(*photo taken from the balcony of our AirBnB; notations explained below)

July 31st: 1 down, 364 to go

I am typing this in our tiny, clean, artsy, low budget AirBnB. It’s 7:12pm and I am wiped to a level of exhaustion that I maybe experienced in the delirious weeks after childbirth, but it’s a toss-up. I have been running ragged for weeks – months, really – trying to get to this day and suddenly it’s not only here, it’s all but done. This trip I have dreamed about for years and planned for for months has started and right at this moment, I can’t even summon the energy to be excited about it. Despite the flight, strange trees, Spanish words flashing by on the highway billboards that are slowly resurfacing in my memory after decades of disuse, the city-grimy, broken-down feel that permeates San Jose – it hasn’t hit me that we are here. That this is the beginning of a huge, once-in-a-lifetime, monumental adventure. All I can think about is sleep.

I was cleaning my rental house until 8:15 last night, trying to see well enough in the waning light to sweep the bedrooms out. The last few hours leading up to that were just a frenzy of throwing things in piles: one for the dumpster, one for our suitcases, and one for the storage unit I had just claimed that afternoon. By the time my ex drove the kids and I to our hotel near the airport in Boston it was 9:45. By the time I went to bed it was 11:15. I didn’t trust that my iPhone alarm would be sufficiently alarming to wake me up four hours later, so I did something I’ve only seen in movies and called the front desk for a wake-up call as back-up. What felt like ten minutes later, the alarm on my phone went off and I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Then the room phone rang with the automated wake-up call and I was stirred to croak out, rather unconvincingly, I thought, “Wake up, babies.” Maybe they were worried about me, because before I had found my toothbrush, my kids were up, dressed, and had shoved their jammies in the suitcases.

A couple flights, a new SIM card, and one Uber ride later here we are, all nestled in to our first AirBnB. The kids were like puppies on the ride from the airport, exclaiming over everything that flashed by the windows: “A bus!” “A balcony!” “Oh, my god, that tree is GORGeous!” I didn’t want to dampen their enthusiasm, but, really, as with most big cities, the drive from the airport is not what I would call a tourist highlight.

Honestly, our AirBnB is not what I would call a tourist highlight either. We’re only a few minutes’ walk from the central plaza in San José, it’s cheap, and the reviews said that the owner was really nice and helpful. Which he is. When we pulled up in the Uber, he was watering flowers on his tiny second-story balcony overlooking train tracks that ran down a pretty dirty looking street. His name is Jim, he’s a 50- or 60-something American artist who has lived here for nine years and, like the biographies on the back of book jackets, has had a myriad of odd jobs over the years: he mentioned being a cabbie in San Fransisco and for a time he worked at the Amazon call center here in a San José neighborhood (who knew it was in San José?). He is lanky and rheumy-eyed and has an overly ruddy complexion that implies a wild youth rather than robust health.

We managed to drag our bags up a flight of stairs with Jim’s help and Jim showed us around the place. When he had us step out onto his balcony to show us the view of rooftops and mountains off in the distance, he explained that he had just replaced all the plants that lined the railing because somebody had recently tried to break in via the balcony. The person had apparently climbed this rather pathetic-looking tree and got so angry when he couldn’t get through Jim’s lock system, that he threw all the plants off the balcony to the street below.

Jim shared all this with a note of regret (for his plants) but mostly pride that the break-in had been foiled. I tried to nod enthusiastically to show how impressed I was with his locks while all the time I was thinking, “But this means that you live in a neighborhood where PEOPLE CLIMB BALCONIES TO BREAK INTO HOUSES.” Maybe I didn’t do such a good job masking my inherent skepticism, though, because Jim then helpfully pointed to the telephone pole that runs in front of his balcony and added, “I also just ran barbed wire around this as well, so they can’t try to get in that way.” Jim is super nice, but – not a salesman, I would say.  Even knowing that barbed wire and iron fencing are standard in San José, I still have a sense that this area is less Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and more Eddie Murphy’s Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood. But we shall see.

After I confirmed no less than six times that I just walk straight down the street to get to the bank and the place he had recommended for dinner, he cheerily said he could show us himself. By the time we got to the end of the block, we had passed a stray dog eating God-knows-what, a smiling, toothless, drunk old man and woman who seemed to be inspired by our obvious gringo-ness to ask us for money (but there’s no way that’s what they were originally doing on the sidewalk- not in this barrio) and a man passed out on his back on a concrete stoop, one arm splayed out over the sidewalk, the other over his closed eyes like a Shakespearan actor at the end of a death scene. Jim took us to what looked like nothing more than a counter of food and I thought we’d be eating arroz con pollo while standing up in the street, but after we ordered, the woman behind the counter gestured to a few tables that were tucked in the shadows behind her. Throughout the meal – which was delicious and a sum total of $8 for the three of us- the kids had me teach them how to say “arroz con pollo” and “It’s delicious” and “I’m too full to eat more” and “check, please” in Spanish.

It’s now 8:06. The kids are tucked into the hammocks (“like tacos!”) that are hanging in the square of space that would be the sala, or living room, if two hammocks weren’t hanging side by side in it. The windows overlook the street and the urban cacophony of horns, siren, and cars speeding down the street just seems to be amplified by the fact we’re on the second story. Like the sala is the acoustic sweet spot. Every 10 or 15 minutes a train goes by. I had read that this was near the tracks and I chose this place anyway, remembering the loud but largely background, ingnorable rattle of the El when I lived in Chicago. This is not that kind of train noise. This train has to constantly blow it’s horn because the tracks are not seperate entities but simply run down the length of one of the narrow city streets. Which means any cars coming the other way could easily run into it or be run over by it if they don’t know it’s coming. Or pedestrians wearing headphones might not hear a typical train rattle and walk across the street without thinking, the speeding train blocked by buildings that tower over the narrow sidewalks. Trains, therefore, blow their horns continuously while they’re in the city and the AirBnB is perched above one of the corners they go by.

The kids are determined to not let the noises bother them, though, and spend the entire night sleeping in the hammocks. This is a test of fatigue and stubbornness vs. Costa Rica Amtrak. As for me, the bedroom muffles the train somewhat but the other AirBnB guest is playing rap music. Both our windows open to the little garden in between them and it sounds like I’m in the same room as she. I don’t think the free ear plugs that Jim talked about on his rental listing are really going to cut it. But I could be wrong – I’m so tired I think that train would have to run over me for me to notice.

So much of the flavor of San José, of the day – the drunks, the barbed wire that Xander marveled at (“It’s like the zombie apocalypse already happened”), the filling dinner & helpful cook, the sharp-peaked, lush mountains surrounding San José – those just don’t translate to Facebook. I didn’t even try – all I posted were two pictures: one of us on the airplane and a picture of the kids swinging in the living room hammocks, the big wall mural of a nighttime beach scene and the window lined with jewel-toned glass bottles in the background. Those were real moments too – The adventure begins! – but they don’t even begin to tell the whole story. Which, I guess, is why I’m doing this to begin with – ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.