So blogging it is!
I'll start with the beginning of my trip and see how far I can go before my SO wakes up/LFAD reaches word count max.
Monday, July 1 we woke up and headed off to the airport. It took forever and cost almost double what a normal taxi ride should cost because we took the long way since there was a crash on the highway, thus blocking all traffic. As usual. When we get there we go to pay our exit taxes then look for our counter. I bought tickets through Cubana which was cheaper than any other flight I could find. We couldn't find it and so we went to the information desk where they told us "Cubana doesn't fly out of SJO" Uhhh, what? Immediately my SO looks at me and asks me to make sure we're at the right airport. We are. We go to talk to Avianca which is like the all over Latin America airline. They're confused as well. The flight we bought doesn't exist. Cubana no longer makes direct flights from SJO to HAV! (and here's a fun story, 10 days later in Varadero we met a guy who TWO YEARS AGO had the same issue! He bought a SJO-HAV Cubana ticket and it didn't exist. TWO YEARS and they still haven't taken that option down yet. Wtf?)
So Avianca can get us on a flight from SJO to Panama and then Panama-HAV. But it's not for another 8 hours. Ugh. I told my SO to do his bargaining and see what we could get. The lady said we could get a partial refund (it's more like a voucher for later use, which is fine!), money for lunch at the airport, and pick the flights. Since we lost the entire day Monday (get in at midnight, instead of 3pm) I suggested we move our return flight back a day to make up for it. No problem. Then I asked if we could be upgraded to first class. And we were! Well on our return flights. On our flights to Cuba we got the extra legroom seats, which is still pretty sweet.
All in all, I'll take an extra 8 hour wait for all those goodies! I feel like we totally won. Plus we went with Taca airlines which is great. It's probably the only airline left in the world that gives out food on the plane. Our plane rides were 1 hour and 2 hours and on each one we got food. The first one we got a full dinner and the second one we got a big empanada. And this is in coach, not first class!
The next best part is the SJO airport has been totally remodeled!!! It used to be one of my least favorite airports because it was freezing, there was nowhere to get food (unless you want a week-old cardboard sandwich), no booze, no shopping (except for the THREE different Cafe Britt coffee stores), and they did an extra search after security and made you dump out all your water before getting on the airplane. Stupid. Well, the last time we flew out was in January to get married and let me tell you have things improved! There's now an entire food court, two bars, duty free stores, free wifi and YOU CAN BUY BEER IN A CAN AND DRINK IT AT YOUR GATE. Awesome. It's still $5/can shitty beer, but I think it's amazing.
In Panama City we decided to go to the Duty Free because Panama is way cheaper than Costa Rica to begin with, so we thought the duty free would be amazing cheap. It was normal. My SO got a new pair of sunglasses since he destroyed his last expensive pair. I got an Antonio Banderas perfume! I love me some Antonio Banderas, I mean that man is smoking hot. And I don't own any perfume. Never have. I've never really wanted to, but I do like when we go out somewhere nice and my SO splashes on a bit of cologne. I thought it would be nice to do the same. It smells pretty nice and we got it for a great deal, like $20 or something.
I also bought the most amazing lipstick ever. You need to buy it right now because it will change your life. I'm a big lipstick wearer, I love really fun bright colors. I decided to search for a red at duty free since I "only" brought bright pink, rose pink and purple colors with me (
). I bought what ended up being lip gloss, and is amazing. It's by Loreal called Shine Caresse (I think). It's similar to a lip stain, but is colorful like a lipstick and glossy like a lip gloss and that shit DOESN'T COME OFF! It's even better than Mac! I wore it almost every day in Cuba because it was so damn amazing. I'd put it on in the morning and even after eating, drinking, putting chap stick over it and kissing, it would be on when we got home. There were days when I would have to scrub it off by the end of the day. Amazing. I want it in every freaking color.Okay, well you guys started reading this thinking I would talk to you about Cuba and you got an airline, airport and makeup review. Apologies.
I've sort of lost interest in writing this now, I promise I'll actually write about Cuba next time!
ETA (I just re-read this and it is obvious I use the word "amazing" far too often. Apologies)