Early Morning in Chicago

Saturday - 1st Note: Chicago O'Hare - Early Morning

For the 31 students who are sitting next to me in the airport lounge in Chicago, the excitement has already started. Who knew that the exotic nature of deep-dish pizza and airport Starbucks would be just the thing to kick off a Central American trip? Somewhere halfway across the country, the remaining members of our tour are gathering at Dulles Airport - they will surely be better rested than the Vikings here in Illinois. O'Hare is a big place, and getting to the "airport" hotel was a bit taxing, but the lobby was filled with the smells of pizza (of all varieties) and the students already ravenous. There was a short turnaround in the hotel - our wake-up call was for 4 am - so everyone is a bit groggy and stunned by travel.

We had a great lesson in assumptions this morning. As established before we nodded off to sleep, wake-up calls were set for 4. At 3:57, however, all the boys were gathered at the elevator, buzzing loudly. That was my wake-up call. I realized that I would need to better define "wake-up" - they thought that was the departure time. Remarkably, none of the girls on the their floor had woken up. The bigger lesson out of this is that your Deal Vikings were ready, cheerful, and packed with no problems. This is a tremendous advantage when traveling with 73 of them!

Finally, I had that great Deal moment when exiting the plane (I was the last one off). The flight attendants asked me if these were my students and what grade they were in. They said that the kids were so polite, and all had said "Thank you" as they exited. The last attendant said "They can fly with us anytime they want." Nice.

Next stop: San Jose, Costa Rica

Saturday - 2nd Note: San Jose, Gran Hotel San Jose

We are now checked into the Gran Hotel( translation: Grand Hotel) in downtown San Jose. We (the Chicago crew) landed just as the Dulles crowd was exiting customs - what great timing! We reunited and then left the airport to meet our EF tour guides. Luckily, David was one from my previous trip (an excellent one) and the other fellow (name not yet memorized) was from last year's trip. All good omens. Because our flights were early in the day we weren't really on the EF "clock" and we had to figure out lunch. Luckily for all of us, there was a mall with a food court on the road to the hotel. Although there were some of the usual suspects (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut) I can proudly report that many students chose the Costa Rican cuisine at the cafeteria area and were quite excited to do so. The money was handled easily (it is clear that exchange rates vary from counter to counter) and everyone appeared well-fed. We quickly left and traveled into San Jose to our hotel, a beautiful early 1920s structure on the main plaza. San Jose has an odd feel to it - clearly Central American, some strong North American elements, and a beautiful mountain-rimmed landscape. It is intimate, even though it is a full capital city, and nowhere overwhelmed by the repetitive architecture of much of the region. Tonight, we gather at 6:30 to lay out the ground rules for our excursions. Students are excited that tomorrow at this time we will be sweltering on the Atlantic Coast with monkeys hooting at us. Me, too.