Feb 9, 2012

On The Brink of Insanity

I lost my Zen. There was a Zen, I had a Zen and now the Zen is gone. Gone, gone, gone. And it's quite funny that today, that I lost my Zen, I actually achieved something important to me: I drove to San Pedro. Yay! I did it! ^_^ So here's what happened:

By yesterday I finally had all my stuff packed in three large suitcases and a cabin luggage, which rivals in weight with the bigger ones. Yes, that's me all the time. I had found my center and was calm about the whole "I can't take all my stuff with me now" matter. It upset me, BUT there are conditions: luggage capacity conditions, human strenght capacity conditions and the reduced space and lack of storage units at my new home. So yes, be smart Bunny, we can't pack up the whole deal now and expect to have the same room, closets and shelves there! So I had come to be in peace with that. Good.

There were, though, things that I had to arrange but couldn't manage to arrange before. I had to take a letter PERSONALLY to the College of Professionals in Economical Science to request a change of status due to me leaving the country. (That thing I wrote about being in the technology era and yet having to nearly send it by pony-express? Yeah, that thing.) Then I had to return my checkbooks (another thing you must do personally at the place where you opened the account), meet with Dragonfly-cr, take a recommendation letter to Kate's workplace, pick up a suitcase from my brother's and post some snail-mail. To do the first three things I had to go to San Pedro. I've never driven in San Pedro, and have always considered it difficult, so having the chance to do it was an opportunity I wasn't going to waste! I decided to take a route through San Pablo, Santo Domingo, Tibás, Moravia and Guadalupe, which I used to take quite often... in bus... five years ago.

I went once with Kari, and we got lost in Guadalupe, but ended up getting there. This time around... I've got lost again in Guadalupe. However, after rolling around and driving in the opposite direction, I finally happened upon the road and got there. Once I saw the Flag Rotary, I was thrilled! So I went to the College, managed what needed to be managed, then went to the Bank, where I met my old coworkers and managed what had to be done as well. I learned also that one of my old coworkers had paralytic stroke and ended up brain dead. She was a smart, kind lady who was always ready to help the new coworkers in their job. She was like a mom to all of us. Mayela will always be missed dearly by all who knew her.

From there I met with Dragonfly-cr, who had prepared for me a wonderful present. :-) She got me magnetic decorated notepads and post-its. They are so beautiful!!! ^_^ It was like she was reading my mind, because I was actually thinking how can I get magnetic pads in Hungary for my grocery lists!!! I'm all about the magnetic pads, but they are not always easy to come by. We had Mexican food, talked and shared a lot. I'll miss her.

Then I had to go to Escazú, to Multiplaza to get Kate her letter. I was going to use the only safe road I know, which involves going through San José downtown. Dragonfly and her friend told me to go through the rotaries, which was a shorter way. As they explained, it was all nice and fine, si I decided to go that way. Well, first I had to extricate my car from the parking lot, where a MORON parked so close to me, I nearly broke my mirror. But I did it. Then I went through the rotaries. Yes, except that I turned off the road at the wrong sign (Escazú, not Santa Ana) and got into the worst part of San José: Alajuelita.

I rolled and went and had to U turn a couple of times and make really stupid driving decisions, nearly sat down and cried, but eventually I've got on the road. I ended up again going towards San José, not towards Multiplaza, but turned at a safe point and got there, left the letter and went to pick up the suitcase and post the letters.

There I thought I was out of the woods. No, I wasn't.

In here I nearly murdered my boyfriend over packing disagreements. It did upset me that though he has much less stuff that I do, he suddenly considered a lot of his things of "vital importance" and started pulling of my stuff. He as all his things there and I'm not, and he's claiming importance and "can't live without it" about shirts and tracking shoes. I did upset me. Then I kinda got over the matter, packed in the extra luggage, when he started bitching about "what if we can't get those up". Dude, we are paying extra, why couldn't we? And if we can't, that's why I declared two of the luggage pieces "the primal ones". The other two, if we can't take them with us, will be brought by someone else. But really, why wouldn't we be able to put those on the plane? People do it all the time - and we would be paying for them, and isn't now the airline industry all about getting more money from the clients?

I tried to get ahead of the situation, and do the web check-in and check also the extra luggage (20% discount if you do it online!), but the site of Air France wasn't helping. I could see my reservation but I couldn't modify anything, even if the site had a button that allegedly took me to where the modifying could be done. There was no clear sign telling you you can't add more luggage, or you can't upgrade your seat (which I also wanted to do), so now here I am, out-Zen-ed, worrying about luggage and about what will happen in Paris if we have to pick up the luggage and drag it to the hotel... which isn't the same as going to the hotel only with our cabin luggage.

I'm worried. I really am. I'm anxious, and guessing and trying to prepare myself to the worst scenarios... but then again what's there to worry about? If I don't get all the luggage up, what's so bad about it? It's not like it's going to be lost in the sea, AND it's easier to navigate from Gare du Nord to Rue de Maubeuge with only a big suitcase and a cabin luggage, right? And if we have to navigate Paris with two pieces of check-in luggage, hey! at least we've got them on, right?

There's a positive side to everything... Now I'll go wash my hair and try to recover my Zen. Like the trips, they've got tricky, but I've got to my destination nontheless.

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