“When you feel homesick… just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.”
~ Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
I thought about that quote as I sat in the backseat of my parent’s car driving to the train station. It was five in the morning and the moon was full. I was absolutely terrified. Everything in me was telling me not to go. I wanted to stay here with my family and friends, safe and sound. I would only be away for two months but the longest I’d ever been away from my family before this was one week – and I’d cried for half of it! But my flight was booked and there was no turning back – in 24 hours I’d be halfway across the world in a strange place where nobody knew me. We reached the airport as the sun was rising. We checked in my bags, bought a few snacks for me to eat on the way and walked up to security. Leaving my parents was the hardest part; I quickly said goodbye with a feeble attempt at a brave smile and ran off, waving at them all the while. After I’d gotten through security, that’s when I felt the excitement. The sheer reality of my upcoming adventure hit me and suddenly I wasn’t a scared, unemployed university graduate, but a wandering, free, independent spirit off to make a thousand new memories all of my own. Before I knew it, I was sitting on an aeroplane and flying. Little London town was beneath me, getting smaller and smaller as we flew higher and higher into the sky. I don’t think I ate anything on the first leg of the journey – all the nerves for what was to come kept me from wanting to do anything besides look out the window at the clouds all around me. I had a layover in Newark which was also not helping with my anxieties about the journey. The layover ended up being relatively simple, apart from the customs man voicing all the doubts I’d been pushing to the back of my mind: “what if your host family doesn't like you?”, “what if you don’t like it there?” I told him it was a bit late for those kinds of thoughts but he had TERRIFIED me by that point! I sat on my own in the airport and had a little panic – but in no time at all, I pushed myself back on my feet and continued on my way. The next flight was about 5 hours and we followed the sun across the sky. I got to see New York from the sky at dusk and also managed to eat something this time round. As we got closer and closer to Costa Rica, I began to see the lights of Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The more excited I got the more nervous I felt too – the butterflies in my stomach were multiplying by the minute. We landed in San José at about nine o’clock at night. Seeing the city lights as the plane descended, an immediate sense of comfort washed over me and I knew I’d done the right thing by coming here. I’d read so much about Costa Rica that, as cliché as it sounds, it almost felt like I was coming home. I got off the plane and felt the air around me. Coming from frosty England, it was the best sensation to feel the humid night air of the tropics. I could hear birds singing and it smelt like butterfly world! The customs man here tested my Spanish which I failed at terribly! After having collected my bags, I went outside into the night air to the greetings of a hundred taxi drivers, “Pura Vida!” they all exclaimed. ‘Pura Vida’ means ‘pure life’ and is a saying used by Costa Ricans all the time – as a greeting, as a question, and as an answer. It speaks of the relaxed way of life that Costa Ricans value. I couldn’t help but smile at their warm reception – my first Costa Rican friends had been made. I finally found my driver, “vamos!” he said as he took my bag and chucked it in the boot. We spoke a mix of English and (very limited) Spanish and I took in the surroundings of this new place. It was warm and tropical and beautiful. Looking up, the moon, still full but even larger now, smiled down at me and I knew that I wasn’t so far from home after all.
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