Zoom zoom

There is a funny story from today that I have to share.

We have a new favorite sushi restaurant called Moby Dick's in San Pedro that we have been going to. We went to it for dinner and on the drive back we had an amazing driving experience. Down here the drivers are absolutely insane. We were driving back our normal route when we came upon this traffic jam. We are at a stop sign at a T in the road and we want to turn left. Well we can’t because there are two lanes of cars going in the opposite direction. This is a two way road mind you. So I am sitting at the stop sign for a while with my turn signal on and noone is getting the point that they are in the wrong lane. Well I see my chance and I gas it and turn into oncoming traffic. I am literally splitting down the center of two lanes of cars coming at me, laughing the whole time. Then the cars started to part and they let me through like nothing was wrong. An extreme example of Costa Rican driving but very typical. Ha. We got a good laugh out of that one.

Also, Shar made it back safe and sound. They ended up going to Tamarindo instead of Nosara since the plane couldn't land there. It sounds like they had a wonderful time. Shar is burnt crisp like a lobster and Chris has a bad rash from surfing but aside from that they are safe and sound. It sounds like they really enjoyed Tamarindo and thought that the guide book was way off base about how overdeveloped it is.

Central American Music

Just wanted to remind you that Adam has posted some of his music that he has been recording online. The stuff he's recording is pretty good. He's also letting me do back up vocals. Maybe I'll be famous one day like Tori Amos who sang back up for NIN. Except I have a bad voice that, thankfully, is easily covered by effects. I'm learning that effects = magic for recording music. With certain software anything can sound good.

Here's his music link.

Flooding on the Pacific Coast: Nosara to Quepos

Pobrecita Shar! Shar has one week off from school(not sure why something like a spring break). Shar's boyfriend Chris came down for a visit and they flew to Nosara for the week for some sol y mar. They were hoping to do a little surfing and relaxing.

Well I'm sure that they are having none of that. There has been major flooding on the pacific coastal towns of Costa Rica. Lots of people have died, lots of homes destroyed, bridges are down and roads are out. Costa Rica isn't a big country so this is devastating to the people effected and the surrounding communities. I hope they are all right, as can be...

Costa Rican Independence Day Sept. 15

September 15th was Costa Rica's Independence day, celebrating 184 years of indepence. The day of freedom is celebrated by having school children march in rigid formations, or at least make the attempt. Each class, or school sends the children off to march, or dance. Each class has their own drummers, all of which compete at a different pace.



Costa Rica doesn't have a military but all of the school children know how to march. They do this march every year. I wonder if this is a subconcious cultural act. There were a number of different marches but there was one popular march that was illustrated by stepping with your right foot and dragging your left foot forward until it reach the right foot. Nope, it didn't go past the right foot, but sort of made a half step. The kids liked to drag it forward with painful sarcasm. None of them seemed to happy to be there, with mother's tagging along the parade bribing them with sugary drinks. Currently the debate is about how long the girls skirts should be. The president has signed a new decree that all school skirts should be past the knee in length. So far nobody has heeded the creed. This is the typical Tico way, ignore the law if you want. Nobody is going to do anything to punish you.

Online Gambling?

It was funny today. Somebody on the Yahoo Costa Rica Living List accidentally inferred that we make our money by working for the online gambling community. If you didn't know this already Costa Rica has a large number of gambling companies that do the majority of their work online. These people make a lot of money and are probably associated with the underground current here in Central America. We are most definately not associated with these people.

You can usually tell who these people are. If you ask what they do they come up with some vague internet job, but if you ask them details like "Oh, what industry?" or "What company?". They will give you some vague answers or change the subject completely. They usually drive really fancy cars and have a lot of expensive stuff. It's illegal for any American to engage in this sort of work, no matter what country they currently reside in.

On a different, yet similiar subject...I was talking to this one American guy who has been in Costa Rica for five years, whose starting up his own language academy. We were talking about all of the large malls in the San Jose area, how empty they are (except on the weekends), and the fact that everything in them is really expense. We are not sure how Ticos can afford the goods for sale in the stores. He was told that the large malls are just a money laundering endeavor for drug money. I don't know if this is true, but just telling you what I heard. Interesting yes, true? Maybe...

Poas Volcano and a Big Waterfall Close by

So a few weekends ago we took a day trip to the Poas Volcano. Luckily we got there two minutes before it clouded over. It stunk really bad and looked like the moon, or what I think the moon looks like

Well not much else to say, it was a volcano, steaming, but no lava.

Here's a few more pictures

The Grahm-Crackers

So I just went to visit my grandma in Aztec New Mexico. She's getting pretty old so I volunteered to help her move in with my Uncle Andy and Aunt Dina. They live in Chama which is about three hours from Aztec. All of this is about 14 miles south of the Colorado border, literally in the middle of Indian reservations and National Forests. Beautiful area but very isolated.

Day 1
After carpooling with my cousin Jessica from Albaquerque we arrive at the High Country Tavern where my aunt and uncle are playing old-timey country with another really good guitarist. It was quite a little happening place. Full of honky-tonks and hunters. It was nice walking into some crazy cowboy bar in the middle of nowhere and having my mom, stepdad, grandma, aunt, uncle, the band, and cousins to greet you. It was fun, there was a guy there who dances with my grandma when she comes to the show, later danced with my mom, and than danced with me. It was a bunch of twirls to almost no rythm. Very similar to meregue or salsa but without a rythm. Later, I was hit on by this guy in full hunting gear. I was sitting right next to my grandma, holding her hand actually. He told me I looked like the executive producer for some good morning program that did a show on them, guys who do elk hunting with bows. I guess that's better than looking like his second cousin he had a crush on once. Very manly men who kept requesting Patsy Cline tunes. There are some good pictures.




Day 2
We go out to my aunt and uncle's new modular home. It was huge. Luckily it was in the middle of nowhere, but next to a national park so I got to go on a morning trail run and listen to the coyotes howl, we could see them with the binoculars. It was beautiful. That afternoon my great uncle Tuffy and great aunt Jenny came over with a medium size cooler full of vodka and seagrams 7/7 and proceeded to kick off the bbq with a vodka and coke bang! Now I know where I get it. We had a bbq with enough steak and chicken potato salad and coleslaw "to feed an army". We also had a jam session. My great aunt jenny was singing back-up. She was so terribly drunk and out of tune uncle Tuffy would periodically stop playing in the middle of the song and proceed to tell aunt Jenny he doesn't need any help singing. That was a nice way of saying don't sing, you sound horrible. I recorded this jam session and as soon as I get it edited we'll post it.




Day 3
We travel to Aztec New Mexico where my grandma's house is. Not much to it. It's the same house that my mom grew up in so it's kind of fun to go there and check it out. My uncle Andy who is a welder has his junk out everywhere. He recently accidentally started a brief brush fire so everything looks burnt, rusty and terrible.

The next couple of days was spent sorting through very old stuff. My grandmother gave me two of my great grandmother's purses and aprons. They're not anything fancy, but it's nice having something old from your relatives.

My drive back to Albequerque was beautiful. More pictures of visit.

Rio Celeste, Costa Rica

The Rio Celeste trip was organized by the teachers at the Blue Valley Private School. Shar is a teacher there and since no kids signed up the trip was taken over by adventurous school teachers. I was invited by Shar to come. So for 15,000 colones (aprox. $32) I got to go on a local adventure.

It didn't turn out to be local at all. It was a five hour bus trip to the lodge where we were staying, half of it over very bumpy dirt roads. For some strange reason, luckily, I can now withstand long bus trips over bumpy roads and can sleep through them. Even when Adam was driving the 4x4 through hellishly bumpy roads I just tipped back and fell asleep.

At the lodge there were four people to a room and the rooms contained bunk beds and lots of spiders. We were getting settled in and the next door neighbor ladies started having a screaming contest in spanglish: Muerte! Kill it! Cockroaches and spiders that were huge and fuzzy. I have two spider bites on my inner thigh. Not itchy, just kind of painful, with the knowledge that a spider was there. How did it get there? I slept with sweat pants on??

The next morning we get up and head to the national park. Since we were in a group of mostly ticos and school teachers with visas, we got in for the Tico price 500 colones ($1) instead of the gringo price $7.

I was told that it would be a three hour hike in and a three hour hike out. On the bus ride to the lodge I was looking around and there didn't seem to be that many 'in shape' people. Shar and I concurred; it wasn't going to be as rigorous as we thought. We looked like gear heads with our camelbacks on, but they are so handy.

Andele Arriba!

We thought that there were going to be hot springs but when we got there it was stinking so bad of sulphur, the water was this weird murky bluish grey color, and there were signs everywhere saying that they weren't sure how safe it was to swim. So the group decided not to go in. I kind of agreed. Recently I've been trying to improve on my inclination for being accident prone. You couldn't see very far into the water, and remember we are five hours from anywhere in the jungle. No need to push it. It was hot and humid enough, no need to step into mysteriously bubbling pool of water.

So we kept going until it was time to loop around. The loop around is crossing the stream. Not a big deal but the pictures are fun. Make sure you zoom in on the Abby crossing. Abby is Shar's roommate who doesn't particularly like the outdoors, was complaining incessantly about the gross factor, and requested that somebody sleep with her to protect her from spiders. Huh? And “Hell no” from Shar, Ryan and I. We could not figure out why she came on the trip. She's from the New York City area and cried when she saw cockroaches in their new apartment in Escazu. Come on now, NYC has cockroaches too.

Anyhoo, everybody made the crossings. I was so happy to be hanging out with Ticos. They were so happy. There was one family that came and the dad brought his two daughters and his mother. They were all just having a grand time. When we stopped for lunch he made them refried beans and tuna fish sandwiches, uummm yummm! I stuck with my trail mix though.

We stopped for lunch at the waterfall. The waterfall was amazing, especially the pool. It was this amazing blue color. It made for a very photogenic waterfall.

We made it back to the lodge. Everybody was wet, tired, and happy (except Abby of course). We had dinner than took the bus down into the pueblo and watched a futball game. It was Costa Rica vs. Panama. Panama looked really tight, but only managed to sink one goal. The Costa Ricans looked like the sloppy players but managed to sink three goals. I'm starting to like futball (soccer). It's really only a two hour commitment. They don't turn off the clock for anything unlike American football or basketball where the games can last longer than a four hour hangover in a crappy airport.

The next day Shar, Ryan and I took off for a power hike up to an old volcano that has turned into a swampy crater lake. The hike was like climbing a latter of roots and rooks. I was sweating gallons and I was happy to have a camelback it was quite a hike. We came back down and than powered through the hanging bridges hike that was more even and well maintained trail. We stopped long enough to howl at the howler monkeys and duck the flying shit. The trailheads for the two trails started at the lodge. Ironically enough this easy trail was where I took a major spill, but I protected Adam's camera that happened to be in my hands like a newborn baby. Hope you like the pictures.



Rio Celest Pictures

Magical Mystery Fruit Tour of Costa Rica

I had a request a while back to document the different fruits that are available here that we don’t have in the states. That includes a majority of what is available in the markets here. There are spiky red things and small green things. There are bunches of fruit that look like huge clumps of grapes. There are papayas that range is size from about the size of an eggplant up to something that requires two hands to carry. The list goes on.

We went to the large ferria(market) south of downtown San Jose with the sole intent of buying fruit that we had no idea what it was. I think that cruising around and buying the fruit was as much fun as sampling it all. In the picture there are obviously some pinapples, bananas, and a papaya. Those are our main meals down here a majority of the time.


Click on the link to check out the pictures and the write-up of our mystery fruit sampling:


Fruity Link

Mal Pais: Beach, Surfing, and Dirt Biking - Oh Yeah!

We took a four day trip to Mal Pais and it was sooo much fun. The trip to the area was precarious. We rented a four wheel drive, and needed it. We drove two hours to Puntarenas the port town and caught a ferry across the bay. Drove a hour and a half on bumpy paved road and than hit serious dirt roads. It just rained (it always just rained during the rainy season) so the mud holes where the size of houses. I felt like I was a rally car racer taking the four wheeler through the mud and sliding it around the corner. Adam's mom Charlotte was in the back and seriously scared. You're not having fun unless your a little bit scared! I'm not sure why Adam kept telling me the bumps were easier to take if you go faster, he knows I WILL go faster!

So we make it to Mal Pais and after looking at a a few hotels we settle on Hotel Casa Azul. Casa Azul was right on the beach, most hotels weren't. The caretaker was really friendly and relaxed and we would recommend this hotel. It's close to a few restaurants and shops. Most of Mal Pais or Santa Theresa is just strung along a road that parallels the beach, with most hotels on the non-beach side of the road.


The first full day we played in the water and went beach combing. The second day I rented a surf board for about $8 dollars and Adam and Charlotte went and found some tide pools. Luckily there are no pictures of me surfing, that would have amounted to a lot of crash pictures, but I did manage to stand up a couple of times. Overall though, the ocean just worked me like a wet cat in a washing machine. I was exhausted and grateful to go have dinner at Mary's for some fresh seafood.


The second day we went to Montezuma. Out past Montezuma is an island that is only accessible at low tides and this is where a cemetery is located. Kind of eerie in a Tim Burton kind of way, very isolated. We walked out to it, paid our respect, and collected huge shells on the way back. I would recommend that little trip if you are in the area, it's pretty interesting.

Later we went and had lunch in Montezuma. Montezuma is a beach town with a lot of hippies, drugs, and mom and pop tourists. Luckily we had found some home made ice cream that was delicious. I'm not sure if I would recommend Montezuma. It's OK for some people, but not Adam and I. Adam got offered coke and weed on his way to the bathroom.

That evening we returned to Mal Pais were we found that the next door neighbors were the host of the evening party. It was a dj party were you could hear the base a few hundred meters away. I'm told that Mal Pais has a party every night, except at a different bar. Our friends who were staying at the Mal Pais surf camp where the party was the night before clued us in on these party tidbits. Apparently two hundred tourists/surfers show up with a few local dealers and likely a few other scammers. Definitely not our scene but this is what we heard, thought you'd like to know.


The next day we were scheduled to return home to get Charlotte on her flight back to PDX. But before that we rented some dirt bikes and went on a two hour ride up the coast and than up into the mountains. It was some pretty intense riding for me because I have never been on a dirt bike, only street bikes. Adam told me the terrain was a challenge for him and he knows dirt biking. The hills were insanely steep with a lot of different sized gravel. The holes in the road were huge, muddy, and you couldn't see the bottom. But, we got to some isolated beaches that you just can't get to without a dirt bike, it was amazing. I can't wait to rent a dirt bike again.

Here's a link to the rest of the trips pictures.

Nicaragua Trip: Bull Fight, Historic Granada, and Ometepe

Day 1 started the evening before when we had a dinner party. We invited a few friends over where Charlotte shared the home made goat cheese she brought. It was so yummy! It's hard to find good cheese in Costa Rica. Unfortunately I've been cutting out dairy products and alcohol so my stomach was not prepared for the wine and cheese. Needless to say I required a barf bag on the bus trip to Nicaraqua, luckily didn't have to use it, but scared the hippy kids in front of me.

We crossed the border with no problems. The bus service is responsible for doing a lot of the paper work, so that made it easy.

We take a cab to downtown Granada and have lunch before obtaining a room. We must of walked across the central downtown three times comparing prices before settling on the Hotel Alfambra.

Walked around the spanish colonial downtown before heading to the lakefront. We just missed the large horse parade, but we didn't miss the bull fight. This was not a traditional bull fight, no bulls died. But they did harasas the bulls enough to make them very angry. Than they set some teenager boy on the bull and let them loose in a pin just larger than a basketball court. Than inside the pin boys and men of all ages would taunt the bull trying to get it to chase them. Some would have a red blanket. If the bull charged them they would dive under the fence or climb over it. We only saw one guy get seriously gored. We only lasted for two bulls, I think somebody said they were going to go through 14 bulls.

It was really sad seeing the bulls being taunted, the horn section was blazing in the back of our heads, the crowd began to surge forward into personal space because we had front row seats, the ancient wooden stadium was swaying precariously under the load of the anxious crowd, mothers could be seen down near the pin preventing their boys from entering the pin, and with my barf bag still in my pocket unused it was time to find our bed for the night.

Some 50
+ Pictures of Trip





Day two was spent walking historic and colonial Granada. I was happy to learn at the local museum that Granada is beautiful because of a plan implemented during the 80's and 90's to protect the historical charm of city. Successful plans are cool to see after the fact. Beautiful cities don't just happen, they are grown with plans. I went to planning school.



Day 3 was spent on Ometepe. Ometepe is the largest island in a fresh water lake. It is two volcanoes connected by an isthmus.

And I thought that I didn't like snakes.

We have a house cleaner come once per week because we are lazy bastards and its fairly cheap down here. Well she came over today and was doing her thing for a couple hours when she came running down from upstairs hysterical. She was sobbing and shaking. She was mumbling something about a serpent upstairs. I actually started to get scared too at the thought of a snake in the upstairs of our house. Then it hit me. While at the Bioparque the other day Luis had bought us a wooden snake at the gift shop. It is one of those green ones with all the segments so it kind of moves like a real snake when you play with it. She was scared to death of it. I went upstairs and just the head was poking out from under a bag. She told me that she has a phobia of snakes. The rest of the time that she was here cleaning she was sobbing.

Mental note: hide the pet snakes before she comes over next time.

My cat is not stupid.

My mom offended me the other day while she was here.  We were upstairs on the roof-deck hanging out in the sun and my cat Vida poked her head out the door.  She is not supposed to get on the roof because she will hop onto the roof which connects our apartments to our neighbors’.  If their upstairs doors are open then she will wander into their apartments.  She has been banned from the roof for a while now.

So she poked her head out the door and was just kind of staring into space like cats who are about to do something bad do.  My mom said “Your cat isn’t too smart is she?  She is just staring into space.”  I puffed up and defended my cat.  I just told her to watch and learn.   After a bit Vida slinked back into the upstairs door out of site.  Then about 30 seconds later she comes running out the door.  She runs full speed at the spot where she jumps onto to get on the roof.  I run after her and right before she makes a clean getaway onto the roof I grab her by the fur on her back and carry her like a suitcase back into the house.  The funny part was that once I grabbed her she didn’t fight it.  Busted.

That proved to my mom that my cat is a diabolical little bastard.  I also think that Vida only does stuff like that because she knows that I don’t want her to.

On a side note, Roberta and my mom will be getting back from Nicaragua either today or tomorrow.  Sounds like they have had a wonderful time.  They saw a real bull fight and went to Omatepe.  Also Roberta said that she got me a present that money couldn’t buy.  Hopefully that present is them getting back without being abducted.  I can’t wait.

Vamanos Pal Monte

Roberta and my mom left to Nicaragua for a few days so I am home all alone. Not bored by any means. Although I do eat crappier and watch more TV. For dinner I polished off a half bag of chips and a chunk of cheese. Mmmm..

Anyhow, before they left for Nicaragua we went up to the White House above Escazu for a "fancy" lunch. I quoted the fancy because it was really poor quality food at high dollar prices. My mom put it best in that the food could be served at Denny's. $4 for an Imperial and $3 for glass of Coke for example. Don't waste your time on eating up there although they went to the Spa after lunch and absolutely loved it.

Here are some pictures of the trip to the White House and the following day at the IN Bioparque in Heredia.

Click for pictures



I have also been working on my recording projects so here is the first pass. Click on the Oral History or Music links to find them.

http://www.kingnerd.com

More on TetraPak

First off I want to thank Jim and Joan for their kind offer of help. Unfortunately the current recycling problem is with Dos Pinos. TetraPak, I'm told, has a strong commitment to environmental stewardism. The environmental committee I've been working with has had a trouble getting an initial meeting with Dos Pinos to get this ball rolling.

A student from Earth University here in Costa Rica did a major research project on TetraPak and the recycling possibility and has given me permission to post here, but blogger does not seem to support posting powerpoint. If you are interested in reading this powerpoint (in english) please e-mail me and I will forward it. Or if somebody has an FTP site that I could host it too, please let me know.

I will be in Nicaragua for the next couple days, but will respond after that.

Also one big EEEWWWW, a very large cockroach just ran across my keyboard....adventure blogging!

Recent Happenings

I haven't posted in a while so here's what's been happening lately.

-We found the organic farmers market. It took a bit of a fortitude to find this place. We picked up our friend Clair and we go to the round about where she thinks it is, but we can't find it. She calls her friend and they speak in French and so we figure we are at the wrong round about. So we finally find it. This market was a bit smaller than the big market we are used to. There is much nicer produce though. The white pineapples are about half the size as the non-organic. There are more prepared food at the organic market such as cheese, breads, jams, and yogurt. We'll have to go back and test these things later. Seems like there is a community of people that go there every weekend. Maybe they will let us join their club.

-We went to see Madame Butterfly. Adam didn't want to go so we met up with some other friends and Charlotte and I went. Adam's mom, Charlotte is in town for the next 'not three weeks'. It's 'not three weeks' because Adam's dad Gene bought a ticket for 20 days instead of a week or two so that he could save $40 dollars. Get it, "Not three weeks" aka twenty days? Anyhoo Madame butterfly was in Italian with Spanish subtitles. I could mostly follow what was happening, but it was kind of hard to appreciate the art of opera when you are reading the subtitles in a foreign language. Shar reassured us what was happening with the plot line. At least somebody in our group new what this play was about. Costa Rica brought in some professional opera singers and orchestra director. It was mostly a very professional production. Remember, you are in a Central American country. But, you could tell the level of professionalism between the Japanese and Costa Rican artists, just the mannerism and stage presence.

-Charlotte and I are heading to Nicaragua for three day. I have to leave the country for 72 hours to renew my passport. Since I am on a tourist visa you have to leave the country every 90 days for 72 hours.

I received a bunch of e-mails with pictures of my family back in the states so I will post those since I don't have any other good pictures. We'll have some when we get back from Nicarauga.

Oregon Family Pictures

The Patron Saint of Costa: La Negrita

Roberta and I were driving back from seeing a movie last night and came across a huge traffic jam heading towards the San Pedro mall. We took some side streets and were confronted with huge masses of people walking down the road that goes from San Joes to Tres Rios. Thousands of people happily strolling east. Then we remembered that there was a large religious procession heading to Cartago. This was a constant stream of people about five wide for as far as we could see. Like salmon up a stream.

According to legend, on the morning of August 2, 1635, a young girl named Juana Pereira was out collecting wood to cook when she found the figure of the La Negrita on a rock that was the source of a water spring. Pereira took the figure home, but the next day the figure had disappeared and was again found on the rock.


Photo from infocostarica.com

Therefore, now over one million people walk from wherever they are in CR to the big church in Cartago and get there on the morning of August 2nd. Seeing as how there are only about 4 million people in Costa Rica that is a good chunk.

More info on La Negrita

CR: Paradise or Environmental Disaster?

So I went to the Costa Rican Democrats Abroad monthly speaker meeting. The speaker was introduced as the number one Costa Rican activists. But first they had a debate and openings and blah blah a lot of talking. Basically a bunch of retired people debating CAFTA, oil, war, upcoming elections. They track each state to make sure they are involved. They also do a lot of letter writing. Pretty active group, surprisingly.

Basically there are a number of environmental disasters going on down here:
1. Garbage! Lots of garbage. The city of San Jose's landfill is full and they still haven't finalized a contract for a new spot. Seems like there are some allegations of corruption.

2. Recycling! There are recycling facilities here, but there are not any pick up systems for it. So recycling is dependent on very poor people mining the trash for goods. I've volunteered on the environmental committee and we are going to be working on tetrapak. Tetrapak is from some European country that is encouraging recycling of their products by providing technical expertise, etc. Tetrapak is the packaging for soy milk, regular milk, wine, etc.... Wine from a box is popular down here because of the moist hot weather. You can get some good wine from a box! Milk in a box is also very popular down here. Unfortunately the queen activist mentioned earlier says that Dos Pinos (the big milk manufacurer and user of tetrapak) has been promising to establish a recycling program for years but hasn't.

3. Transportation! Ask anybody who lives here and they will tell you that the roads are hell. That's bad because it increases the maintanence on cars. But that's not the point. Taxes on cars are extremely high, therefore people hold onto older gas guzzling polluters for longer than they should (although getting new cars is a form of consumption), when higher efficiency vehicles could be used. Additionally the only people who use the busses are people who can't afford a car. The bus system down here is privately operated because their are market forces that insure that they will make money. Unfortunately these busses are also big polluters. I can't find the source, but I read an article that if the governemnt reduced the tax on cars pollution would go down because people would buy more fuel efficient cars. I'm not sure, that just might encourage people to buy more cars. Needless to say in San Jose pollution is a pretty big deal. The government has an incentive to reduce it, nationalized health care has to pay for all of the ailments attributed to pollution.

4. Chemicals! There are chemicals here for everything. Every public bathroom you go into is laced with these smelly pucks. They make my nose burn worse than any thing else you would smell in a bathroom down here. In San Jose the bathrooms seem generally cleaner, I don't think they need all those smelly crap pucks. They should just put flowers in the bathrooms. We have a bouquet of flowers in our house and you can smell it outside before you even walk in the house, mmmmm beautiful flowers for super cheap. No seriously though Costa Rica has the worst record for banning dangerous chemicals. This activist passed around a list of Central American countries and the chemicals they've banned. Costa Rica had the lowest number of banned chemicals, something like 23; whereas Nica, Guat, Hond, Pan and other countries had higher numbers of banned chemicals. Assuming banning more chemicals is better. According to the speaker the government officials say yes they are working on it, but they never are and have no intention of working on it. Remember this is costa rican culture. It's better to tell somebody a lie than to tell them the truth if you think it will cause ill feeling. Kind of like the ill feeling I have in my nose from chemical pucks.

5. Endangered Species: Everybody knows that Costa Rica has some of the highest concentrations of wildlife diversity than anywhere on the planet. The Costa Rican government has placed protections on certain species. Take for instance certain species of trees. There are a numbered of endangered trees that have been listed. The problem is that the guards who are suppose to be on the look out for these special trees do not know how to identify them. So there is very little enforcement of these laws. There are a lot more species in danger that she elaborated on but I can't remember enough of the details.

6. Shark finning: Shark finning is when they capture a bunch of sharks hack off the fins and sell them to the Taiwanese who use it for an aphrodesiac. Can't they just use ginger or X, com on! Completely illegal but it happens anyways. Shark numbers have been going down drastically in the last few years. The costa rican government is suppose to send an official on every boat to watch out for this but they never do. They don't have enough resources.

Funny joke, my friend Abby who works at the Tico Times has been doing a great job of following the shark finning problem and writing about it. When they heard that Shar Cayman was coming to town they gave her a nickname: Shark Coming. They have a cute little dance that goes with it. Shar was a good sport and laughs, but won't answer to the nickname.

Read more about it here

Rio Picaure

So Shar and I just got back from a two day rafting trip on the River Picaure. It was so much fun.

First we get picked up in downtown San Jose at the Gran Hotel Costa Rica. Than we drive about an hour and a half to the rafting company headquarters and have breakfast. Than drive a few more minutes to the river. We let the other one day groups go than we pack up the rafts and head down. This was a pretty active river, with a lot of section 3's and 4's with very few flat spots. I would say that it was more intense than the Rogue River and the Deschutes, but not the Klamath River. The river was the best part about the tour. The scenery, the smells and the rapids were amazing. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures on the river because the river was so active there were very few spots to get the camera out and take pictures.

The guides were very nice and the company was very organized. You never know with Costa Rica what you are going to get but this company had their shit together, so to speak. The lodge was rustic, but very nice. It had hot water, which is more than you can say for some hotels. They cooked all the meals. They were not gourment, but very nice. The best part was the view from the dining hall.



We also had a chance to do some canopy touring, which is just a bunch of cables strung across trees and you just zip down the line. I guess it's just scary because you are so high up. You just step off this platform into nothing, you are just hooked to this cable. I guess if you are a climber you might be used to this. This canopy tour was included in the package so I did it, but I don't think I would pay to do a canopy tour. I kind of saw it as a way to entertain tourists in the jungles. If the terrain, new smells, sights, animals, plants, bugs weren't enough to keep you entertained, which they are for me, they will take you up into this canopy tour and scare the crap out of you if you are afraid of heights, which I'm not. Though, the bugs and the snakes on the ground really scare me.

You can see the rest of the Rio Pacaures pictures.

I am not a Tica whore

There are pros and cons to looking like a Tica (Costa Rican woman). Brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin go a long way in avoiding taxi drivers ripping you off, random cat calls and stupid stuff Latin guys say to gringas. I know this because I was walking around town with my friend Shar who is really tall and a real redhead. We got soooo many rude cat calls and the taxi drivers trying to jack the prices up.

It's not that bad when I am walking around with Adam. The taxi drivers sometimes try to jack us but luckily there are no cat calls. The flip side to that is people think I'm a Tica who has just found herself an American sugar daddy. You can see the looks and you know what they are thinking. It's not unusual to see some young Tica girl with an older man walking out of the Del Rey hotel, a notorious prostitution house. Prostitution is legal here and 'sex vacations' are pretty big here.

Sex vacations are guys coming down here for a 'fishing trip', where they catch more than fish on the boats. If their wives want to come they just leave their wives at a spa or medical facility where she can get a quick nip and tuck. Adam and I found this out by sitting next to a guy on the plane that was a pimp. Yes, a pimp! He had a charter fishing boat.

But no, I am not a Tica whore, I do have a real job.

Ok ok breathe....

I have been holding back the criticism of Houston Texas just because "If you don't have anything nice to say". That was until I went to the mall to go to the book store to get a few English books before heading back to CR. I went to the Galleria mall which is huge. It had all the money stores in it. My urge to run away was strong while in this mall. I was able to find my way to the book store and it was tiny. Probably slightly larger than one of the three Starbucks that I passed on the way there. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. Coming from Portland where book stores can take up whole city blocks and be four stories tall.

Needless to say they didn't have any of the books that I was looking for so I got Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. I really enjoyed The Davinci Code and have heard that A&Ds was good too.

Job Duties

Yesterday I flew from Costa Rica to Houston for work. When I got to Houston I realized that I didn't have my driver's license, it was waiting for me in my PO box in town. That meant that I couldn't get the rental car that I had reserved. I hopped into a cab at the airport and started heading towards town. The guy driving was of latino descent so I started talking to him in Spanish. He could speak English but he was excited that a gringo could actually understand and (sort of) speak Spanish. He was from Guatamala and had been in Texas for 15 years. Originally in Guatamala he was a teacher and had some good advice on learning Spanish.

1) Buy a dictionary
2) Live where you are required to speak/listen to Spanish daily.
3) Watch telenovelas (Soaps) on TV.

Roberta has always said that she is watching the telenovelas to learn Spanish. I always made fun of her in the past. Sorry.

The Tico Time's Girls

If you get the Tico Times you will know that this week there was an 'entertainment' section where the Tico Times describes Karaoke in Costa Rica. There were some great photos of people singing their hearts out.

Backup a little bit...

So a friend from the United States introduced me to her friend Shar via e-mail. Shar just moved to Costa Rica and will be teaching at a private school Escazu, she's been staying with us for the last week. Shar was introduced to another teacher who knows some reporters at the Tico Times, who used to work at the same private school (it's a very small world in the english speaking circles of Costa Rica).

Well we meet the girls at a popular taxi pick up place, and low and behold the pictures in the newspaper matches who we are having dinner with. Needless to say there was a lot of teasing going on. But, I guess Karaoke is very popular with the Tico Times crew.

We end up at Machu Pichu (after getting ripped off my the cab driver, grrr). Machu Pichu is a very famous Peruvian restaurant that sells pisco sours. Pisco sours are now my new favorite drink, not that I drink that much. They are made out of some sort of brandy, lemon juice, and sugar. The brandy has a higher alchohol content than vodka so the first drink is all you need, but that is different than how much you want! By the second pisco sour we were ready to head to the karaoke bar. Luckily it was so crowded that only one person from our crowd made it up to sing. After that we went home because I just can't do that all night thing anymore, especially with karaoke involved.

Here is a picture of Shar,Roberta, and Adam.

Click for pic

Straight razors in the mechanic district.

That sounds like a good band name even though that is what I did today.

Two days ago our wonderful truck that we got a deal on overheated. Luckily we caught it before all the water drained out of the motor. We were heading over to try the restaurant Matsuri Sushi in Plaza Cristal in San Pedro. Right when we pull in the parking lot I smelled motor water in aerosol form. I look over at the temperature gauge and it is pegged. We pull over quickly and watch all the water drain out of the motor.

That set a nice mood for eating dinner. The sushi was ok but so damn expensive. The Spider Roll was very fishy and oddly crunchy. I don't think that we will eat sushi in Costa Rica again.

Anyhow, back to the story, we had to leave the truck in the parking lot at plaza Cristal for the evening and our mechanic came the next day and towed it to his shop. Turned out a water hose had cracked. He replaced the hose and that fixed it.

Our mechanic is over by Plaza Vicquez which is where we swim for lunch. After swimming today I walked over to the mechanic's and noticed a barber on the corner. After paying for the truck I went back and got my hair cut. I got my point across that I wanted to get it all shaved off. After shaving my head with an electric razor he busted out the straight razor and started to even everything up. All that I could think was "What is the Spanish word for ouch?", especially when he started shaving my neck. No blood, the guy was good. Good job for about $3.

Now I need to find some people who want to start and band and call it "Straight Razors in the Mechanic District".

You won't like me when I'm angry.

We went and saw Batman last night again for the second time, great movie by the way. We got back home at around midnight and I tried to check email and such and noticed that the internet was down. I decided that it could wait until morning.

It was still broken this morning so I called up tech support and the guy on the phone said that it was a problem with my computer. I hate having to pull the "I do computer networking for a living." bit but after about 30 minutes of him telling me that I needed to take my computer to a technician I did. It didn't help. Lo and behold, it made it to the front page of the paper this morning that ICE screwed up a router and knocked out internet service. But the funny part was that they broke the router last night and when I called this morning they didn't inform me that there was a current known problem.

It takes a lot to make me rant. Breaking my internet and then telling me that I need to take my computer to a professional is probably the easiest way. I am gonna head to a dark room and do some breathing exercise.

Sunny day trip to the park

Roberta and I had been meaning to go to this park where they fly kites and check it out. It was a sunny Sunday so we decided to go. It was packed with people and there was the usual kid chaos and there were ponies and a ton of people flying kites. The pictures will speak for themselves.

Pictures of the park

4th of July Picnic

We went to the 4th of July picnic and had a great time. There were probably a few thousand people there. It was very similar to going to a county fair except without the animals. A petting zoo here would be kinda sad since the animals are so skinny because it is so hot(except my kitty). I really think that the pictures and captions will speak for themselves.

Pictures here

Bzzzt zap crzzzzt!!!

For a lunch break today I decided to drive over to my favorite Cuban cigar store to pick up a couple for the party tomorrow(I will get back to the party). I was driving my normal route and typically where I take this one left right after a bank there were a bunch of cars stopped. I had my window rolled down and I heard what sounded like a crew of workers demolishing something. Almost like a jackhammer crossed with an arc welder. A guy came running to the end of the street and waved us on past that street. At that point I heard a Firetruck coming. The traffic started to move and as I drove by the road I saw that there was a powerline down in the middle of the road arcing. Huge showers of sparks and really loud poppings. The cable was literally jumping around the street like a firehose. Exciting.

Ok, now back to the party.

There is a huge party tomorrow to celebrate the 4th of July. It is put on by the US Embassy and has an expected turnout of around 5000 Americans. You have to show a valid passport to get in and there is all the free beer, cotton candy, icecream, bagels, etc that you can handle. There are games and two stages with music and performers and a water balloon toss and much more. Sounds like a crazy messed up zoo. Should be fun. Oh yeah, the best part is that it is from 8:00AM until noon. You have to have it that early because it starts raining at around 1:00 every day.

Little Joys in Life

Daily rythms have found their way into my life again, thankfully. There were a few months that went by without a daily rythm; moving, finding apartment, etc. That tends to to get old for me.

One of the things that I do is go to the mall (almost) every morning. Whah? The mall you ask? Yes my gym is there and it is so close I can walk. Otherwise I would be paying outrageous rich people fees to drive to some dumb country club. It's really easy here to work up a sweat. So after that on my walk home I hit the local orange juice cart. Orange juice carts are shopping carts converted into roving juice carts. So a fresh glass of orange juice on my walk home is one of my little joys, it costs about .50 cents and there is no pulp! Mmm yummy

Another little joy is seeing our truck right where we parked it. I always say to myself, woohoo I can't believe the truck is still there. There is no alarm system or anything and with late model SUVs being the easiest to break into and steal, it's a small little joy to see it parked right where we left it.

And have we mentioned before, people here are genuinely happy. There's no grumpiness, or bitchiness. There are a lot of refugees here and people who are very poor, but no need to be upset about it. When Adam is not looking I tend to give spare change out, sometimes they will give you a little treat for your change like mints but today I got a really nice smelling single stick of incense. It smells nice.

Another thing that makes me happy is working. This week I have finally started working. I like working, just not the 9-5 office thing. Here are the guys I am working for: GIS

Trip to Jaco.

Sunday morning Roberta and I woke up and decided to take a trip to Jaco. Jaco is the closest beach to San Jose and is an easy tourist destination. I guess that was the reason that it was packed with tourists. Most of the signs in the town were in English. We ate at a restaurant on the beach and our waiter talked with us in English. I felt like I was being cheated. It took all the fun out of ordering food, I knew what I was going to get.

We had a good time though. We went to a beach down the road from Jaco and hopped in the water. The weather was perfect and the water felt great. The Pacific side has the big waves around this area. I liked the Caribbean beach vibe a little better cuz it was more chill.

On the drive back over the mountains it started torrentially downpouring. Streams of water were running through the road in places. Made for an exciting trip back.

Roberta is starting work this week so we went to Office Depot to get her a keyboard. They had a nice wireless keyboard and mouse combo thing that would do the trick. We got home and opened it up and it was a Spanish keyboard. Duh. Things were all moved around and there was an upsidedown question mark. We couldn't find the @ key either.

Pictures Of Jaco Here

We didn't screw up!!!!

We finally had our show in the park. Mauricio on guitarra(guitar), Master Lucas on Tumbadora(Large Conga), and me on Bajo(bass). We have been practicing for the past few weeks getting ready for the show. Really fun music which I call Funky Latin Jam Folk. Soon I will have recordings and I will post them up here.

The show went perfectly. We were there on time and got set up without any technical problems. About ten minutes before we were supposed to play it started pouring down rain but quickly stopped. All the people came back out from hiding so we had a decent audience. We were all a little nervous but we nailed the show. Super fun time.

The weekend prior Roberta and I went to an open air produce/flea market near downtown. Piles of junk for sale. If ever I needed an old VCR that looked like it got hit by a hammer I would definately go back there. There were a lot of very expensive looking digital cameras without accesories or cables. Hmmm... Let me see.... STOLEN. They actually had the new camera that I was looking at getting there but my guilt got the better of me.

We actually went to the market to get produce which there was a ton of. An cheap too. Payin about .20c for a white pineapple. Most produce you could get a bag of for about .20c.

We also bought some Churros from this guy who was wheeling around this cooler. For .20c each we got a large stick of deep fried goodness filled with semi-sugary goo coated with cinnamon sugar. Mmmm.... That is the reason that I will go back to that market.

We are also very excited because my mom is coming down in August to stay for a while. Maybe we will go to Bogota Columbia. There is a 4 night trip deal with airfair and lodging and breakfast for $200 each person. There is the little problem with abductions in Columbia that we need to look into though.

Click here for pictures

Caribbean Coast

So this last weekend Adam and I drove to the Caribbean Coast. It took about 4 hours to get there and the road was through some really intense mountain, jungle areas. The road was good for part of the way, but than turned to dirt towards the last stretch.

We had received a few recomendations for places to stay but we didn't make any reservations because we were hoping to bargain with people since it is the low season. We ended up at Kasha were the owner was the dad of a friend of a friend. Needless to say he didn't give us a deal. Furthermore he was charging for an all inclusive stay ($75 a night which is spendy here). All inclusive means all of your meals and drinks are included. But here is the ridiculous part, nothing was included, not even breakfast. We stayed there one night and than moved next door to MiraFlora where the lady was super nice. She's been in C.R. for 17 years and was a very nice hostess with fair prices.

We had a great time after we got over getting ripped off. First we went to Playa Chiquita which is north of Punta Uva. This beach is very tranquilo, with very very small waves so you can just hang out in the water for hours, you didn't want to hang on the beach because the sand fleas were horrible. The next beach we went to was in Manzanillo. Manzanillo is at the end of the road travelling south. Here we snorkelled and swam. Snorkelling was really good here. Than we had lunch at Maxi's and started drinking and hung out on the beach some more and than drove to Puerto Viejo. Drinking was a treat because Adam and I have virtually stopped drinking except for special occasions. You have to drink pina coladas on the beach, no way around that!

Puerto Viejo is a surf, party, reggae town. Not much else to add, except very touristy. I'm glad we didn't stay there, but they did have a few good restaurants. We drove back on Sunday. Hopefully we will get back there soon, we had a really good time.

And here are the pictures

The Rainy What?

Wow, I guess it is the rainy season here. This is not like Oregon rain, it is a hard downpour that has been going on since mid morning. There are rivers in the streets and the drivers here who constantly have the “Pedal to the Metal” have learned that the accelerator is a variable input device.

This morning when it was sunny and perfect out I planted a bunch of plants that I scored from our friend Claire. We walked around her house and just pulled things out of the ground and tossed them in a bag. I will most likely have to replant them after the rain stops. I am going to take weekly pictures or so of the garden so that everyone can see how fast things grow here. I planted a basil plant in a pot on the roof and within’ a week it had doubled in size. Roberta has said that if you put a stick in the ground here it will grow into a tree.

Travel Companions Wanted

Hello All
As Adam has mentioned, we have prioritized some travel destinations in Central America that we hope to see during our stay in C.R, not in any particular order.

Guanacaste
Guanacaste is a northern pacific province of Costa Rica. Think beaches, oh yeah. Our friends have undeveloped beach front property there were we can either do some rustic camping or get some near by cabinas. This is about a 4-5 hour drive from San Jose

Lake Nica
There are two islands in the middle of Lake Nica which were formed by volcanos. Think isolated beaches of fresh water, home of the only freshwater sharks. This lake is in Nicaraugua so would require a bit of travelling from San Jose.

San Andres, Columbia
This little island is very close to Costa Rica but is Columbian on the Caribean side. Think snorkeling in coral reefs.

Puerto Viejo
Puerto Viejo is a Caribean town which has a strong 'rasta' culture and beautiful Caribeean beaches.

Granada Nicaragua
Granada is an old Spanish colonial town famed for it's spanish style architecture.

Cuba
Come join us and break some laws by visiting Cuba. Americans aren't suppose to go to Cuba but lot's do. Which also means that it won't inundated by tacky tourist traps. We've seen some fairly reasonable packages from Costa Rica.

Volcano Arenal
This volcano is famed for erupting when president Kennedy visited. I've heard there are smaller eruptions that are neato to see. This could be a day trip from San Jose.

Tortugero
Yep, this is a turtle-like destination. I need to do some more research so we can hit this location when the turtles are migrating. I've heard that you can volunteer there to heard the turtles or transport eggs. Sounds like a good excuse to see some wildlife. My mother has some funny stories about herding tarantulas and turtles in the Mojave Desert when she was a little girl. Adam and I are activley avoiding jumping trantulas but big slow moving turtles are more reasonable. My mom's brave like that.

Panama Canal
I've heard that Pananma Canal is nothing special, but it would be interesting to see it and use this as an excuse to explore Panama.

So, if any of these destinations perk your interests or if you have any that you want to add let us know. It's a lot more fun to travel with companions and it cuts down on costs.

Martha's Vineyard

What... I thought this blog was about Costa Rica. Well I, Roberta, attended a friend's wedding at Martha's Vineyard. I met Sonia at Cornell and she was recently married to Brook, who she also met at Cornell. They went thru some 'relationship growing pains' but they are now married. Which is great they are definately meant for each other on a lot of levels.

The wedding was really fun. My Cornell friends and I met up in Boston for an evening of beer drinking and catching up. Boston is a beautiful city. I would consider an urban living situation in Boston for a few years, unfortunately it's about as expensive as Manhatten in the nice areas.

The next day we head off to the Wood's Hull port where we caught a ferry to the island. My southern friends and I (from San Diego and Florida) brought the sun because it was beautiful weather. Almost as hot as C.R.

As soon as we get to our hotel we have 45 minutes to catch a bus to the clam bake. This clam bake had awesome food, including yummy lobster and wine. I've been missing good wine and beer - Costa Rica doesn't have too many options on that front except if you want to pay too much.

The next day is the wedding a short walk from our hotel at another hotel with a great view. It reminded me of Florence and growing up on the Oregon Coast except Martha's Vineyard was much much nicer and had a lot more yachts.

You can check out the pictures here:
Wedding pictures

New movements

Roberta and I are getting excited because we started looking into all of the vacations that we are going to need to take from this vacation. Cuba is probably tops on my list, then there is this little island called San Andres which is a Columbian island off the coast of Costa Rica, then there are these two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua call Ometepe. Next weekend we are spending three days in Puerto Viejo which is on the Carribean coast. We promise that we will post more pictures then.

I have been practicing with this band three times per week getting ready for the show. The music is going very well. Supposedly the Mayor will be giving a speech right before we go on. No stress or anything. Oh well, they rarely blame the bass player.

Orchestra and Sit and Spin

Last Sunday morning Roberta and I went to the Teatro Nacional and saw the Costa Rican Orchestra. There were 100 choir singers on stage behind the orchestra and the sound was awesome. There was a lady sitting around us who was wearing some perfume that smelled like a a fishing tackle box that I had when I was a kid. I have fond memories of that tackle box.

Then after the orchestra we went to this Cultural Craft Fair at the old booze factory which is now the Cultural Center downtown. To get there we walked through the park that we are going to be playing music at next month. Nothing too interesting at the cultural craft fair but I got a great picture of some kids playing on something that was either a toy or an old industrial component.

Check out the pictures for more:

Click here for pictures

How many ways to say rain?

I thought I knew rain. You know living in Oregon my whole life. Nope, you don't know rain until you've lived in the tropics. Today around noon it started pouring down, really pouring down with big huge drops accompanied by thunder and lightning. Rain here is like a little baby: sometimes nice, clean and refreshing but other times screaming bloody mary trying to put out the fires of hell. Rain here is both a noun and verbo with more palabras (words) to describe it. Here's a few that I found:

lluvia - rain
pelo de gato - (cat's fur) a soft drizzle
garau - drizzle or sprinkle
aquacero - downpour
temporal - a storm that can last for days
granizado - hail
llueve a cantaros - raining buckets

Just naming a few. But luckily here it is warm when it's raining so you don't need to worry about hypothermia if you get wet. As I was walking home from school in 'llueve a cantaros' my legs from my hips down were soaking wet. This while using an umbrella for a 15 minute walk. Increible.

Luckily the mornings are the best. I do yoga on the roof, after shooing away the noisy parrots. Parrots here are like loud noisy seagulls.

Adios Roberta

Evening adventure.

We went to see Star Wars III last night. After about 10 minutes into the movie the it stopped. After about a 5 minute wait they got it running again. The after about another 10 minutes it died for good. Then after about another 20 minutes they decided to move everyone from this huge theater into this tiny theater. At that point Roberta and I were like, lets go home and get some dinner.

On the way home we saw some people spinning fire at a stop light on a hugely busy intersection. We rushed home to get the camera and come to find out that the power is out in our neighborhood. We parked the truck out front of the apartment and Roberta ran up to get the camera. I was looking at this park ahead and kept seeing these bright flashes of light coming from within. It looked like someone running around striking a lighter. Then I realized that it was fireflies. Instead of glowing all the time they would flash for a split second. There were a ton of them out there. Too bad I don’t do mushrooms because with a lawn chair and a bottle of water that would be hours of entertainment.

We went and got some pictures of the fire spinners and then decided to go out for dinner since we don’t have power at our house and can’t get the car in the garage since the gate is electric. We went to this Mexican restaurant that still had power and there was the loudest mariachi band playing there that I have ever heard. I think that gets the point of our evening across fairly well.

Here are some pictures of the Fire Spinners. If you look at the top of the picture you will see the stop light. They are in the middle of traffic doing this:

Click for fire

Rockin'

Last night I went up and played music with Mauricio (Claire's Boyfriend) up at their house and had a great time. Leo (Claire's Son) records samples into the computer and makes songs. Then Mauricio on guitar and me on bass were playing over the top of it. It actually works.

We are going to start practicing 3 times per week because we have a show in a park during a French Music festival in about a month. Supposedly we might have a drummer, timbales, congas, trumpet, and maybe keyboards. Sounds like it will be 45 minutes of enjoyable chaos. Hopefully we will get the show recorded and I will post it up here.

The most enjoyable part of the evening was playing traditional Latin songs. Mauricio is very good at playing and singing those types of songs.

Some notes on Catholocism

A few observations.

I was riding a bus to Escazu and two nuns got on and the driver just waived them on. They didn't have to pay their .35 cents. It was funny because that same day I was thinking about how fun it would be to walk around in a nun outfit. See how people treated you and stuff. Now it turns out I have a financial incentive. Free bus fare!! I'm not sure it's worth how hot they look, so many layers. There are a lot of nuns here out in public unlike the states.

Second Observation. Now that I have a TV I watch it. I can't help it. I turn on the TV and say to myself I'm going to watch some spanish novellas (soap operas with good slang) and study spanish. Well I always end up changing it to some dumb English speaking station and watch it. Adam is getting really irritated with me, he hates TV more than big hairy spiders. But the obervation I am offfering is that every time I turn on the dam thing the default station is the Latin Catholic station. So I always end up watching some nun blab on in Spanish for a while. It's really funny in Spanish , it's even funnier when it's English that has been dubbed over in Spanish. Why is the default station spanish? I guess catholocism really is the nation's religion.

Here's my third observation, it's a link to a website with a lot of good content. This guy is an expat from the states in Costa Rica.

Ten derelictions of the late pope

Up up up up... To Volcan Irazu.

We decided to take a small road trip with our slgihtly legal auto. We decided on Volcan Irazu which is about an hour away from our house at 12,000' on the top of a mountain. It is a really amazing drive up this winding road with an incredible view the whole way. Pictures to prove it:

Pictures of the trip

On the way back down we stopped at a farmers market to get some produce. Talk about cheap. There was this guy who was BBQing some chicken on coals that were in a hub cap. There was a line so it must have been some good hub cap chicken. Roberta had just got over some stomach problems so she didn't want to eat it.

Adam

Bribery in Costa Rica

This is Roberta telling you her little exciting story about bribery and not passing a smog check. Adam, fortunately had to work, and did not accompany me.

I've been reading in Tico Times that the government has been trying to crack down on bribery, but luckily that hasn't happened in our case.

So in our previous blogs you may have read that we have successfully purchased a legal vehicle in Costa Rica. All is fun and games until you don't have that last little sticker. Well in Costa Rica there is an equivalent DEQ smog check, which the truck past last December, but never obtained the sticker for some mysterious reason. Here is the crazy scenerio of Thursday afertoon. You have to remember that this is in a foreign country and I don't know spanish that well, the whole time in my head I'm thinking "Midnight Express". Here's how it goes:

- Get picked up by the owner to go get the infamous sticker in Limon, about an hour and a half away. Realize that the sticker was expired.
- Stop by this junkyard where some guy owes somebody some money. Waiting in the car, kind of creepy...
- Head over to Escazu, an hour an a half away, where somebody knows somebody who can get us into the smog check that day because it takes a week to get an appointment at this place.
- Head over to the mechanic who will fix some things to get it to pass.
- Go over to this other guys house, pay him off to get us an 'in'. Paying off, is a quick 10,000 colones (~$20) in a shady like handshake. But, we have to take his cousin.
-So we drive another hour to get the cousin, who also happens to bring another sidekick who just wants to tag along for the ride.
-So there are four people in the car to go get this sticker. At this point I'm drinking Smirnoffs in the back seat with the sidekick.
-We get in, but somehow there is a hole in the muffler and we don't pass. Complete bummer. I guess you can't bribe your entire way here, by that time I was ready to pay. The mechanic friend is going to get this worked out on Monday, because Orlando the guy who was suppose to work this out is heading to Florida for the week.

We'll See...

Discos, cars, lawyers!

This is Roberta bringing in her experiences of the previous weekend.

Well lots have been happening. Last weekend I went to a multi-level disco that was pretty cool. I can go to a club like that maybe once a year. Last year it was a club n Las Vegas. So I went to this club because Clair's son Leon was the opening dj for Anthony Pappas, who is apparently so famous he doesn't even have a website. Ok I guess it was pretty good house music as house music goes, but I don't think I digested enough drugs (any at all, alcohol doesn't count) to enjoy it that much. But luckily since I 'knew' the opening dj they let me back stage were I hung out with all of the cool people. But since I didn't know spanish and the music was blaring through my earplugs I couldn't hear anything anyways. We didn't even show up to the club until midnight and they main performer didn't start until 2:30 am. I guess since they don't have laws telling them when to stop serving that can start and end at any time. Here's the link to the clug website: http://www.vertigocr.com/ But the best part about this club is that everybody is really nice and happy. I accidently bumped into this girl who had a drink, I said I was sorry in broken spanish and she just smiled back, no attitude complete niceness. People give you space to move about and there is none of the ego attitude that you get in american bars and pubs. The girls are not mean and snotty and the guys are gentlemen. Ok that's CR's only club scene, really it is the only disco in the country.

So Adam and I just bought a car. Here's the story: our friend Clair says she knows Pinky who knows a guy who imports cars from the states. I'm thinking in my head, Pinky? This sounds really shady?? But you have to remember in Latin American countries nicknames from childhood sometimes lasts a lifetime. I met a guy in Puerto Rico whose name was Coco because his head as a baby looked like a coconut, his sister didn't know his real name. OK back to Pinky.

Pinky takes a day or two, calls back and says he has something. Adam goes and looks at it cause I'm in spanish class up the street. I get back and the car and price has Adam's OK so we run around town trying to figure out how to wire money into Costa Rica without paying too much. We get that figured out but Adam has to work so I have to go to the lawyer (abogado) and put the truck in my name. !!Yikes!

I'm running around with two guys I just met carrying hundreds of dollars (just the money necessary for the lawyer and paper work signing) going to see a lawyer that was suggested by the seller. Guidebooks say this is not a good idea, we should obtain lawyers seperately. But I say to myself, this guy knows Pinky and Pinky knows Clair, what could go wrong....?

So I'm sitting in this lawyer's office, pretty fancy shmancy lawyers office that looks like a complete dump from the outside. I was really nervous going in. I know nothing about the process of buying cars, this was supposed to be Adam's responsibility. Well nothing went wrong, we got the money transferred, the lawyer paid off, some legal looking stickers in the window and a cherry red four door 91' Izuzu Rodeo for around $4,000 which was about half the price cars are going for in lots.

We got a good deal (for Costa Rica), a solid car and made some new friends. There's still some more stickers and documents to obtain but the keys and the car are in our hands. We were a little worried about getting ripped off but luckily we knew Pinky who knew Clair. It's a small world down here. The seller of the car also drove us around to four differenet mechanics trying to get us a seat belt replacement. He's still going to get one for us, which is better because all of the mechanics will charge us gringo prices but he will get a better deal cause he's Tico.

Spanish Classes, Whoohoo!
They told me to just show up on Monday and they will get me into a group. Well the groups are so small there wasn't one for my level so I have a personal spanish class for four hours a day. It is completely intense. You cannot daze out the window when you are the only student. Cripes the lesson is formed around the points were I have difficulty, which is hard. I'm use to excelling at classes, not having my difficulties pointed out. Oh well I'll get better at this sooner than later at this pace.

Funny things we saw today:
Crazy man dancing in the middle of traffic, slapping his butt and having a good old time in the middle of crazy Costa Rican traffic. I gave him 100 colones (.25 cents) because I couldn't stop laughing. I never give money out the window (cause it's dangerous). Usually people try to sell you something or look pathetic. This guy was dancing hillariously for money. Gotta give props where props are due.

Some guy dressed in a really good Zoro outfit trying to advertise for the bookstore. It was funny because I don't understand the connection between Zoro and the bookstore, and the outfit was really good.

Here a couple crappy pictures of the truck:

Link to picures of truck

And the hunt is on.

We have been searching for a car for the past week and it is a royal pain in the ass. We drove around all weekend and hunted for a car. It was good to get out and see the terain that we will have to be driving over. The Pan American highway is really nice. Everything else is pretty damn intense. We decided that we have to have a small SUV. It doesn't need to be 4x4 it just needs to be high off the ground.

Enjoy these pictures from our weekend trip.

Link to pictures

Screaming like school girls

That is what Roberta and I were doing last night. I came down the stairs to the kitchen to get some fresh squezzed OJ and Roberta wasn't too far behind me. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she lets out this high pitched yelp. I look over and there is this huge cockroach flipped over on its back. I guess Roberta almost stepped on it. We opened the door and swept it outside. Disaster averted.

Then we sit down on the couch and start to study some Spanish/English flashcards. After a couple minutes of this it was my turn to scream like a school girl. I looked over and saw what I would consider a tarantula walking along the floor next to us. The thing was probably 4 or 5 inches across and moving fairly fast. We jumped up and got our wits about us and armed ourselves with a couple brooms.

I poked at it with my broom and it started literally jumping around which made both me and Roberta again scream like school girls. I can't imagine much worse than a large fast moving spider that has the capability to jump. We moved all the furniture away from its path to the door and started to nudge it out. Finally Roberta got her chance and swept it outside. Whew, disaster averted.

This all happened because we left the downstairs patio door open at night cuz Vida likes to go outside. We learned our lesson.

What do the guidebooks know anyway.

Last night we went out to the red light district and did some gambling. All of the guide books say in particular “Don’t wander around the red light district at night.” While walking around down there I had my leatherman in my hand and was fumbling with it so that people could see something metal and shiny. If someone attacked us I would have to ask them kindly to hold on while I open one of the blades into its full locked position. Hey, we made it. I didn’t feel any less safe than being on Burnside at night.

Prostitution is legal here so there was a nice mix of hookers and gambling. Roberta and I only partook in the gambling. We went into this nasty casino called the Horseshoe and hit the slots. We started off with $10 and walked out with about $24. That paid for our cab and dinner. Amazingly the drinks they served in there were really strong. At 9:00pm on a Wednesday the central square by the Grand Hotel Costa Rica was about as packed as Pioneer square during the day but by 9:30 it was dead as a ghost town.

Roberta and I are starting Spanish language classes next week. I am taking one on one lessons at the house and Roberta is taking classes over at the college. Hopefully this will help break down the language barrier. It is actually surprising how few people speak English in and around our neighborhood. That was exactly what we were looking for.

We had a really nice time last Sunday out with some friends from here. They are old time Costa Ricans and own a fair portion of the Costa Rican coffee production. They are potentially the nicest people I have ever met. They had about 12 people over and most people spoke at least 3 languages. People were mixing French and Spanish and English. It was fun to listen to but sometimes hard to understand. At one point I thought that everyone was talking about pasta but it turned out they were talking about the grass in the yard.

Here are some pictures from Sunday and some action photos of the cat:

Click link for pictures

And I present to you..... Pictures.

Here are some pictures of our apartment and various other attractions in our neighborhood. Enjoy.

Link to pictures

Ay de mi.

Two full days down in Costa Rica now. Things are a little different here.

I have never been so scared in my life. Yesteday Roberta and I decided to get a rental car so that we could see the city on our terms and find a place to live. Driving in Costa Rica is like riding a rollercoaster, except that you have a steering wheel and there are busses that will push you out of the way to get where they are going. None of the roads are marked so you are just kind of driving by feel. There typically aren't lines on the road so that means if there is room then go for it. Honking just means that the light is about to turn green.

I am finding it hard to describe driving in Costa Rica because it is so overwhelming. There are motorcycles going full speed between the "lanes" of traffic. Busses stopped in the middle of the road for no reason. Pedestrians playing a nice game of frogger. Nonexistent street signs that were supposed to indicate one way streets. Semi trucks driving towards you in your lane because there was room.

Today we used a map and found our way to an apartment that we were interested in. We drove during the middle of the day and it wasn't that bad. We found the apartment that we want to live in. It is three stories with the third story being a patio on the roof with a small city view and a nice view of the mountains. It is in a nice neighborhood called San Pedro located near the college in a quiet area. The apartment is about five blocks from Claire's cafe and surrounded by many nice restaurants and a large mall. Hopefully we can close the deal tomorrow and move in within the next couple of days.

All in all I love the challenge of living here. It is like relearning how to live. Roberta is kicking butt at speaking spanish. She talks on the phone with people who speak no english and she gets her point across. I am still limited to ordering food and telling people thank you. I did ask the room service lady for another towel and wash cloth though. I was proud of myself.

Wish us luck.

Hola Amigo/as! Que Tal?

The title means Hello friends, what's happening? I'm sure you all know that but for the linquistically challenged I thought I would provide a translation.

Let me tell you a little bit about the Gin and Tonics here. They use so much fresh lemon juice that you think you are drinking a lemonade. MMmmm good...

Ok back to business, finding a place to live. So I spent a good couple of days walking around looking at neighborhoods. On the west end of town I only spent a half a day, but that was enough to know I don't want to live en El Suburbio de los Americanos. For those linquistically challenged that means the west side is for the gringos (kind of like Portland).

Clair, the lady who has been so kindly driving me around (when I'm not walking) took me over to her friend's house who is an architect. She's having a new addition built onto her mother's house. She's going to make it all out of bambo and mud. Needless to say the architect was really excited to do something interesting like this. I guess there was some big earthquake in Central America and the only building left standing was the ones made of bamboo and mud. I think Clair's doing it for the novelty, there isn't one straight line in the plans, all the walls are curvy. But that's OK, Clair doesn't have an art collection but her mother does. I spent an hour or so talking to her mother about Central American art.

Evette, Clair's mother said, in the end she can discern art types and the people who made them and where they came from. She said those geographic lines closely follow the political boundaries that currently exist. She is going to take me to two of her favorite museums and play tour guide for me. She doesn't collect artifacts anymore because she is opposed to collecting art and disturbing ancient places, which I totally agree with. She showed me the two she had and now I'm going to be on the look-out for fakes to add to my collection. Should be a lot cheaper! I'll post another blog to let you in on what Evette shows me at the museums.

But, back to business - apartamentos y casas. I think I've seen over 25 places. The thing that is hard here is that nobody posts 'for rent' (se aquilar) in the newspapers here. They just post a sign outside, you happen by it, and than you just have to call them. Except if you don't have a cell phone or a car you just take down notes and directions to the place. BUT there are no addresses to get directions too. There are no street signs and there aren't any numbers on the houses or buildings.

For instance the address to my aparthotel is 200 meters south of McDonalds in Sabana. Luckily there aren't that many McDonalds here and the one referenced isn't even open. But, regardless of how not-helpful these addresses are to foreigners its really easy to get around. All you do is flag down a taxi, of which there are tons, and tell them 'Quiero ir a La Iglesia Santa Theresita' or some other major known landmark close to where you are going, and then just point to exactly where you want to go. This will cost about as much as a bus fair across two zones in Portland about equal distance as well.

That is the church of St. Theresa. For those of you who know a little bit of Spanish will notice the 'ita' at the end of the word. The Ticos (Costa Ricans) throw this in for everything. For instance Vida the cat would be Vidaita or Vidatica. This really throws your Spanish off if you are beginning. I'm a little better than a beginner and it still throws me off.

I've been hanging out in Cafe Expressivo, mentioned in an earlier blog. Well there is a guy here that is a 'witch doctor'. I said, great maybe he can cure my lingering poison oak, yes lingering poison oak from about a month ago. He thought I was crazy when I started pointing at all these red blotches on my leg. He's not a 'witch doctor' but he does read tarrot cards. So he read my cards. It was really interesting. It pretty much came down to I'm a strong person, I have adventures, I will encounter challenges, I will get through them with somebody close, there will be dancing in the end, and I will be a better person. This is all in broken English/Spanish too. Also interesting, most of my cards had knives or swords in them. I thought that was pretty cool. I'm going to pay for the reading by burning him a bunch of music.

Well kids, you'd think I had nothing better to do, and really I don't. But nevertheless I must say chaio, because everybody else here says chaio and that is just so European cool.

Chaio y 'sta luego

It's me Roberta in Costa Rica

So I'm hacking into Adam's blog to let you know what's up with me. Well first off, American's are the most anal-retentive people. While trying to get to Costa Rica, both airlines that I was travelling with were adament that I needed some additional documentation for the cat to enter. After some heated arguements they let me go through with the USDA approval form, the only form I needed. They were threatening Vida with six months in quarantine. Having taken a dog through quarantine in Hawaii, there is no way a land connected country like CR would be more restrictive than las islas de Hawaii, plus I'd done my research and knew otherwise. When I actually got to Costa Rica the officials didn't even take Vida out of the box, they just stamped the forms and said welcome to Costa Rica.

So I took me and by now stinky Vida to the aparthotel El Sesteo (www.sesteo.com). Here is the vision: me with two bags that each weigh about 100 pounds stacked with my oversized carryons with Vida's stinky box perched on top held in place by the one hand I wasn't using to push the heavy cart. I arrived at 8:00am in the morning and they were very kind and cleaned out a room within thirty minutes. Yes that was an overnight trip, and for the last four days I was frantically packing, cleaning and taking care of business while Adam is living it up with room service in Houston and New Orleans.

Anyway I slept for a day (literally about 16 hours) and than spent a lovely day with Evette and Clair, a mother daughter pair with a big mansion like estate up in the country. I guess they are coffee plantation owners, but I didn't see any coffee trees. They are goat friends of Adam's. We had lunch at their pad which was really high in the mountains about 30 minutes from downtown San Jose. There was also another guest Maurice who was on political assylum from Columbia. I guess the war 'goings-on' where very intense and all his friends and family are dead. He used to be a communications professor but now he helps Clair with their restaurant 'Exressivo'. A cool little restaurant with tons of local art which could have a happy home on Alberta St. as well.

I'm completely out of my home territory, hanging out with somebody with a terrible experience but am able to find commonalities, I'm going to learn a lot here. They were very interested in me and what I do (planning, mapping, etc) hopefully I have something to offer.

We checked out a bunch of apartments on our way back to my aparthotel. I don't think we will have any trouble finding a nice place to stay.

Well that's it, I'm going to spend the next day exploring a couple of new neighborhoods and than hook up with some other local friends that Adam's family know in San Jose. My spanish is improving by the minute, I'm starting to think in Spanish. It's helpful having people who are patient and will speak amazingly slow when asked, very nice people.

New Orleans, Wow.

Made it here today and went for a walk around the French Quarter. This place is pretty damn cool. Lots of really old buildings all with balconies over looking the streets. Tons of cool little shops that sell all sorts of strange crap. It really reminded me a lot of the Country Fair in Oregon but more frat boyish and less hippie. Today was the French Quarter festival which didn't seem all that fratboyish. I loved how you could walk up to a storefront and get a beer in a plastic cup and cruise around and check stuff out. There were bands playing in the streets and such. Bet this place gets crazy at night. We will see.

Flat flat flat.

Just rolled in to New Orleans. The town has a great vibe to start off with. Lots of old historic character preserved. On the drive here I saw my first armadillo road kill. Looks like it would suck to hit one of those buggers. Then I also saw the aftermath of a cattle truck that rolled. They had this hug pile of dead cows and they were digging a hole with a backhoe right next to the highway. Odd to say the least.

Also just got word from Roberta that she made it into Costa Rica. She didn't give me any details but it sounds like it went less than ideal. I was worried about what would happen traveling with Vida. Hopefully Roberta and I can chat tonight about the details.

Well, I am off to the Cafe Du'Mont and Bourbon Street. Wish me luck.

First full week down

You remember in my last post I said that I was eating like a king? Now I know why kings are so fat. I make the relation to a method of quiting smoking. Everyone has heard that a great way to quit smoking is to smoke a couple packs as fast as you can and you will hate it forever. I am beginning to feel the same way about eating. If I can eat enough for these two weeks I will never want to eat again. That will be my diet.

Anyhow, I am driving to New Orleans for the weekend. Never been there so it should be an experience. Everyone is telling me to go to Cafe Dumont. They say something about little cups of coffee and twigs. Hmm.... Sounds interesting. The sad part is that I forgot my camera at home. I will just need to create pictures with words in my blog.

Well I am off to eat a 60 ounce steak dinner and I need to get ready for the gravy pipe. Need to do some Yoga first to stretch out my stomach. Wish me luck.

First full day down

Yesterday was my first full day in Houston working. I am getting my laptop up to speed and having meetings with the people who I will be working with. Seems like a nice group to start with. The NetIQ office here is much nicer than the Portland office. It is well decorated and has all the snacks and drinks that you can consume.

My hotel room is huge here. King size bed, walk in tile shower, living room, etc. All meals are paid for so I have been eating like a king.

Off to go set up a PO box so we can forward our mail.

Post-party reality check.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that we were moving to Costa Rica until we had our Going Away party. It is funny how I still haven't completely come to the realization that we are moving to there yet. In two weeks I hope to be more grounded in the world of reality.

The party was awesome. Nobody broke anything or puked on our moving boxes. The group of people who showed up were the best of the best. I am starting to realize that a good party should start at 8:00 in the morning and go until 2:00 the following moring so that everyone has a chance to fully mingle. I always feel like I only have time for a few words with each person. As usual I forgot to get drunk.

La fin d'une ère

Today is my last day at work with Webtrends. I haven't counted the days exactly but it was somewhere around a five and a half year stint. Ups, downs, overs. It had everything. Layoffs, icecream socials, nerds. I made some really good friends and I learned a lot about software engineering.

The way that I got the job at Webtrends is a funny story. My friend Paul and I had went out drinking and then saw a show. We closed the place down and came back pretty well trashed. The day prior I had noticed that Charles Petzold, the author of my favorite Windows Programming book, was giving a talk at Powells Tech books in the morning. Needless to say I woke up 15 minutes before the talk was supposed to start with a raging hangover. Jumped out of bed and put on the clothes that I was wearing the night before and drove down to Powells.

His talk on the history of computers was very interesting. After he was done talking I turned around to the table behind me that had two complete strangers at it and asked "Are you guys software engineers?" The answer was yes. Then I asked "Are you guys hiring?". The answer was yes. They were Pete and Andy and that was how I got my job. Got in right before the Webtrends 100. It was nice to meet Charles Petzold and get his autograph. He is a nerd god.

Now today is my last day with Webtrends. How do I feel you ask? I feel like moving to Costa Rica.