BIenvenidos a Venezuela!

We made it! Last night we arrived in Caracas, Venezuela after 10 hours of flights and two layovers. We got off the flight and made our way to La Aduana (Customs). As we were standing in line with all of the American immigrants two men dressed in suits with badges and walkie-talkies walked right up to us and asked to see our passport. They looked at Chris' name, grabbed my passport and told us to follow them in Spanish (thank God for the 8 years of Spanish I took in high school and college). I was so nervous and thinking, great we were just picked out of this whole crowd to get extra checked by security or something. But they lead us to the front of the line and told the woman checking the passports that Chris played for "Los Leones." Wow!! I couldn't believe they recognized him right away. It may have been the glove that he had hooked to the back of his back pack, but still! :) They lead us to baggage claim to pick up our bags. We were hoping that everything made it safely because we have heard that sometimes things can get stolen. I was even more nervous when half of the bags came out wrapped in Saran wrap to keep greedy hands out....full on mummified bags! But everything made it safe and sound!

While we were standing there, this man kept looking at us. Actually, more like staring at us. I even whispered in Chris' ear that the guy was making me nervous! He leaned over to Chris and asked him if he played ball. Chris told him he was here to play for Los Leones. And the guy kind of looked at him and asked, "Chris Jimenez?" He told Chris that they have been excited for him to get there and start playing. Can you believe that?

After we got our bags we had to get them scanned in a bag check. The men running the bag check knew Chris' name too. We were lead by the same guys in suits men out of the airport where they introduced us to our two drivers/security guards who were waiting for us. And we were off to the hotel....but first we had to fit the 5 bags that we brought in the car. Now when I say we had a driver, we had a really nice guy driving us in his personal car with our security officer. His personal car was not much bigger than a Honda Civic....and we had packed for two months! So needless to say it was going to be a very tight fit. We fit three bags were in the back and two bags were on our laps in the back seat with my purse and Chris' computer bag! We could barely see over them to the guys in front driving us!

As we made our way to the hotel, they gave us little bits of information along the way....this area is dangerous, this is the University, the President is crazy...etc. All in Spanish. I was very impressed that we were able to completely communicate with these guys. By the time we got the hotel, we knew the guys birthday, kids names, wife's name and the names of his favorite fast food restaurants. LOL! We are staying at the Best Western right in down town. The hotel is pretty nice. The room is really big, with hard wood floors and a flat screen. But we were so disappointed to find out that there is no where to hook the pull up bar for our P90X workouts! There are no door jams besides the one that goes into the hall! Chris and I started this work out program about a week ago. Its an intense set of workout CD's that are supposed to build lean muscle! So our goal was to keep this up while in Venezuela and give ourselves something to do. So we'll have to figure that out....but other than the lack of door jams the room is just fine.

We got up at 6:45am this morning (3:15am Pacific time...anyone know that Venezuela is 3:30 hours head? Apparently, the President wanted to be different which is why it has that extra 30 minutes in there). Chris had to be down stairs and ready at 8:30 for BP. The team is out of town on a road trip today, so we don't think Chris will be playing in the game tonight...but were still not sure. We went down stairs early so that we could get breakfast which is complimentary until 11am. :) It was very interesting. They had a continental type buffet with cereal, fruit, lunch meat, eggs (that looked a little green), bread, and ham and cheese stuffed "arepas." Arepas are mini corn bread patties...and they were actually really good.

Chris headed to the field and I'm just going to hang out at the hotel and try and make our place feel as homey as possible. I brought our stockings, Christmas lights and some ornaments...we have to be in the Christmas spirit right? LOL!

Day 1 down, 47 more to go! :)