Duchess Rebecca: January 2012

2012 is flying right by, I hope it's been a happy year for you so far, unless you're a jerk. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. This means nothing until January 23rd and then I think it means Americans are supposed to go out, eat greasy Chinese food and get wasted on flaming volcanoes (it's a drink, you perv); mark your calendars! It's also the last year of your life, according to the Mayans, so enjoy!

I rung in the new year on a flight from Guatemala City (coming home from Costa Rica), it was better than it sounds. You see, we (me + my family + a bunch of people I didn't know) flew on Taca Airlines for this trip (the previous three years we've flown on domestic carriers) and flying in a taco was awesome. I'm writing this because, typically, you only read angry posts about travel and I wanted to write about our excelente airline experience.

Taca Airlines (based out of Lima, Peru) is the most efficient airline I've ever flown on. You can check-in online, avoiding long airport lines (even if you're checking luggage, they have a special line just for online check-ins), all of our flights left on time (well, we left 15 minutes late from O'Hare...but if you know O'Hare, that's considered "on time") and most of our flights arrived early. On board the Airbus 319 and 321 they pleasantly served free food and beverages, including alcohol, which is really all you need to know.

This was our fourth year Christmasing at Jaco Beach, Costa Rica, it was a truly lazy vacay, lots of sun, food and drinks. I love being lazy, I'm an expert at it. We enjoyed long days at the pool where we met people from all over the world including a family from Fort Dodge, IA who also have a summer home on Lake Okoboji where we apparently dined next to each other, last Fourth of July. It was nice having other Iowans there to watch sad bowl games with.

Here are some pictures to prove I went on vacation. I'm not in any of them...so, I guess you'll just have to take my word for it: