Nightmare Journey

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Trip Start Jun 16, 2008 Trip End Sep 01, 2008 Next
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  San Jose, Costa Rica
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Finally, we have reached our destination - Hostel Pangea in San Jose, Costa Rica!! After saying goodbye to our parents and OliŽs mum again, and again, and again and finally again!! we headed for the departure lounge of Manchester airport, with everyone passing through customs smoothly except me!! Having scanned my bag, frisked me twice, scanned my jumper and shoes individually, I was allowed to get dressed again and we headed to a bar for the first drink of the holiday. I managed to find some internet access to check the all-important first fixtures of the new season and was glad (I think) to discover that IŽll only miss two home fixtues whilst away. Our flight was delayed by an hour and a half which was an inconvenience but once weŽd boarded the half-empty plane - me having been selected for a random hand luggage search - we could relax, uncramped with two-to-a-row for the seven and a half hour flight.
On arrival at Newark we rushed through customs knowing that we only had about an hour to get through security etc, which for me involved virtually another strip-search whilst everyone else breezed through!

Taxi to hotel

! Having got dressed again and successfully convinced customs I wasnŽt a terrorist we headed to the gate (C132) for our connecting flight to San Jose. When we got to the gate we were slightly relieved to see an hour delay to the flight so we roamed around the airport, tucking into the first Taco of the trip. A short while later the plane began to board - on went Oli, Ellie and Natasha but when me and Rachael went to board a problem arose, we were trying to catch a flight to San Jose, California!! A lady went to get the others off the plane and after a mad 400m sprint around the gates it dawned on us that weŽd probably missed the Costa Rica flight by some time. We went to customer services to see what could be done. After queueing with all the other angry travellers who had missed flights or had them cancelled we reached the worldŽs most unethusiastic airline employee who sorted us a hotel and food vouchers out as the airline had printed the wrong gate number on our tickets.
This meant that we had a brief stay in New Jersey at the Holiday Inn, which was actually quite nice and a welcome break between flights. We bought some massive American cuisine with our food vouchers, a dinosaur toothbrush for a dollar and headed to bed. The following morning we headed back to the airport where were sent through the most intensive, new-age security ever, which involved scanning, standing in some blowing machine and individual bag searches - they must have known the others were with me!! After an uneventful five hour flight, reunion with our bags and a simple transfer we find ourselves at Hostel Pangea for two nights...

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Natasha happy in taxi

Our room

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