was here in the states taking care of his house and land, going above and beyond what he asked for, while he was living it up! But, as I told him, his negative karma has bit him in the ass. He now has to (because that's how he sees what you "have" to do if you get pregnant) get married to someone he barely knows, let alone absolutely wanted to settle down with, and have 2 stepchildren (which I just recently found out). As I always say, karma is a bitch!

So, back to me and dealing with this. I wanted to run out of this house as fast as I possibly could and never speak to him again. Unfortunately this wasn't possibly financially. I had to first save up some money for apartment deposits and whatnot. But I just couldn't figure out how I really felt about this news and how to take it. I was pretty much paralyzed for about a week. Then the person anyone would least expect brought to light exactly what I was feeling. My current boyfriend told me in passing that he knew I was hurt. That was it. Our amicable breakup had not taken away the fact that I cared about and trusted Craig. I was basically going thru the breakup all over again, but this time knowing the truth. Now that doesn't mean that I still wanted to be with him, or I was holding on to hope that someday we would be together again. Quite the opposite! I knew very well that things were completely over between us. His career was chosen over me, and I know I deserve much better than that. But I did still care about him and had no hard feelings towards him or what happened until this.

About a month has passed since all of this went down. I am still processing everything and trying to get past it all. Mainly because I am still living in Craig's house!! That will soon be remedied however. I have a deposit down on an apartment and will be moving out the begining of June. I believe that after I am out of here I will finally be able to let go. I still have some things I want to say to Craig, and I will send him a message with all of it in time. Basically for closure for me. But now I want absolutely nothing to do with him ever again.

I have to thank all of my friends and family that have stood by me while i've been dealing with this. Especially Tim. It takes a real man to be able to stand by me dealing with this, let alone still living in this house and having contact with Craig! He has let me cry on his shoulder, call Craig every name in the book, and most importantly know it had absolutely nothing to do with him or my feelings for him. Between this, dealing with all the stress at work the past month, trying to move and go on a big vacation all within a month, and now my oldest cat having major health issues, there have been many times where I thought I was going to completely lose it. No matter how much I know that everything happens for a reason and that I will get thru this, it still becomes a bit overwhelming!!

So, that's the "big news" that i've been so quiet about up until now. I am leaving for Costa Rica with my older sister Dawn in 2 days. I am hoping that this vacation will revive me and help me escape all the stress and drama for at least a week! Not to mention make the time until I can finally move into my apartment go by faster! So i'll post again after my trip for an update. :-)