Costa Rica Teaser

Heather decided a year ago that she didn't want all the pomp and circumstance that surrounded a 30th birthday, especially after watching all of her nearest and dearest try and figure out what the heck we were going to do to celebrate this life altering and terrifying new stage in our lives. So, she told me one day a few weeks after her 29th birthday.
"I think I just want to be on a beach somewhere for 30."
I ultimately took that to mean, "I just want to be on a beach with you somewhere" because, come on, who doesn't want to be on a beach with me?
Apparently, she just meant her and Aidan but I butted myself in there and so did Janet and of course, Charlie goes too.
We got our passports, booked a cheap Air BnB (which I fucking love and will never stay in a hotel again) booked our plane tickets (with the help of Janets amazing moms airlines miles and Janets passenger airfare) and counted down the days until we could fly off into the sunset together.
I bribed my brother with cash and he agreed to take us to the airport at the ungodly hour of 2 am, we picked everyone up and dashed down to SeaTac.
I haven't rode on an airplane since 2010 and haven't left the country since 2006, I felt like a child already and to complete my idiocy, I was totally disoriented because it was 3 am and I had only slept for an hour.
So, in summation, I needed an adultier adult.
Good thing we had seasoned traveler and official adultier adult, Janet, on the scene.
I pretty much just did exactly what she was doing.
She's walking quickly like she knows where she is going.
So am I.
She's getting her passport out and scanning underneath this scanner thingy.
Me too.
She's taking off her shoes and not talking to security.
That I apparently cannot do.
For whatever reason I felt like I should really be shmoozing the airport staff and security.
Passport checker person:
"Hey Girl! Love the lashes! I miss mine so much, you look so amazing!"
Passport checker person immediately lights up and we chat about lashes for a few seconds.
Security Guy at customs:
"Oh man, what a shift, huh? Do you guys like, race around on all these fun carts all night or what?"
Security Guy chuckles and we chat about his shift for a second.
I was the last person in line and kept yucking it up with everyone who worked at the entire damn airport because I was scared I wasnt traveling correctly, so if I just made friends with everyone, they couldn't arrest me for taking bananas on the plane right?
I stumbled my way through customs and was grabbing my backpack, congratulating myself for staying so calm and collected and charming as fuck, when someone yelled, "Whos purple suitcase is this?"
I looked around wondering where purple suitcase person was.
"Anybody forget a purple suitcase?"
Jeeze, purple suitcase needs to get their shit together. How do you forget your luggage? Idiots.
Then I realized, I was the person missing my purple suitcase.
"Oh, thats mine! Sorry!"
Apparently, leaving your purple suitcase unattended in an airport is like, a big deal.
I then look over and Charlie is being escorted to another area of security.
Great. I leave my suitcase somewhere and now Charlie is being randomly selected for a pat down.
They patted him down, took everything out of his suitcase and wiped his hands along with all of his electronics. It was a very stressful 10 minutes. Good thing we got to the airport 2 hours early!
After Charlie finally passed, he said they found traces of explosives on his hands and thats why they needed to search him.
How. Terrifying.
FYI, he put gas in the truck on the way to the airport, we dont make explosives.
After that debaucle, we were off to our gate.
To wait.
Heather and I tried to sleep on the chairs, but the tvs were on in one area and the other area just wasnt that comfortable. I was struck with genius, however, Im going to start a photo series called "People Sleeping in SeaTac". This one lady had a sleeping bag and another guy had a pillow and sleep mask. They were both comfortably sawing logs. I was beyond jealous of both their ingenuity and the ability to sleep in a place that was humming with activity all night.
After the longest 2 hours of my life, we finally boarded our first flight, from Seattle, to LAX, AKA worlds most complicated airport.
Thankfully our layover gate was literally right next to our gate coming in.
We boarded our next flight, which was roughly 4.5 hours and tried to sleep a bit.

Charlie bought a neck pillow for 4 billion dollars at the airport store and wore it for the remainder of the day.
As soon as we touched down in Liberia and got off the plane a wave of heat and humidity slapped our Northwest bones right in the crotch. My hair curled up and I began to sweat profusely. We were ushered into a big room with 4 lines, a plane load of people and 2 employees. Goings were slow. I did have time to try and brush up on my spanish which was exciting because there was a tv that kept flashing a little video of a pig, then a sick pig, then a fly, then of the country, then a dead pig.
What in the holy hell?
Am I not supposed to eat the pork?
Do the pigs have some fly transmitted disease and I'll die because they're dying?
Its flashing red! What are you trying to tell me pig video?!
I told myself to stick to chicken and tried to act as casual as I could while trying to remember the words for caution and disease and dead in spanish.
As we got closer, my palms grew sweatier and I realized I couldn't charm this woman at security.
I had a sweat moustache and I couldnt speak the language. As, she called Charlie and I over I put on a ridiculously broad smile and proudly stated "Hola!" and eagerly handed over my passport.
Charlie looked at me like I had a bat flying out of my ear, urging me to tone it the fuck down.
I smiled a little broader, well, because for whatever reason I was out of my mind terrified that she would turn me away and they would arrest me for not having a valid drivers license.
She said something and I smiled bigger and looked at Charlie who motioned for us to move along to the next checkpoint of terror.
At this point Charlie doesn't even ask me why I act the way I do.
It saves him time and sanity.
We easily made it through customs, with  my sweat mustache and my fake smile growing precariously larger by the second.
We finally made it out of the obstacle course of horror and into the slamming hot and humidity of Liberia, Costa Rica.
We were greeted by, quite possibly the sexiest shuttle driver ever in the history of shuttle drivers  and I kicked myself for not working out and losing 50 pounds and what was now a sweat beard beading up on my face.
We jumped in his air conditioned van and rode into the daytime, very aware that we were in for a most excellent vacation. All of us with looks of excitement on our sweaty, pale, obviously American faces.

Cheers.