On our last day in San Jose, we went to breakfast and then, we went to our grocery store. We also walked to the nearby Doubletree and toured it.
At the airport, we shopped a little. Andrea and I got a French press. On the flight back, we saw Cuba from the sky. Later, we walked around the Animal Kingdom at Disney world and ate at the new Pandora restaurant.
On Sunday, Dad and I went to Gatorland. Alligators are close to my least favorite animal, but Dad received the senior discount at $10.80 and I received the Florida discount at $13.50, so it wasn’t too bad. We saw the Jumparoo show and the wrestling show.
At night, we went to see Pandora at Animal Kingdom. We went on the safari twice seeing so many animals. It definitely is different at Disney than in the Costa Rican wild. We went on Dinosaur and ate at Flame Tree. The park was empty except at Pandora.
We went on the Flight of the Passage or something. It probably is the best ride I have ever been on. We had FastPasses, but everyone still has to wait through a few rooms. They want to trick you in your wait time. Anyways, once you get on, it is amazing. You board this motorcycle and you put 3-D glasses on. Then, your motorcycle flies like a “banshee” through the sky, jungle, underwater, etc.
I have updated two days in Costa Rica in posts below. I dated them the correct day in Costa Rica. I added a movie of the rocket launch in the link below.
I am getting behind, so I need to get a few posts up.
Yesterday we went to Kennedy Space Center. It is about an hour from our hotel at Disney.
There is so much to do there. The two major items are the bus tour and seeing Atlantis, the shuttle.
First, we went to Heroes and Legends, which is a new presentation. We walked through the rocket garden. Then, we went on the bus tour and heard about the past, present, and future. We saw NASA’s program (it still exists and is trying to get to Mars). We saw the location of Boeing’s and SpaceX’s programs.
I think the best part was going into Apollo Saturn V Center dedicated to the Apollo program. You could spend a lot of time there. It looked just like a Smithsonian. We ate lunch there which was also really good. Afterwards, we went and saw the presentation about Atlantis. I believe there were six shuttles. Two didn’t return, so the other four are located in NYC, LA, D.C., and Kennedy Space Center. We saw an IMAX movie too.
I was reminded of historical events, but what I really learned is that there are some very smart people in the world. Most of the astronauts had advanced degrees in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, etc. Also, they did a lot with much less technology than we have now.
Other facts: 400,000 people worked on the Apollo 8 mission. To get to the moon, it cost $24 billion. The International Space Center travels 5 miles for every human heartbeat.
I didn’t know how impressive the site was. I would encourage everyone to spend a day there.
At 5:07 p.m., we watched SpaceX launched the first recycled cargo ship to resupply the ISS from Titusville. I have a movie, but I couldn’t get it uploaded.
We got back yesterday around 7:00 p.m. and went to Animal Kingdom to see the new Avatar- Pandora experience. It was neat, but very dark. I am tired as I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to take Andrea to the airport.
Anyways, I will not upload anymore until Tuesday night probably as Dad is here until Monday and then, I have class.
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last few days:
Our internet is not the best, so I am unable to upload many pictures.
I did want to show you some pictures from yesterday. We went to a sloth sanctuary. On the way home, our tour guide/driver saw a sloth on the side of the road like 5 hours from the sanctuary. He reversed and pulled over to help the sloth back to a tree as it was going to climb an electrical post. It was pretty cool/ slightly dangerous. The tour driver said he has never rescued or even touched a sloth before.
Here are some pictures of the event:
On Saturday, we went to a sloth sanctuary. Again, this was a long day as the sanctuary was close to Panama on the opposite coast from San Jose. Per Costa Rican law, we could only see sloths that were permanent residents meaning they will never return to the wild. Most of the sloths had really bad things happen to them including falling out of trees, getting hurt by uneducated humans, or climbing on electrical wires.
We thought it was going to be a huge sanctuary when we got into a canoe to go look for them. We saw very little in the canoe.
Later we went to the Cahuita National Park where we saw a monkey or two. I did see the famous Capuchin monkey too. We saw the ants carrying the leaves across the path. We also saw this very little hummingbird nest with the smallest eggs, but I took the picture on my phone and my phone has stopped working, so I don’t know if we will get those pictures back. (Usually my phone automatically backs everything up, but I was on airplane mode, so I might lose a few of the last pictures I took).
On May 27th, we drove to Arenal Volcano. It was a long drive. I think I liked seeing Poas Volcano more as you could see inside the volcano. Poas was closed though as it has been erupting since last year.
We stopped a variety of places on the way to the volcano. We went to a coffee plantation, saw a waterfall (I believe La Paz, but I am not quite sure), stopped at a strawberry store, stopped at a fruit stand in front a person’s house, stopped at a bridge full of iguanas, stopped at a real hot springs area, and then, a resort hot springs area. We also stopped to see the volcano.
Dad made it to Pop Century early yesterday afternoon. I picked Andrea up at the airport around 8 p.m last night. We met Dad at Wolfgang Puck Express at 9 p.m. and shared a pizza, a salad, and a creme brulee. We went back to our hotel and walked over to Art of Animation.
Today, we left for the airport around 8 a.m. We parked off-site. The security line was about 20 minutes long which wasn’t too bad being a holiday weekend. Our flight to Costa Rica was very nice as it was on JetBlue with satellite TV, plenty of legroom, and good snacks. The flight was less than 3 hours long, but we evidently arrived in Costa Rica when a lot of other flights also arrived as we waited nearly 1.5 hours to get through customs!! That is the longest I have ever waited. Dad was a trooper waiting too. There were about 18 switch backs or more in the line. It was frustrating and tiring.
We were supposed to meet our guide at 1 p.m. We ended meeting him near 3 p.m. He was waiting outside the airport. From the airport, he took us to a market that dates back to the 1880’s in the center of San Jose. We had some tamales in a traditional “soda” shop in the market. Afterwards, we walked around by the national bank, theater, cathedral, and park. There were so many U.S. chains. We probably saw 4 to 6 McDonalds. We saw KFC, Popeyes, Taco Bell, etc. etc.
We made it to our hotel. Because it is the beginning of the rainy season, we got a good rate on a junior suite. It is like a small apartment…or better. It is really better than where I live in Orlando. It has two floors, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms.
We went to the grocery store we love and bought some food for dinner. Dad and Andrea were sleeping by 8 p.m. It is now 9 p.m. and I am going to bed.
Our tour of a volcano, waterfall, and hot springs begins at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning.
Julie, the Assistant Director at work, has a neighbor from Iowa. He bought some “tenderloins” from Amana. Julie brought some to work and we had an Iowa day. She puts mayo and other items on it as she is from Indiana. I put onion, ketchup, and mustard on it and a tomato. It tasted more like a pork loin, but it still was really good. Dad told me how to make his cucumber salad and I also brought corn on the cob. I also provided the decorations.
Throughout the summer we are going to celebrate other areas we are from including: Belize (conch fritters), Ohio, and Michigan.