We left on September 5, 2017 to start our journey to Costa Rica! Our plane didn't leave to Fort Lauderale Florida until 10:00 pm. I was already preparing myself that our four hour layover in the Fort Lauderdale airport to be some of the most boring hours of my life! I'm really excited about our trip, but sad about leaving my family and friends . We spent our last day in the United States of America all around town including the dentist (I had to make sure my new retainer fit-I got my braces off a couple of weeks ago) and the doctors office (mom needed to get a Hepatitis A shot). We also went to target to get a Go Pro and several other errands including dropping our dear dog Roxy off at her new home for the next 10 months, it almost broke my heart. Our last dinner in the United States was Panda Express, I ate orange chicken and rice. I had no idea but Papa borrowed a 12 passenger van from his boss, even an adult could stand up in it! The van was so huge. Papa drove us to the San Francisco Airport. Right before we got to the airport mom lets me facetime with Maddie (one of my best friends). After like 5 minutes of Maddies adorable quotes, "Don't leave me", the wifi leaves us and the call ends .

We arrive at the airport shortly after, I felt like it couldn't be real when I got out of the car, thinking of the flight gave me goosebumps. I never thought of the flight itself going high in the air. The thought of the plane crashing, but that, that could never happen. All the luggage weighing and security seemed to take hours, I seemed to think that we would never get on the plane. We finally boarded the plane, it seemed that we would never make it. I asked mom if we would sit in one of the nice chairs and she said, "They cost more money." When we got to our seats, the plane took off shortly after. The Snack Ladies past out snacks and drinks for what seemed to be until midnight. It took forever to fall asleep. I looked out of my window to see the city lights glimmering beautifully in the night. Finally, I fell asleep for what felt like an hour. When I woke up I could see the shimmering ocean through the window.

At like 5:50am in the morning we landed at Fort Lauderale airport (this was 2:50am our time). In the airport there were tons of food places and souveniers. We walked around for a long time to find a breakfast place, when we found one we got bagels. I got a chocolate chip bagel with butter, I don't like cream cheese but the rest of my family does. After our stomachs were full we set off to find some benches because almost everyone was tired, except for me and Lucas, even though I slept the least the previos night on the plane. I got ear plugs in a little shop at the airport. The worst part of our 4 hour layover at the airport was that I had to chase Lucas around the terminal, which was so embarrasing. Meanwhile Levi was sleeping on the ground and Noah was sleeping in a chair. There was this one lady who stared at me for like 30 seconds, and one of the securiy guards looked at me like I was crazy, I just wanted to blurt out to everyone that this was not my idea of fun!

Finally when our extra long layover was finished we boarded the plane. On this plane there were no snacks. I couldn't believe we were above Costa Rica it seemed almost impossible. I looked out of my window only to see nature's beauty, everything was bright green. The plane landed and we all used the bathroom. What really suprised me was that the bathrooms were labled mujer and hombre instead of man and women . Now we are off to find our private taxi that took us to the bus stop. We were on the bus for 4 hours until it took us to the ferry boat. On our 4 hour bus ride I fell asleep for like 3 and a half hours. It rained the whole bus ride so there wasn't much scenery. Finally we got to the ferry, the ferry was about one and a half hours. I was super excited about the ferry. I had never been on one before ! On the ferry we each got a bag of popcorn and my parents got beers. Luckily, the rain had stopped when we got on the boat and there was a beautiful lightning storm in the distance. Once we were off the ferry, we got back on the same bus that had taken us to the ferry and we told them to take us to what we heard was called Casa Escondida, but they ended up dropping us off about 5 minutes before. Unfortunatly our new place was the last stop...and this is where my story begins.