I have arrived

When carrying my luggage down the 3 flights of stairs to meet Marv at 4:45am on Friday morning, I broke a sweat. This had me rather concerned--I had hoped to bring home coffee for family and friends. This was a big change from my backpacking days when 25lbs was enough for 3 months. I was afraid the high maintanence police might pull me over with my suitcase (which was empty compared to Marv's). With our luggage, carry-ons, laptops, and a box full of papers we were carrying for the Costa Ricans, we were quite a pair. I should mention that I am travelling with my co-worker Marv, who I am blessed to also consider a friend.

Our flight from Atlanta to Costa Rica was the interesting leg of the journey. I was craving the Golden Arches, but due to time, ran and just managed to get the last available seat so Marv and I could sit together. Also on this flight, we had about 40 members of the God squad on our flight in matching t-shirts. I was reminded of my high-school mission trip days and when I worked in Mexico. During the take-off, everyone put their hands in the air and yelled as though going on a roller-coaster. Being an experienced traveller, it was rather entertaining, but not as entertaining as the rough landing, when the plane suddenly dropped down and there were shrills and screams. The cabin broke into a round of applause when we landed.

For those of you who do not know, I have accepted a position with Amway. I will be based in Grand Rapids, Michigan (actually, corporate is located in Ada, MI) and will travel to Costa Rica. Our finance department, where I have worked as an intern since October, 2008, is standardizing and moving finance operations to Costa Rica. We seem to be on the tail end of this trend as HP, Citi Bank, and a myriad of other American companies have enterprise processing centers (EPCs) located in San Jose, Costa Rica. My new position will be helping with this transition for other departments. This time, however, my purpose in trave is to successfully transition my current job responsibilities to the EPC staff. I am here for added support during their first week of going "live" at the EPC. That being said, there was a BIG MOMENT when filling out my entry form:

Occupation: financial analyst

Purpose of trip: business

I have arrived. Corporate travel-might just have ruined my ability to stay at hostels. The hotel is modern ultra modern and right across the street from the EPC. Check out this room. The king size bed is straight from heaven. The shower is luxurious and big enough that I could throw a party inside of it. I can hook my i POD into the alarm clock and to top it all off, the hotel is super eco-friendly, conserving on sheet changing and towel washing. Friends--I have arrived. Although I thought my room was nice, Marv, who is here for two weeks, got the Master Suite. His room has a bidet.

We visited the new EPC center (pictures to come later), got rid of the box, and claimed cubes near the windows. Our next goal: money and dinner. Money proved to be more difficult than one would have thought. The first bank's ATM did not work. At the next bank, I withdrew 10,000....which proved to only be $20.

The biggest adventure of the entire trip has been the rental car. It was a fiasco and threatened Marv's sense of adventure (which I had worked so hard to instill for this first weekend). Insurace troubles, non-working GPS in a country without street names, and the only available vehicle being a stick-shift, we thought the adventure was over once we were on the road. Little did we know, the continual adventure would be, being on the road.