All good things must come to an end. And hopefully, that makes room for even better things!

I have been planning on going to Istanbul, Turkey for a few months now, but it is all finally starting to hit home that I will probably not be back in San Francisco for a long time.

It’s funny how we take things for granted. There are so many things that I have been wanting to do here, but I keep putting them off thinking that I have time to do them later. Perhaps this is an analogy for life as a whole. We think that we have all the time in the world and never manage to get to the things that we really want.

I have approximately one month left in San Francisco. I am taking the LSATs on Saturday, February 6 (wish me luck) and then I am compiling a list of everything that I want to accomplish before I leave the city.

I am also working on flexing my blog muscles. After months of not traveling or writing, they have become quite rusty and I need to get them back in shape if I want to keep track of all my crazy traveling adventures.

So check back soon. I am going to be uploading fun videos and photos of my adventures around this fair city. It should be fun!

Wow! It has been a while since my last post. Life has been extremely busy, as usual.

Jim and I came up to Alaska for Christmas and have pretty much been in a vegetative state since our arrival. My first week wasn’t very fun because I came down with the flu almost immediately after getting here and it was a doozy! I can’t remember the last time that I have been so sick that I had to sleep on the floor of the bathroom for three days.

This last week has been a lot of laziness. The lack of sunlight is really throwing us off. I was shopping with Matt today and he said that we are up to 4 hours and 45 minutes of sunlight a day. Not a lot!

Christmas, at least, was a lot of fun. My brother, Dean, came out from Anchorage and we spent a lot of time playing games as a family. Dean got my parents a Wii for Christmas and we have been enjoying learning the new games. The whole point of having a Wii is to have a game that makes you get up and move, but the guys have pretty much figured out how to play all the games from the couch, so it’s not as effective.

Jim and I are driving down to Homer tomorrow for a couple days to see our friends. I am hoping that it is a lot sunnier down there than it is up here. The last couple of weeks have been so overcast that it is still dark even during the daylight hours.

Jim and I have been going non-stop the last few months. We got back from Central America just in time to pack up for a week of intense camping at Burning Man. Jim was there for 12 days, I was there for 8. We had a great time, but I was ready to come home after a week of extreme dustiness.

We were home less than a week when we packed up again to fly to Seattle for a week. Jim’s favorite band is Pearl Jam and they are playing here tomorrow night. We flew up a few days earlier so that we could spend time with my Aunt Sue.

Having the ability to work from the road is a godsend. I have traveled more in the last 12 months than I have in my entire life. We are constantly flying somewhere or road tripping around the west coast.

Living in San Francisco with 30 roommates is chaotic and frustrating at times. I get burned out on not having any personal space. This last week in Seattle has been a serene oasis from our hectic lives.

My Aunt Sue has a beautiful house in Federal Way where we have been staying and working. It is amazing to have so much room to ourselves! Plus it is insanely clean compared to our place in SF. Jim works from the office upstairs and I work in the living room. I have gotten more done this week than I ever have in SF. It’s amazing what one can accomplish without constant interruptions and distractions.

My aunt is a really amazing woman, too. She always makes me feel so at home and even gets all the special food I like. The first night we were here she made us tri-tip steak that Jim has been munching on all week. Unfortunately she had to fly back to Wyoming for a couple weeks, but she was nice enough to let us stay in her house and drive her car while we are here. She even booked us a hotel room right down the street from the Pearl Jam concert on Monday night so that we don’t have to drive.

I forget how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family, sometimes, but, when I am reminded, I am so thankful! Jim and I have been having a great time bombing around Seattle in here jeep. We have been busy visiting friends and catching up. Last night we had dinner with my friend Peter who is a financial advisor down here. We used to be roommates in Alaska and it’s funny to see how much life can change in one year.

We spent today with some of my old college friends. They live on Lake Washington and have a boat so we were able to go wake-boarding between football games. I think that Jim is still a little burned that the Cowboys lost tonight. He wasn’t in a very good mood on the way home.

Tomorrow (Monday) night we get to go to the Pearl Jam concert and then on Tuesday we are heading back to SF for a couple months before the holidays roll around. I am really excited to head to Istanbul in January. It is going to be such a different experience as far as culture. I need to start reading up on it!

Jim and I made it home in one piece from Central America. I only left little chunks of myself in half the bug population. Terrifying!

Coming back to CouchSurfing BaseCamp has been an interesting adjustment. We were only traveling for 6 weeks, but that’s long enough to forget how chaotic life can be around here. Living with 30 roommates is busy enough, but then when you throw in their friends and the unexpected guest it can often double the population here.

The best part about coming back to BaseCamp is our new kitchen manager, Shirley. She is an incredible cook and has run many restaurants in her life. My only fear is that I am going to blow up like a balloon. Last night we had BBQ pork ribs, baked beans, homemade potato salad and coleslaw. Shirley makes almost everything from scratch and it all tastes amazing. I guess I’ll actually have to start working out now.

Which brings me to some not so pleasant news that I came home to. One of my roommates took my bicycle while I was gone and didn’t lock it properly and it was stolen. I am super bummed because biking is a great way to get around our neighborhood and city. The bicycle was a gift that one of my friends gave me right when I moved to the bay area. It was a vintage Raleigh road bike that was in need of repair so I have been taking it to a bicycle coop called the Bike Kitchen where I have been working on it. When I first got it, it wasn’t even rideable, but I have put many hours into it to be able to use it.

Events like this are the most frustrating aspect of living in a communal environment. In this case my roommate thought it was a communal bike when she took it, but there have been many times when people will borrow my things without asking and return them in worse condition. Jim and I are part of a small minority who have cars in the city and when we all ride somewhere together I can’t remember the last time one of our roommates offered us gas money. I hate feeling bitter and jaded about things like this, but I am tired of being taken advantage of by people.

Luckily I don’t have time to dwell on some of the downers because I will be going to Burning Man in a couple days! Jim left yesterday to go help set up our camp, American Steal, and took all of my things with him. I am done packing and have nothing left to do to prepare and feel great! Well, actually, I need to clean my apartment because it looks like a faux fur monster was massacred. We have been crafting up to the last second to make things like fur cuffs, boot covers and the like.

This is my first year at Burning Man and I am not sure what to expect. I have been going to many of Burner city events like decompression and Pink Mammoth fundraisers throughout the year, but I’m sure the real thing is totally different.

This year the theme is Evolution which is interesting because for the first time ever, there will be a cell tower out there. There is a camp specifically designated to helping Burners install an iPhone app that allows them to see a map of the playa, all the camps, and all the different events that are happening. Since I have never been, I’m not sure how this will affect the whole vibe of the playa. In the past it has been a lot about community isolation, random experiences and down right survival. Will being able to use cell phones change the whole dynamic?

I’ll make sure to post lots of pictures when I get back!

A couple weeks ago our lovely neighbors were burning all sorts of horrible things in front of our house and the black acrid smoke came billowing in through the windows. I can only describe the stench as a cross between moldy leaves, plastic forks and carcinogenic chemicals. Jim immediately began hacking and by dinner time he was running a very high fever. Of course I decided this by touching his face because we don’t have a thermometer.

The next day Jim was week and sick and I was popping him full of Tylenol to keep the fever down. It was an odd cycle of sorts. Jim would be sweating with chills and a high fever and I would want to take him to the doctor, but he couldn’t walk into town so I would give him several Tylenol and in an hour his fever would be reduced and he would feel a lot better so we wouldn’t go to the doctor. Yeah, stupid, I know.

It didn’t help that we had a weekend excursion planned to a tiny town called Montezuma. We packed Jim in the back of the van and he slept all the way there. Once we arrived in town he slept almost the whole weekend. Once again I thought it was a good idea to go to the doctor, but there isn’t a doctor in Montezuma. So we stuck to Tylenol and lots of sleep.

By the end of the weekend Jim’s fever was gone and his cough wasn’t as bad as it had been, although it was still pretty bad. We came back to Samara and he seemed to be doing a lot better.

Well, yesterday Jim and I were supposed to leave on the 3PM bus to San Jose and then were going to catch the 9AM bus this morning to Panama. Around noon he had a horrible relapse and was incredibly sick with a cough and fever. It is stressful trying to make travel arrangements and then have a person get very ill. The most stressful part is that we have to be out of our house by Monday, so Jim can’t take the week to lay around and recover.

I knew he needed to go to the doctor immediately, but didn’t know where the office was or if they were even open. Our roommate, Cyril, who is from Costa Rica, was not being very helpful in acquiring information so I did a mental checklist of the resources at hand. I figured that any major hotel has an emergency number for a doctor in case one of their guests gets ill. I called the large resort that is in town and the woman at the front desk was very helpful. She gave me the doctor’s home number and cell number.

I called the doctor and was trying to speak Spanish over the phone, but I was flustered and worried about getting somebody to see Jim. Luckily the doctor speaks perfect English and I was able to convey what was going on. He opened his office for us and said that he was going to send a taxi to pick up Jim since he couldn’t walk and we don’t have a car. We waited for a half hour before an SUV finally pulled up outside our house. Jim and I climbed in the back and were sitting there for a bit before the man driving turned around and said, “I’m not a taxi. I am the doctor.” The doctor couldn’t get a taxi to come get us so he drove over himself!

Doctor Soto took us to his clinic where his wife is his assistant and immediately put Jim on an IV. Jim was extremely dehydrated and sucked up three pints of fluids within two hours. The doctor was so cool. He hung out with us and was watching HBO movies while Jim was on the IV. After Jim had a bag of IV fluid and some other intravenous drugs, the doctor ordered him a bowl of soup from the Italian restaurant next door. Jim had hardly eaten anything all day and it was promising to see that he had his appetite back.

Doctor Soto took me aside at one point to give me all the medication that Jim needs to take this week. It involves five different prescriptions, one being Zithromax, and they all have to be taken at different times in different doses. Once we got back to the house, Jacinta, one of our roommates, had to write it all down for me so I wouldn’t forget which ones at what time.

After we were at the doctor for a few hours Jim was feeling a lot better. His color was back and he was sweating again (before he was too dehydrated). We paid a whopping $214 for the checkup, transportation, medication and soup (anybody in the states knows that this would have been many thousands of dollars in a US emergency room) and we got to hang out with the really cool doctor for a bit. The doctor was sure to give us a receipt so that Jim can send it into his insurance company and drove us back to our house.

Jim has an appointment to see the doctor Monday morning so we are sure that the medication is working. Today Jim is feeling a lot better and we are being careful to feed him warm food and lots of water! Our trip to Panama has been postponed for a couple of days, but we are hoping to make it there Tuesday, instead.

When I was trying to find a place to have a Skype call with Rachel this morning, I found this frog stuck to one of the doors. The sound in the background are the howler monkeys in our backyard. Pretty cool!

Jim and I only have a few weeks in Costa Rica and since we work most weekdays we have to make full use of all our weekends.

I really wanted to share the town La Fortuna with Jim and see Arenal. Arenal is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. It is constantly spewing lava and heats up some beautiful thermal hot springs.

I didn’t do a very good job of making any arrangements for our weekend. I just figured that it would all work out, which it kind of did.

We rented a car in Samara and made the 4 hour drive to La Fortuna; only needing to stop for directions a handful of times. Driving in Costa Rica is an adventure in itself. None of the highways are properly marked and the roads are curvy and intersect each other at weird angles, it’s easy to get turned around.

Unfortunately, the last few weeks have at Arenal have been nothing but rain and clouds. Nobody has been able to see the volcano and they just get wet trying.

We decided to spend our evening at the Baldi Hotsprings resort. The water is thermally heated by the volcano and they pipe it into their landscaped water park that is complete with water slides and wet bars. It is summer vacation for most kids in the northern hemisphere so the place was packed.

At first we were suffering from sensory overload, but the farther we walked up the hot springs the quieter it got and we finally found the “no kids allowed” pools which were beautiful and relaxing.

Spending hours in hot springs made the rain feel cool and refreshing. The weather alternated between moist cool air to torrential downpour (that was my favorite).

The next morning we woke up to rain, rain and more rain. There isn’t much to do in La Fortuna that doesn’t involve hiking, horse back riding or being outside in general so we cut our losses and headed back toward the coast.

We drove a few hours back toward Tamarindo, which is a bustling surfer/ tourist town. On the way we stopped at Playa Conchal, which made Jim a little nervous. We had to drive through the town Brasalito and along an off road vehicle trail that spits out onto a beach which you have to drive along until you get to another jeep trail which in turn spits you out on a rutted out parking lot for Playa Conchal. Did I mention that we were driving a glorified European roller skate for a rental car with no ground clearance! People were giving us incredulous looks as we barreled our way down roads that only off road vehicles usually drive on.

The harrowing journey was worth is. Playa Conchal is named so because it is made up entirely of little white shells. The water is a beautiful clear blue/ green because there is no sand to make it brown.

Jim and I spent hours sitting in the surf letting the waves push us around and feeling the little shells underneath us. It is definitely one of my favorite beaches ever.

Once the sun started going down we decided to head into Tamarindo and see about finding a hostel for the night. We arrived in Tamarindo just in time for the sunset, which was spectacular. The sky had large puffy clouds that magnified all the different colors that were being reflected off the ocean water.

It’s amazing how quickly it gets dark once the sun starts setting. Within a half hour of being on the beach it was pitch black. We drove into town and looked into a few of the hostels, but they were either full or expensive. We didn’t want to pay $30 for a crappy room when we could just drive an couple hours and be home. The thing about Costa Rica is, though, that one should probably avoid driving in the dark, if possible. The roads are narrow and windy and there aren’t very many street lights.

We made it home safely and are already making plans for the next time that we get to spend a day at Playa Conchal. Since it’s only an hour and a half away – we are thinking about making a day trip of it and going up with a picnic with our friends.

Yesterday was a wonderful day in Costa Rica. I went down to C&C Surf Shop and took a lesson on a long board. My instructor, Samurio, was great and had me standing up in no time.

It’s really amazing how different surfing is once I have some instruction. When I lived in Costa Rica in 2004 my good friend, Joann, and I spent almost every weekend surfing. She is a natural athlete and has always been much better than me. She tried to show me the ropes, but it never really took as well as with one on one instruction.

So now I am super excited to get to surf everyday here in Samara. Jim has a surf lesson today and hopefully he’ll get the hang of it pretty easy so that I have a partner to go with me.