DAY ONE!
I arrived into San Jose last night at 9:55pm and made it through customs in about 40 minutes, which was great! Wirlan, my boss or “jefe” in Spanish, was supposed to meet me at the airport with a sign that said Molly Stevens. At first we did not see each other but luckily I told him that I run and she spotted my running sneakers and took a guess that it was me. My housemate, Veronica, was with him and we went straight to her house. On the way Wirlan informed me that Ticos are terrible drivers and after my 15 minute car ride from the airport… he wasn’t kidding! Hahaha Wirlan speaks really good English but Veronica knows less English than I know Spanish so it was an awkward and difficult conversation after Wirlan dropped me off at Veronica’s house!
First day of work: Veronica also works at Trackit so I have a ride to and from work everyday and the commute is a whopping… mile, if that. We got to work at 9am but I will usually have to be there by 8am, 8-5:30 everyday, woof. I spent the whole day in training with Wirlan, which made it a long day but the job doesn’t seem too difficult. We had "typical Costa Rican food" for lunch at a place down the street and I am already fan of the food but I may get sick of beans and rice pretty quickly because they eat it with EVERY meal.
Below is a picture of my room it is on the smaller side but i have a HUGE bed which is a first for me hahaha
Thank goodness for Wirlan. Wirlan is in is early 30’s has two kids and a wife, Mary, who I met today. Wirlan’s bio… Wirlan started a tech support company in 2001 and was extremely successful until he was asked to do an interview on TV in 2006 for a “successful and under 30” story on a local Costa Rican news channel. Wirlan thought that it would be good to get more clients for his tech support company but really it gave the idea to other people to start tech support companies so he has continuously lost business to competitors since. He then started Trackit because the tech support company was no longer strong enough to support him. Along with being a successful entrepreneur he is super nice/helpful! Last night when I got in, Veronica asked if I need the internet to email/call my family and I said yes figuring she would let me borrow the Ethernet cable for my room or give me the wireless password but that wasn’t the case… she showed me the Ethernet cable in her room and I was like shit… I’m not going to have Internet the entire time I am here or I am going to have to awkwardly ask if I could buy a router and connect it to her cable. BUT Wirlan saved the day! Today he asked how everything was at Veronica’s and he asked if I had Internet and I nicely said no but Veronica let me use the cable in her room to call my mom on Skype. He was like “ahhh that’s not going to cut it” reached over grabbed a router behind his desk and went to Veronica… I was pretty grateful that he helped me avoid and awkward conversation. I know this sounds pathetic but when you do not know anyone, at all, the internet is a pretty big deal. He also gave me a SIM card for my blackberry which I still have to set up the data on but he is going to help me with that tomorrow, so grateful! So over all it was a long but good day!
