Welcome Home Present

Ernesto and I are back in Monteverde after several days of failed attempts to get back to our casita.

We were supposed to fly back to Costa Rica from Baltimore on Monday but our flight was canceled due to the expected snow/ice in Atlanta.  We were rebooked on the Tuesday flight, but that flight was canceled as well.  We were then booked on a night flight to Atlanta where we would then enjoy a 13 hour layover in Atlanta's charming airport before heading to Costa Rica. I was having none of that, so found an alternative flight leaving from Harrisburg at 6am on Wednesday morning with a 1.5 hour layover in Atlanta.  I was tickled with my steal - not only did we save a two-hour drive to Baltimore but we also got to fly business-class, free of charge, from Atlanta to Costa Rica!!!!!  I shared the great news with my mom, who then informed me that Harrisburg was expecting 6-8 inches of snow Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and that the flight would likely be canceled.  Doh!

I called Delta and booked a Wednesday afternoon flight from Baltimore that I arrive at 10:15pm in San Jose.  We decided that it was best if Ernesto and I drove down to Baltimore on Tuesday with my dad (who was flying to Utah that day) and then spent the night an an airport hotel to ensure we'd catch the flight.  The hotel was great and had an excellent breakfast, but neither Ernesto nor I slept much, so started our journey to the airport exhausted and cranky.

We caught our Wednesday afternoon flight from Baltimore and nestled in for a two-hour layover in Atlanta.  The door agent was ready to board our flight at the designated time, but something was amiss.  It seems that one of the flight attendants wasn't at the gate.  And apparently, no flight attendant =  no flight.  Now, I'm pretty sure that the FAA requires a certain number of flight attendants to be onboard for departure.  The thing is, no one explained this to us.  So we were left wondering why 280 passengers were sitting at a gate because one person, most often associated with dispersing small bags of salted peanuts and beverages, failed to show up for his flight.  I was willing to sacrifice my peanuts to get the hell out of Atlanta.  We watched the computer screen as our time of departure was pushed back 40 minutes.  Then another 40 minutes.  Then another hour.  The flight attendant was simply MIA and there was nothing anyone could do about it but seeth in anger and reduce the important job of flight attendants to that of air-waiters. 

Now, before I offend anyone, let me say that I recognize that flight attendants have many responsibilities.  I understand that if our flight were to go down, and by some miracle we aren't all dead on impact, that they're most likely to provide us with helpful information regarding deplaning.  But do we really need four attendants do do that?  I think not.

Again, I'm sure this is an FAA regulation, but since no one explained why we all had to wait for one flight attendant, I feel justified in complaining.

Finally, after2+ hours, Delta found another flight attendant to fill in and we boarded the plane.  Exhausted and annoyed, Ernesto and I tried to make ourselves comfortable.  We sat in anticipation for take off.  And we sat some more.  Then we sat some more.  We sat for an hour before someone informed us that two passengers were stuck at the gate due to a discrepancy between the names on their boarding passes and the names on their passports.  Why this wasn't addressed at check-in, I don't know. Errr. 

We didn't get to Ernesto's parent's house until 2:30 in the morning.  We woke up at 10am exhausted and decided that we couldn't safely make the drive up to Monteverde as planned.  So we spent the night in San Jose.

We finally made our way up to Monteverde at 6am this morning, arriving around 10am.  Keys in hand, and a bladder about to burst, I raced to the bathroom.  I nearly had my pants down when I saw something black and hairy in the toilet. Somehow, I managed NOT to pee myself when I jumped, screamed, ran out of the bathroom, and around to the side of the house, where I peed in the yard, before telling Ernesto that there was something awful in the toilet. 

"What's in there?" he asked me, as if I would stick around long enough to investigate!

Informing him that I had no plans to return to the house until said thing was identified and removed from the toilet, Ernesto and his 12 year-old cousin ventured into the bathroom.  There they found our homecoming gift: a drowned rat.

Now, if you've followed our blog for any period of time, you know that we have mouse/rat problems.  In fact, our first blog post was about a mouse that nested in our oven.  You'll also know from subsequent posts that we (i.e., Ernesto) have had to kill several mice that have been caught on sticky paper throughout the house. Mice are not our friends. 

Given our mouse woes, I distributed four bags of rat poison throughout the house prior to our December departure.  When rodents eat the poison they become thirsty and (hopefully) exit your house in search of water.  I guess our little friend found the toilet to be a more convenient source of water.  Too bad it's in our BATHROOM, which WAS the one room free of mouse poop.  None of the poison was left when we returned, though there were some droppings, which leads me to conclude that we are housing all of Monteverde's rodent population under our roof.  I shudder at the thought.

I haven't mustered up the courage to look in our stove drawer for evidence of leftover poison or poop.  The thought of another urine-soaked oven (see our very first blog post for details) is simply too much for me to consider right now.