San Jose, Part I

Just a quick note before racking my brain to update some of earlier May.
I have arrived in Costa Rica!!
I made it to San Jose without a problem, it was actually even better than I would have expected because I found a short term travel buddy. Silvana, a girl from Santiago, was on my flight with me and she had a layover in SJ so she came and got lunch with me and helped me find a hostal. It was nice to have a fluent Spanish speaker with me to help me navigate my way to this crowded, bustling city.
After she went back the the airport I did some walking around, there are so many people everywhere but somehow everything works in the chaos. The sidewalks are too narrow for everyone to be on and the cars don't like to yield any space to pedestrians, but somehow it all works out, even with all of the street vendors selling socks and the men that stand in the doorways of the clothing stores and do karyoke as an INCENTIVE for you to come in to their store, no joke. It is a crazy busy city but it seems to have everything you could ever want. I do not expect to spend much time here in the next few months, but I think as my Spanish improves and I get more used to the system, I could handle day trips from Atenas.
Tomorrow I am heading off to the cloud forests of Monteverde to do some hiking and relaxing. I am digging this warm albeit balmy weather, a very nice change from the freezingness of Bolivia.
Cheers! Julie