Pictures

I uploaded our pictures to Flickr

Back home

That was one of the best vacations we've ever had. We got home this morning around 11:30 or so, and took a nice long nap to shake off some of the jet lag.

When I have a chance, I'll upload all my pictures and videos I took.

In the meantime, I uploaded my video of Donovan's penalty kick equalizer against Honduras last night.

Well, that's it folks

Great win tonight. So glad we came back from a 1-0 deficit to win it.

It's not going to be easy to go back to work on Monday. I better get to bed, because our flight tomorrow leaves Midway at 7:20 AM, which means we need to get to Midway by about 6:00 - 6:15.

Up early, and it's already almost 1:00 AM.

I'll try to fill in all the holes to our awesome vacation Sunday after we get home. Maybe. Have to see how that works out. :)

Game day

And I'm nervous. The US pretty much has to win.

In flight WiFi

We're on Delta flight 2076 from ATL to MDW. They offer in flight WiFi for the price of $9.95. Pretty cool.

I do not like ATL airport at all. What a mess.

I just checked the status of our flight while we're actually on the flight.

At the airport

We're checked in and waiting for our 8:00 AM departure for Chicago by way of Atlanta.

Robert and Amy have both been upgraded to first class, on both legs. Jan and I will be stuck in coach with a bunch of college kids who are currently annoying the heck out of me.

I never really did write a whole lot about our game day experience. Which was pretty amazing, in spite of the fact that the USA played like crap. The Ticos fans were fantastic, and gave us a bit of a hard time but in a joking fashion.

As for the game - I did expect us to lose. After all, we've never won in Saprissa. But I did not expect the team to play like crap and just crumble. Giving up a goal in the second minute certainly didn't help. They had to chase the game after that. Unfortunately, even down a goal the US didn't really attack, and had far too many back and square passes. I thought Beasley was pretty bad.

Tomorrow against Honduras is a must-win.

Yikes!

Well, that was a terribly played game by a woefully unprepared team.

The Costa Rican fans are pretty amazing though.

I'll fill in more details later. Off to get some breakfast and do a little sightseeing.

Our newest souvenir

So we all went over to the team hotel, and met up with Michael Kammarman, who is the team's press officer. We had lunch and were getting ready to leave when we saw him again in the lobby. He said "where are you going now?" and I said "we'll be heading back to our hotel. We don't want to bug the players before the game." He said "well, don't leave just yet, I need to run upstairs and grab something."

While we were waiting, Landon Donovan walked by and we said hello. He thanked us for coming. Then Frankie Hejduk came out of the elevator, and we said hello to him. Mentioned to him that we were celebrating our 20th anniversary, and he said "wow, that's great. Wait a second, let me go grab you a shirt."

In the meantime, Michael, a cameraman and a videographer came out of the elevator. I saw Michael give something to Frankie, who then came over to Jan and me and handed us a jersey that was folded up in a plastic bag. I saw number 20 on it, and thought, "wait, is that McBride's number? Who wears 20 now?"

Then I opened it up, turned it around and saw that "LASTORT" was on the back. The #20 was for the 20 years that we've been married. I got pretty choked up (yeah, I'm an emotional guy) and Michael interviewed us. I figure they'll probably have something up on the US Soccer web site later today or tomorrow.

That was pretty awesome.


Oh, and as an aside - a guy in the lobby was offering round trip transport from the hotel to the stadium - for FIFTY bucks each! Hell, you can take a taxi all the way from the airport to this hotel for $25.00 total for all four of us, and that includes all our luggage! So, yeah, don't think we're going for the $50 round trip deal.

Back in San Jose

We just checked into the Radisson Europa again for our San Jose part of the trip.

When we were in the taxi from the airport to the hotel, I noticed that I had a text message from US Soccer. We're supposed to head to the team hotel around 12:30 so they can wish us a happy 20th anniversary. Jan has no idea. She's taking a nap right now.

And I forgot to mention - when Jan and I were out to dinner last night to celebrate our anniversary, Robert popped the question and asked Amy to marry him. For some strange reason, she apparently said yes. :)

Game day! Oh, and our 20th wedding anniversary too!!! Our flight to SJO leaves in a couple of hours.

Our last day in Quepos

After yesterday, we just chilled at Tulemar and didn't do a whole lot. Beach and the pool. Oh, and Robert and I saw monkeys at the beach. Jan and Amy hung around the pool.

Tonight Jan and I are going out to celebrate our anniversary, which is actually tomorrow, but we figure tomorrow will be a little crazy with the game. We're going to check out a place named "Mar Luna," which we've been told has great seafood.

Tomorrow is a flight back to San Jose, very early in the AM, and then off to the game that evening. David, one of the waiters at the hotel restaurant, is going to try to meet us at bar Bugaloo.