I travel and experience life not so that others can see me, but so that I can see and experience the world. – Author Unknown

It's only fitting that the first day of 2013 is exactly 303 days away from home. The area code of Denver. Three oh three baby. Since I am planning to travel to Costa Rica tomorrow I’ve decided to give my staff the morning off and chose to work the morning shift (7am-12pm). Thinking that this was going to be a nice quiet morning I was planning to catch up on some reading, however, it was quite the opposite. The new year started out to be one of the busiest and craziest shift I’ve ever worked. Complete with a drunken local wondering in to the hostel and just after escorting him out he chose to become aggressive throwing our sign in to the street and smashing it against the cobblestone road. Soon after this there was relationship drama between a staff member and his girlfriend that resulted multiple therapy sessions by our designated doctor Saf. Even after completing the madness of the morning I spent the afternoon running around town trying to get things done before my early morning departure the following day by organizing a taxi with Ian and a few others. While I was running around town I bumped in to Lali, one of our staff members and a great friend, stopping her on the street and warning her about the dissension at the hostel we wisely decided to go for lunch. Even after several hours of avoiding the hostel, the tension seemed to have exponentially grown and could be cut with a knife. What a way to start out the new year.