Lucia by herself all of Day 1

Lucia:
I once dreamed of taking 6-8 weeks and traveling through Europe by myself. I thought it would be good for me since I sort of have this co-dependancy thing. (a friend in high school Jill B once said to me: Leigha, co-dependency is a disease. I understand that most people wouldn't remember that, but she identified a core personality characterstic/flaw and I have replayed that conversation countless times in my mind) However, that dream will probably never come to pass.
I have identified another core personality characteristic, I find facing the unknown alone scary. Very scary. I put on a blustery front, but in my heart I want to blindly follow someone else and trust that they will tell me what to do.
Lucia, you say, your alter ego travels every week and at least once every 4 months to somewhere she has never been. How could this have been any different? Well, I made it on to the plane in Atlanta (bound for San Jose) just fine. That was all the same old same old travel. But then on the plane there were all these people speaking spanish and I didn't understand them (why, oh why didn't I bust out those tapes that Hillary lent me during the last three weeks? Instead I bopped around in my car to Carly Simon. Curses!).
The really scary part came when I got a taxi, but it turns out that it was really easy. I saw a sign that said Taxi, I followed it. I paid 18 dollars and got a receipt. I wandered outside and some man took my receipts, said follow me and we drove to the hotel. He even understood what I was saying when I read the spanish off the printed sheet.
I do have to say that I held it together pretty well when we got to San Jose, because we didn't really drive through nice areas. I would in fact say that these areas looked as bad as the South Side of Chicago. all the windows boarded up or with those gates on them, random men standing in doorways, prostitutes... etc. Finally we transitioned to a better area, but still the hotel door looked like wooden planks. Then I walked through a scary hallway with leaves everywhere, a bit menacing. The guy checked me in, it was 25 bucks for one night, and walked me the four steps to my door. my room consisted of a twin bed, a wardrobe, a small desk, some shelves, an alarm clock, a lamp, a small tv with lots of channels, and a private bathroom. one the whole, pretty sweet.
Sure the room has open windows at the top into the reception area/living room/computer room, and I could hear the receptionist when he shifted on his chair, so certainly he could hear me pee, but still nice enough.
I went to bed and slept just fine.