Nastro Azzurro is a great italian beer

So we are in Rome now. We have been here for three days so far and we leave on thurday. Its been pretty good... except HOT. Like 45 degrees hot. We have needed a lot of cold showers just to cool off a bit... which is a good thing because the ENJOY PINK FLOYD Hostel has cold showers in abundance. You know... when i first realized that the name of this place was enjoy pink floyd... not just enjoy, it all made sense, because when i think of pink floyd's music i automatically think: poor plumbing. Yup, it has 4 showers. Two in the same room together (although only one has a curtain), one in a sepeatae bathroom, and one which was previously a hall closet, which someone stuck a glass door and some plasic tile on and called it a shower... oh but its cool cause they have a garbage bag blocking the lower half of the door so people just walking by cant totally see in (they can totally see in).

anyways, we are back on a high pasta diet... although i guess thats cool here

dave

Here are some pictures...we are lazy

so we are in florence right now. it is hot. in the past few days we saw venice and cinque terre. sort of hot and quite hot respectively. italian women and salami likewise. i guess we will look at proceless works of art here or something. we will also shower a lot. the last place we were at timed our showers which is good to save the planet but kind of bad because it really cuts down the amount of time i have in which to catch diseases on my feet.

now photos...

ok photos later...the computer is not agreeing with the camera. well...at least now we can go outside and have a relaxing night of horn honking or angry italians...either wy the world cup is awesome.

thinking of you constantly

dave

Czech me out (more good news, bad news)

Well the past four days we have been in Prague... the florence of bohemia. It has been really good, although suprisingly the most touristy place we have been so far. Walking downtown you would see hordes of tour guides holding up brightly coloured unbrellas so their group could follow them. It was pretty chaotic when it started to rain yesterday.


And because Prague has been so much fun it is time for another insalment of Kim and Dave's Travel Blog GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS (inspired by Jughead Jones)

You drink a delicious pilsner at one of the many old beer halls around the city
GOOD NEWS: The cheque is much less than you would have expected
BAD NEWS: THE CZECH GUY who just wont stop talking about why crowns are better than euros.... Sure they are Murgi....

When you have to pay for the hotel....
GOOD NEWS: you have no cash, but you say to the guy 'Can I just give you a Cheque'
BAD NEWS: The guy at the hotel gets angry and tells you that the slave trade is nothing to joke about.

There is an important soccer match being broadcast on a large screen downtown....
GOOD NEWS: Your girlfriend agrees to check it out with you.
BAD NEWS: When your girlfriend comes out of the bathroom with a face covered in Red Blue and White paint you understand that she thought you meant Czech it out...

It has been a long few days for kim.... i seriously got hundreds of these

we go to italy today.
dave

GERMANY

Ok... well we have now been in germany for about a week. Little known fact... there is a soccer tourny going on here right now. You might not notice from all the drunken polish, brazilian and ukranian people... i mean come on we all know mark pahuta...(or if you dont trust me... that guy is ukranian)

My favourite thing about germany is that i look like i could be german, so most people assume that i speak german. Its pretty funny with the world cup because there have been a few times when tourists come up to me and ask something in german, and i know that just before they were looking in their phrase book, and practicing real good to say the phrase correctly... and when i saw "nien deutch" i can see the disappointment in their eyes.

Its also kind of funny how english is the medium that all the different drunken natinalities use to converse. Also in berlin the entrance to the fan area is right beside the new holocaust momorial. Now i dont know if tail gating there is kosher (seriously no pun intended....) but theres a lot of tailgating goin on.

Anyways we were first in Cologne which was fun. It was the day before the world cup started so there were a lot of people with noise makers just trying to restrain themselves. I mean deep down you could tell they just wanted to shout "ECUADOR" or something but if nobody shouts back they might just look dumb.... but the flag cape is alwas in style. Its really weird... fans move in packs and shout cheers at each other all day... its like a middle aged male only frosh week.

After Cologne we went and stayed with our relatives Michael and Silka in Bonn. They knew that we had been eating a lot of pasta, so michael showed us many types of bratwerst and his home made lemoncello. I never knew home made booze could taste so good. We stayed with them for three days, and then flew to Berlin, where we met my cousin Karl and his girlfriend Carolyn for the first time. Berlin has been amazing....


unfortunatly i am running out of time. kim had to spend the first 20 mins of the hour checking for American Idol updates.... blame her.


women


dave

oberburgermeister

Well we spent a good week in paris. we saw everything. Dave officially has a new favourite painting. its called the mona lisa. its really cool cause shes kind of smiling and you dont know why but later on you find out its cause she knew jesus had a kid.

now were in strasbourg...still on annoying french keyboards.....

yesterday we saw some of daves family across the river in germany. it was a lot like crossing the bridge from costa rica to panama again...except this bridge didnt have large gaps and on the other side everyone spoke german...i dont get that language...dont know how were going to do for the next week

anyways the visit was amazing and we had the first hot non pasta meal since arriving in europe

tomorrow we go to cologne for some sausage and sauerkraut...kim cant wait...she keeps talking about how her father used to make sausage

anyways heres some pictures from europe so far...first chance to get some up

THREE REASONS WHY DAVE WAS A HERO TONIGHT

#1- Whilst walking he saw the cops coming and quickly alerted all pee-ers about it

#2 when he got on a bus he saw that the person before him had left a fanny pack aboard the bus. Right away he took it to the driver who opened it to shoz it ha a digital camera....Dave was happy it was not a bomb like the driver thought........

#3 while crossing the street a lady dropped the leash for her yorkshire terrier. Dave and Kim saw the dog and waited for it to folloz the lady. it did not. Eventually Dave grabbed the leash and the dog and ran across the seine yelling to the lady who had no idea that she had forgotten about her dog two blocks ago.



-kim fell asleep crying about the dog and how it would have stood on the corner for a week...


yorkies suck

rags excluded

dave

Crazy..... I mean 2 months ago i played a costa rican football game.... and yesterday i saw the Notre Dame.....

So we are in paris now for a week and their key boards are weird so i may keep this short. We are staying at this really nice ladys house in a great part of town. she watches a lot of pets. kim hardly ever wants to leave. Since being here we have seen a lot of sites... and eaten a lot of bread.... and cheese... like its the meat beans and rice of europe.

Getting here was fun. we took a 345 bus to the airport and then a plane, so we figured we would sleep in the bus... unfortunatly they had to wax the terminal floor so they kicked us out at 1130 so we sat outside... also spanish drunks LOVE kim... they came over to us and started telling us their life stories in catalonian... we told one we were from toronto and he spent the next hour naming north american cities he knew... with breaks where he would say " no cerveza " and shake his arms violently.

we have spent a lot of time in paris seeing priceless works of art. We saw the lovre... man people really like that da vinci code movie... at the two paintings from it there were massive lines... also a LOT of people taking pictures of every single piece.... like not even looking but just picture, picture, picture...
but my favourite art gallery people have to be the video camera type... they some times take 3 mins of ofe painting... sot like it moves but just so they can look at it later... or the ones who do running commentary... which is awesome in a museum... just talking about the painting or the room they are in. In one of the Napoleon III rooms one guy said to the camera " all you need is a flat screen TV and it would be perfect..." He then smiled, self asured that he was hillarious. Kim and i both felt warm inside.

Anyways got to go booze some cheap wine while the boozin's cheap


dave/kimberly

its not ugly....its just flat out gaudi (kim roles her eyes...jajajajaja)

Well we have been in spain for about a week now and things have been amazing. It was kind of weird because in a lot of ways it is similar, for example people speak the same language.... alothough in spain everyone seems to understand what we say instead of getting the one person in the store who speaks english to help us. This made Madrid AMAZING. The people were so nice and the city was amazing. When we arrived in barcelona it was the same thing... until we realized that people here dont speak spanish... they speak catolinian.. which is different


anyways no time to talk.. only like 10 mins left at internet cafe... fly to paris tomorow... talk more there

10 things i love about europe

1. flushing toilet paper

i'll be honest when i first got here i didnt even need it but i flushed a peice aynyways... just out of 5 months of spite.... TAKE THAT COSTA RICA.... WOOOOOOOO

2. I aint no gringo no more

Yup...now I'm just a dumb loud american

3. olives

sure missed those. man they got good olives here

4. people understand me when i speak spanish

turns out in costa rica they just pretended they didn't. you know the whole time i knew i was fluent but people didn't treat me like i was. now people treat me like the bilingual person i am...or they just recognize what i'm pointing at...

5. priceless works of art

i asked how much they're worth and someone said they're priceless...which brings me to a new section of this blog called "GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS" (taken from a judhead jones comic book)

good news - youre tired and you find a bench to sit on at the modern art museum
bad news - the bench was the art

good news - you intelligently tell your girlfriend that you think the sculpture of the sleeping man is hideous
bad news - the sleeping man is a sleeping security guard who wakes upon hearing your insult

good news - you need to go to go to the bathroom and you find a urinal conveniently placed on the wall of the gallery
bad news....good news actually...you appopriately expressed your opinion about the piece. you too are an artist.

6. chorizo

thats some good salami

7. don quixote

he's everywhere! can't get enough of that mad monk!

8. wine is cheap...
wine is cheap...
wine is cheap...

9. the women....just KIDDING kim....i love you!...(but seriously...the women!)

10. the sun DOESN'T set at 6pm...who knew that the day didn't only last from only 6am to 6pm!

Peace,
Dave plus Kim (who typed the parts without spelling mistakes)

DAVE IS AWSOME

the only things we havent eaten are the rest of the coffee, salt and sugar... gonna be a great lunch

Well this is our last day here, and the past 24 hours have been full of last minute stuff to get ready...
actually thats a lie. for the past two weeks kim has been writing list after list of things to do, and it got to the point on thursday that we had nothing left to do before leaving. NOTHING. It was kind of strange having no tasks to complete. We felt lost and aimless. So, first we saw da vinci code, and the sad thing is i am not sure if the yelling teenagers and the crying baby in the theatre ruined anything. The next day we bought a screw to fix our laundry machine, even though we probably didnt have to, and then went to the mall. It was free comic book day, so we waited in line for an hour to get a free comic book. It sort of felt like a waste of time but i thought 'what else are we gonna do.' Kim was actually kind of upset that the line took her away from her new hobby: trying to figure out the combination of her parents luggage lock. She couldn't remember it, and she thought there were only 10,000 possibilities, so why not just go through. She figured she would hit it eventually. By early this morning she was at 9800, and was feeling pretty low. I asked her if she had checked 9999, and she said she had. So, she just kept on trucking until she got to the end with no luck. Before she started again at 0001 i asked her if she had checked 0000. she said of course (idiot) and went to check it again. it was 0000. Well, i guess the upside is that it kept her mind distracted and not talking about the last time she went to europe (by the way if you ever see her ask her if they ever took extra pastries from a hotel, and made it both their breakfast AND their lunch.... ohhh she's so bad...)

So, in leaving Costa Rica i leave you with my favourite bust of all.




I love it because it looks exactly like "the watcher" from marvel comic books. It is actually this guy who helped develop penicillin from snake venom or something, but the bust sits on a 10 foot stand and is then looking down with these empty eyes on everyone going past.... watching...
speaking of which we woke up at 430 this morning and the only thing on TV was 90210... it was the episode when brenda and donna returned home after a summer in paris... it made me thing of all of you

also brandon started dating this girl but totally dumped her cause she kept on making racist jokes. i really learned something.
love dave and his lovely girlfriend kim

I can't to get off this rock...and when I say rock I mean isthmus

Well Costa Rica is starting to get old, so on Monday we are flying to Europe, specifically Madrid. From there we are going to go around spain, then go to france and then germany.... well really i could give you an hour by hour breakdown of what we are doing (got to love traveling with a girl who likes to plan...) but i am too lazy right now. Mostly we are seeing everything and doing anything you are supposed to do. I expect to return home with great memories and even greater friends. No but like seriously for real...we both brought tim hortons travel mugs to to help make this happen.... its like putting up a real canadian flag..... lol

So right now we are trying desperatly to eat all the food we have. So far this week we have polished off a bag and a half of beans and a pretty big bag of rice. Only one bag of beans, a bag of brown sugar and about eight packets of soup left to go. Its going to be a fun night.

Anyways, Monday at 4:30 our time we head off... its a 12 hour flight. I cant wait to finally get some quality time with my girlfriend.

Be wellness today for you all now....and the future

More adaquite things about san jose

#7. The way people answer the phone.

Very few people here speak english... well at least way fewer than you would expect from a country with such a strong tourist base. But, regardless of this whenever people answer the phone they say "hello." not "buenos," or even some mispernounced form of "HOLA," but a full on english hello. This makes booking hotels kind of decieving.

#8 Jokes on the Bus

A lot of buses have those red light signs that flash different messages as you are driving on the bus. Sometimes they have news, other times a count down to the millenium (in english which i appreciate) and other times jokes. I dont understand a word of the jokes, but the part that is hillarious is that after the punch line they all say "jajajajajaja." Ok, i know that J is the H sound in spanish... but none the less its pretty funny to picture people in a group all saying jajajaja after a joke.

#9 Empanadas
Cant go wrong with an empanada.

We went white water rafting... that really sums the whole entry up... read on only to kill time

So, we went white water rafting yesterday. It was fun. We saw 3 toucans... mostly the small ones but it was cool. On the trip is was just the two of us and two guides. One guide spoke perfect english and was from costa rica. The other, Octavian who controled our boat, could only say "Forwards," "Backwards," "Right," "Left," "Lets Go!," "Get Down" and "High Five" -which he always did by putting his paddle in the air for us to hit... its really more of a high paddle, but who am i to judge. I plan to write a song in which the only lyrics will be his english vocabulary. It was kind of funny becuse he was a Quebecer....
no.... not one of those bagel baking, tortierre eatin people from canada, but there is actually a native group here called Quebecers. He was really excited when he found out we were canadian, but then not as much when we said we weren't from quebec.
it didn't matter.... he didnt speak french anyways...
.this is a waterfall we stopped and hiked to/swam in... it was beautiful... like everything else in this stupid country...

only 8 days till europe

love
Dave
Ps. this blog entry is dedicated to our moms... HAPPY MOTHERS DAY...
PPSS. the photo is dedicated to octavian who is looking way tougher than us by not wearing a life jacket or helmet and standing on the waterfall... ah zut.

Things I love about Costa Rica (cont)

#5- Addresses

When I first got here I thought getting around would be easy because every city in Costa Rica has streets all divided on the same system of Calles and Avenidas, with even numbers on one side of central and odds on the other. The only problem with this though is that there are no street signs ANYWHERE. So even with the best map, you can never find your way without landmarks. So people in CR have dispenced with the names of streets entirely, and everything here is 100m from some landmark. So directions to places are only "100m south of the Subaru dealership", or even more logically, 100m south of the old subaru dealership. Its no problem if you dont know where the old subaru dealership was, because..... what the hell do you mean you dont know where the old subaru was... it was back where subaru was before where it is now...... the old one.... yes... OBVIOUSLY its the overgrown empty concrete lot covered in spray paint......

idiot.

#5 The Pile of Trash on our street

In most of Costa Rica garbage day is the day that you set your garbage on fire. At one hotel we were staying at we saw an employee early in the morning take all the garbage from the hotel in to the middle of a field, get some gas and dry palm franz, set the whole thing on fire..... and then go back inside, cause the only thing better than a burning pile of trash, is an unattended burning pile of trash. Also those fumes can kill ya.
San Jose, however, is one of the few places in the country with regular garbage service. The garbage at our appartment is picked up like twice a week, which makes the pile on our street that much more odd. It is this 3m long pile of all sorts of different types of trash thrown across the entire sidewalk. About every two weeks somebody from the city comes and cleans it up so you can walk on the sidewalk again, but then in a matter of days it is back again. Not only does this make no sense because of the regular garbage pick up in SJ, but it is also on the side walk beside an old abandoned building with nothing in it. It's not like it's a company trying to put out their trash or something.... but just people not wanting to throw stuff in the regular pick up and decided tha this is the place it will go... nope they want to put some gas on it and burn it themselves. I guess you can get country folk in the city... but you cant get the joy of burning trash out of the folk.....

its really kind of quaint when you think about it....
before you realize that you just stepped in a chicken carcass...

We were actually lucky this week and caught a rare glimpse of the pile actually on fire (obviously unattended). Usually we just see the trash stinking and carbon encrusted... some days you thank god you had your camera.

Turtles...

So this weekend we went to Tortuguero, a national park in the north east of CR. It was crazy. Our expectations going there were kind of low, but wow... it was good. The place is pretty remote, so we had to first take a 2 hour bus ride from SJ and then another hour bus from this small town into this HUGE banana plantation (you weren't allowed to take pictures in the plantation for some reason. i think they didnt want their competitors to know that they wrap their bananas in blue plastic bags... shhhh) and then another 2 hour boat ride through these little rivers until you got to the island. It was a lot like Bastimentos, the place where we went in Panama because there we no cars and just little dirt paths connecting everything in the village. Also cause it had europeans. Bloody euros get around. So we found this nice place on the ocean and didnt do much our first night, mostly because you cant swim in the ocean because it is apparently full of sharks there.
The second day we rented a canoe for 12 bucks for the day and went paddling by ourselves all around the little rivers and canals in the park. It was crazy. We only saw two other groups of people all day. Alligators, however, we saw several groups of. Unfortunatly we only saw small ones, none of the big ones that jump into boats and eat 90 pound girlfriends. I could have been such a hero. But i guess its a good thing considering we were paddling a canoe and totally alone. We also saw monkeys, otters, tonnes of turtles and other wild stuff. It was hands down one of the coolest things we have done since we've been here.

Anyways... knowing we couldnt top that day and because, besides going on tours, there wasn't a huge amount more to do, so we headed home on Sunday. There is a whole long story talking about our bus ride home, but we have to go see scary movie iv, so i will just leave this picture now, and tell the story in person when i see you later. But oh... its a goodie...

daveandkim
ps. i think shaq is going to get an oscar for this role

Things I love about Costa Rica #4- COSTA RICAN MEN LOVE GIGANTIC BUSTS

Party like it's 1992....

So....not too much has been going on this week. The rest of Semana Santa (Holy Week) was fun and relaxing. We went and saw a religious procession with statues downtown.

Also....it was someone's special day this week!! In honour of Dave's birthday I took him out for a rousing roller skating party at the local rink. He said it was just like his grade 4 party because they went roller skating, which I assume is a good thing because I always had really fun birthday parties as a kid. Also, most of the kids at the rink in San Pedro looked like they were in grade 4. Unlike any boring roller rink in Canada that I have been to, this one was full of surprises, such as a game of cops and robbers and a speed skating competition! Here's a picture of the under 6 girl competition:



We didn't actually participate in the games because the instructions were in Spanish over a loudspeaker. Our new friend Pedro participated though. He was hardcore and approximately 10 years old. He was actually a little scary as he would skate behind us and grab our hands. Also, I thought reggeton was annoying when I wanted to sleep at the beach. It turns out it is amazingly fun to roller skate to. Also, Spanish speaking 6 year olds love singing along to My Humps...that part is kind of weird and disturbing, especially since they don't pronounce "lovely
lady lumps" correctly. I must admit that I didn't feel that old or out of place until I noticed that everyone in our age group was sitting along the sides watching their children...man...Costa Rica is weird.

Anyhow, Dave put the camera on manual, so sadly all the pictures of him are blurry. But since he was pretending to be a pouty child in them, they looked bad anyhow. A picture of me turned and and shows just how much fun we had:




Dave got a chess board for his birthday. He looks so happy because I don't know how to play chess, so he keeps beating me.

Things I love about Costa Rica pt. 1

1. Joey and the Carribean Weather Report
Every night on CBS, right before Letterman comes on there is the Carribean weather report featuring Joey Stevens. It is perhaps the most wonderful thing i have ever seen in my entire life. There is a tropical title screen that comes up and then some recorded steel drums, then joey dances on with a parrot on his shoulder. It is hillarious. People send him photos of their birds, and then he makes comments about how they are his parrots girlfriend, then his parrot, which is also very horny apparently, makes some comment relating to tail feathers or something. His vantriliquism is perhaps the best part, because ususally he puts his hand on the side of his mouth away from the camera, and then leans into the camera to make the joke. They have full conversations with him blatently showing that he is doing the speaking for the bird, always with one of those 'this is hillarious' smiles on his face. When he starts doing the weather two things really make it amazing, 1- his occasional spanish over pronunciation (SAAA- HOSEE- for san jose for example.... you really need to hear it) and 2- his shoutouts. To every other island he gives a shoutout for somebody to "Have one on me tonight," or he just says hi to his "friends down at Burt's." Its funny because he does it in the most steriotypically bad way and he says it like that EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. The other joy comes from finding out that the weather is usually nice in Guantanimo... joey likes to give al-queda hope....he is just politially unbiased like that. Also he calls it G-bay.
Also, when the weather gets in to the high 80s or 90s he does a big windup and then with three big downward punches between his legs he says "its gonna be hot hot hot." I am not sure if this is supposed to be sexual or just a Harry Belefonte refrence, but it's pretty rediculous.
He also beggs you to watch him everynight, and says like 3 times "hey come back tomorow, please bring your friends, i'd love to meet them." Now, i dont know if he knows that you cant really tell how many people are actually watching your 5 mins of weather, but its pretty funny how he is constantly trying to to be your friend, despretly saying things like " dont forget your old pal joey," and "tell em joey sent ya," knowing that nobody actually says that. I really really really wish i could tape it.

2. The Pickpockets
Overal Costa Ricans are kind of paranoid about crime. Like, there is certainly more crime here than in Canada, but people here get so freaked out about it it is crazy. Around almost every house there is a fence with barbed wire, or razor wire if you are well to do. Even the poorer folks top the 6 foot walls surrounding their houses with tar willed with shards of broken glass. It is pretty extreme. I was talking about crime in one of my classes the other day and one student said that if you have locks and a dog you'll be ok, but a whole bunch disagreed saying that if a guy broke in he could just shoot the dog. So i said, if he shot the dog, eveyone would hear and call the cops, but they insisted that the guy could just get a silencer to take out the dog, that way nobody would hear.The thing is, they were serious. A silencer. TO STEAL A TELEVISION!
The only real crime that has happened to us so far have been guys trying to pick my pockets, but really the attemps have been so bad it's almost endeering. We are usually in a crowded place, and generally the only tourists around, and from a mile away you can see the guy start walking over to you. When they get within 10 feet or so they act really excited to see you saying thing like " AMIGO.... PURA VIDA!!" They then try really hard to get you to give them a high five, handshake or "props." I just keep my hands in my pockets and keep walking, but they keep trying to give you a high five. Its so bad that is is amazing.

3. French Guy
Its kind of weird living in San Jose, because most of the time people think we are tourists, but after being here for so long its funny how you see the same people all the time. In our first week here we were walking downtown and this guy came up to us and asked us if we speak french, and we said a little, but then he started speaking english. Anyways, he had this whole story about how he lost his passport and he needs 5 bucks to get to the french embassy to replace his passport. Now it is obvious that this guy is scamming, but over the time we've been here we have seen him pulling the same scam sooo many times, and he has approached us a bunch more times now, and usually when he asks us if we speak english we say no. However, the funniest part is that where he is always scamming is about 3 blocks from the french embassy. Its pretty rediculous.

-more to come

Reggeton... Reggeton... dats-a kinda music we got going on...now with pictures and Kim comments

So this weekend we decided to get out of San Jose and spend palm sunday just like Jesus did.... lying under a palm tree.



It was pretty crazy because this week is holy week, which means that everyone in Costa Rica takes a vacation, so going out there our bus was jammed full, but oddly enough we were the only gringos on the whole thing. It was like we were traveling an unexplored country or something. I felt so rustic and original. So first we took a bus to the city of Nicoya and then another to Samara, the beach where we spent the rest of our time. We got to Samara around noon, and we started walking along the beach to try and find a place. Amazingly the third place we came to, this set of little thatch cabanas right on the beach was free and 15 bucks a night. More than being on the beach and really cool looking, it also had a private bathroom in it. This is the first time we have had a bathroom of our own this entire trip.... well at least in the places we have paid for ourselves. We were extatic.

Here's the place:




We found out why it was such a deal that night. There was a bar next to the cabanas, and when we moved in they told us you can kind of hear the music at night, but we thought to ourselves, how big a deal could it be. My god.

All night i felt like i was a world war one soldier, trying to sleep in a bunker during a artillery barrage, but instead of firing bombs, the germans were firing reggeton music. The unchanging beat between songs just got louder and more bass heavy all night long. It was almost unbarable, but because i am so cheap i was determined to get through it, not just for 15$ on the beach and my own bathroom.... but mostly for that.

Strategy one: Kim suggested that i just try to make myself have a dream with the music as a soundtrack. She fell right to sleep with this... but sadly i could never really make provan starting a reggeton side project believable in my own head.
Strategy two: The second night we decided that , if you cant beat them, why not join them, so we decided we would go out, get sloppy drunk and then when the music stopped at 230 we would be fast asleep. However, having sampled some local bars earlier in the night we knew that we couldn´t really follow through with this plan by buying beers at the bar. They are cheap, but i am cheaper. So off we went to find the cheapest booze in town. After finding several touristy liquor shops with 250 mls of rum for 4$ we found the most local tico grocery store there was and bought a liter of rum for just under 6$. Oh it was cheap. So off we went with a couple gigantic rum and cokes to watch the sunset and then to go to the bar. Originally we just wanted to play some pool at the bar, but somehow we got talking to some old ex-pat from saskatawan who started telling us how the locals are trying to poison his dogs and weird things about his wife. We would have left, but he just kept on buying us drinks. When my watch said 2, and we could both barely still stand we left the bar and went back to our cabana and fell fas asleep.
SUCCESS!!.... or so it seemed.
Unfortunatly we didn't realize the terrible side-effects of consuming vast quantities of the cheapest alcohol you can find.

Here's the result:


A new strategy was needed.

Strategy three: our third night i finally came up with the brilliant idea of asking kim open ended questions like "kim... what was it like going to a private girls school?," or maybe "tell me stories about going to school at the castle." Kims monotonous and never ending stories drowned out the reggeton and i slept like a baby. The only side effect of this was that i had to hear kim talk for hours and hours on end, but eventaully i can tune it out and just fall asleep.

We stayed until tuesday morning, and then went up to Liberia to look around. There was really nothing to look at, but we did get ice cream.

it was mediocore....but the beach wasn't...the beach was awesome.... *that was the Kim comment...dave would never sound that dorky*

Holy crap... another week off.. NOW WITH PHOTOS

Well... sorry for the boring last couple of weeks. Our lives have been sort of boring. Our days are spent jogging, reading trashy novels and then sitting around talking about how glad we are that we went jogging. The novels are a guilty pleasure that we dont discuss. We only pass eachother in the hall ways and ask ¨so you´re reading now,¨ reply ¨yes¨and then take the conversation no further. I see the Danielle Steeles beside the bed, and Kim sees whatever police procedural I am clammering through, but we just pretend they dont exist. Also American Idol. We watch a lot of that. It is usually our topic of discussion on our daily run. That and ways to run better and more effectivly. Also, if anyone knows any good running techniques we would love to talk about them. Please aid our conversations.

HOWEVER this weekend the monotony came to an end when Kim´s student Ching found the kindness in his heart to rescue us from San Jose and take us up to ¨La Paz¨ sanctuary on Saturday. It was crazy. How crazy you ask. I will show you. Look at this.







It is a private sancutary with lots of waterfalls, butterflies, hummingbirds, frogs and poisionous snakes. We were really lucky because it had rained all week, but the one day we went out it was sunny and beautiful. The place had a lot of tourists, but it was still amazing. There were butterflies the size of my full hand, and snakes so posionous they could kill you with a glance. At noon we ate lunch. It was a buffet. It was delicious.

After that we were back to jogging and police procedurals, but on our runs now we can talk about all the different snakes that could kill kim with a single bite. It is a refreshing change.

Anyways, after three arduous weeks of work, its about damn time for another vacation, although this one might be busyier because the entire country takes it off. Thats right. Costa Rica takes a whole week off for holy week, and for most people there is no better way to mourn the passing of our lord than sacraficing your skin to the sun's harmfull rays. So we are going to the pacific cost again to a place near where my parents went. They want us to go to Shakes Joe... their favourite bar. We had better go early in the week, becuse it is illegal to sell alcohol after palm sunday, which is kind of ironic considering that the Lords supper happened during that week.

loco

also... although the stress of this site is my looks... i feel we should devote a moment to my unquestionalbe bravery
.

PELLE PELLE ZO ZO

Hello blog,
I'm sorry i've been neglecting you.

Actually the past week and a bit has been great. It was amazing having three weeks of constantly giving tours around San Jose, walking the tightrope of showing people the particular places at the particular times to make them say "its not as bad as i thought, " and eating fabulous ritzy dinners all the time. But now we are back to are old diet of beans and pineapple/ beans with pineapple. Also American Idol. The weeks of constantly taking people around central america made us lose track of Paris, grey hair guy and chicken little... but glad to be back on track. Acutally its not as entertaining anymore that the people are talented or whatever.
Mostly what we do these days is get up, go to a computer lab and seach for cheap ways to travel/sleep in europe. europe seemed cheap. unfortunatly we were thinking in colones. when we changed it it was expensive.

Last week we did see a cool dance/theatre show though... well sort of cool. it was called "today is a bad day to go to heaven(the sky)" it started with a guy in the middle who looked dead, then there were some nice people in white who tried to take him away to heaven, but some punk rockers in red tried to beat them all up. it was thrilling. i liked the colour choices because it made it easy to tell who was good and bad. also it was way symbolic. in the end the devils won. the lead devil looked like the guy from sum41 who is engaged to avril.

we also saw a sloth. it was in a tree about 100m from our front door, hanging out in the open at eye level. it was amazing how blind, deaf and dumb they are. seriously it had no idea we were there. These other people started petting it and it didnt notice. I wrote a song about it. naturally it's a ballad.

anyways back to planning europe stuff.
yay

PELEZOZO (SLOTH IN SPANISH)

So besides doing the

PICTURES!!!

So...here´s some photos from Panama and the Carribean coast of Costa Rica:

This is the town of Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro, Panama where we stayed for 3 days


and this is Dave reading in a hammock at the hotel




we walked between two beaches on the island...it was pretty




To cross the border from Costa Rica into Panama we had to cross a foot/car but originally a train bridge (it was wet and slippery and there were definitely a few holes between the wooden planks we walked on)



We went to the beach in Costa Rica with my parents...again, it was pretty



I think Dave is going to update more about our trip/this week and all the photographers, modern dance, sloths, and strange Panamanian men that it involved. Maybe he will even write it in Spanish cause he sure loves practicing it aka getting me to translate for him.

GERMANS LOVE TUNA SAUCE

Well it has been a while friends, or at least it feels that way to me. If days were marked in miles i have lived several hundred of them this week. Anyways, on Friday my sister laura and kim and i left San Jose to go to Bocas Del Toro in Panama because we heard it was cool AND to renew our 90 day tourist visas. So the 5 hour bus ride was fun, as was the border crossing, where we had to walk across an old railway bridge with 2 foot gaps between some of the beams. After crossing the border we took a cab to the water taxi that would take us to bocas. bocas is a series of islands.

Upon arrival at the main island we realized that our 5 or 6 year old lonely planet photocopies were a little outdated, because the place had gone from rooms for 14 bucks to rooms for 70. fortunatly we found one for 30. The first day we were pretty disapointed with things, because we thought it would all be cool and not too touristy and dirt cheap. it was not. So the second morning we decided to go and check out some of the smaller islands. We took a cab to the second biggest island of bastimentos, and wow... it was totaly different. very laid back, nobody wearing shoes and roosters running around everwhere. it reminded me a lot of hemmingways jamaca, for the bibliophiles out there. We found an awesome hotel there which was on stilts over the water run by really realy nice germans. there were only 5 rooms. about 80% of the hotel was filled up with really really nice germans. we at pasta with tuna sauce. it was delicious.
Actually it was one of the nicest places we´d stayed because every night they had 'family dinners' where eveyone in the hotel would eat (ocassionally pasta with tuna sauce) and drink all night. we met a lot of cool people there. mostly german or swiss german.
larua wanted me to include a story of our hikes into the jungle, so i shall. On our first day in bastimentos we decided to go to the beach, which is about 20 mins from the town. you cant swim right out front of the hotel for reasons you will discover in the next paragraph. so we heard from some girls that the trail was a little muddy, but basically just go through the graveyard and follow the path. so we get the the graveyard and there is a clear sign with an arrow saying wizard beach, so we followed it. the paved road quickly turned into a mud path which quickly tuned into mud above our knees. it was a long smelly and dirty hike. it was that sort of red volcanic clay that just covers your body so that you feel like you were in a spa, but its not as cool when you want to just go to the beach. so eventually the trail got to a road, although there were no signs to say which way to go. so on a hunch we went right, and ended up at the water on the bay which we shouldn't swim in (see next paragraph). So we turned around and went the other way. the road was long and we were muddy, but kim's medium-esque vibes told her the beach was close. finally we saw the water, but unfortunatly it was the same water we saw earlier. we had gone in a complete circle. i suggested we eat some bananas to celebrate our second time ever getting completly lost. laura and kim didnt thing potasium would make things better, so we charged on. we walked back on the mud path (somehow even getting lost on this, so that we ended up in a different spot) and decided to retrace our steps in the graveyard to see if we had missed anything. it is here god sent us an angle in the form of a balding, flea ridden, growth coverd dog, who i soon christened- blackey. apparetnly in the grave yard you need to get off the well paved path and go on another dirt one with no signs at all. blackey ran ahead and showed us all the right unmmarked turns. after about twenty minutes we arrived at the beach. when we got there i saw that there was another official sign saying that it was infact wizard beach. So one sign at the start of the trail, and one at the very end. way to go panama tourism board. we were muddy and went swimming. most of the mud came off. we also got muddy on the way back, although perhaps not as muddy as we could have been thanks to another angel, but that is a yarn for another day.

after three days in a paradise of snorkling, pristine and empty beaches and watching through the floorboards the things you flush down the toilet land in the ocean, it was time to say goodbye. (NOW YOU GET WHY WE COULDN'T SWIM THERE!!- although one swiss guy did. i would never let that guy near my alphorn if i were you.)

We ended up traveling with two german girls and a brit from Bocas back to Puerto Viejho that day to stay in the hammock hostel where we did the night before. Kims parents happened to also be in town, and we went out to dinner together. we ate argentinian food. it involved meat being eaten by all. The next day we went with kims parents to the beach and then spent the night spinning yarns together over tequilia sunrises and 'rolly specials.'
a great time was had by all.

today we will read and buy gifts. Talk to you soon.

LOVE LIFE
dave (and kim and laura)

Costa Rica is so last week....

So kim and I are now mere days from being in Costa Rica longer than our visa allows which means we're now both itching to check out PANAMA to relax/ hide from the authorities.

So we leave tomorow at 6am to go to Bocas Del Toro. It will be fun. Kim looks lovely in the morning.

Also my sister arrived here yesterday. We went out and ate pickled fish and then she came to witness me enlighten minds. She actually participated in my converstaion class.... her grammar and prounciation are terrible. Today we showed her around San Jose, and are now finishing our term at work/ itching to hit a patio.

Be well

gratsi

sorry about the last post. i got frustrated. it was wrong. i'm sorry. i'll try to talk about my feelings and not bottle them up inside.
anyways... we had a great 3 days with kims parents last week. we saw an amazing gold museum where we learned how to smelt gold... INDIAN STYLE!! We visited the national theatre of Costa Rica where we learned that all good theatres have to have a ghost to be good. So thats whats holding back the Toronto theatre scene... not enough fatalities. We also visited McDonalds where we learned that twist cones are delicious.
then kims parents went to the osa peninsula and we think they had a great time. kim gets vibes. Shes like medium that way. Also cause shes blond and beautiful. Ohhh Medium/kim.....

my parents arrived on thursday. we met them at their hotel and then showed them where we live and work. within 5 minutes of us leaving them my mom lost her ATM card in a bank machine. luckly there were some students from ulatina around them to make a call to the bank. So they went back to thier hotel and tried to rectify things. kim and i went by after class. we were promised beer but they never bought any. something about being distraught. the holiday was ruined

or was it.

the next day at 9 we went down to the central bank downtown and luckly got my mom´s card back. she was very happy and went around saying "gratsi" to everyone in the office. unfortunatly in Costa Rica people speak spanish.
With teh card back we toured San Jose for a while and then picked up their rental car and drove to La Fortuna, which is a town right below Volcan Arenal... the biggest volcano in CR. It was cloudy. in three days we never really saw the top. I think it was because there being too much lava and fire. kim thinks i already made that joke, but laughs none the less.

it was nice to get away from our shanty dwelling in the city and into the lush fatcat lifestyle of a swinging north american tourist. i only spoke english, and if people didn't speak it, i'd just speak english louder to them. we went to some amazing hot springs. it was like they were hot rivers running through the rainforest. it was crazy. so were the mai tais. the next day we went walking in the cloud forest and saw three different kinds of monkeys. i like the orange ones.... kim liked the black ones with white faces. i think its cause they're the ones in friends. i swear if there was a worm named Chandler it would become her favourite animal in the world. Dont get me started on smelly cats.....

so then yestday with many tears we left my parents and took a....sigh.... bus back to San Jose. Walking up the street we heard the familiar sound of our neighbours tattoo artist friend doing some more touch ups. it was good to be home.

this week should be crazy. We have to give exams for our classes on wednesday and thursday adn then on thursday my sister arrives. We have next week off and the three of us are planning to go to Bocas Del Toro.. this string of islands on the carribian side of panama. this lady we work wth just told us she ate lobster there every night. hopefully it will be good... if kim doesnt get too crabby....

little shellfish humour for you there.

PHILISTINES...

ok i wrote two extremely funny posts but the computer crashed and i lost bothafter writing them.

long story short. kims parents were here. we saw museums and ate mcdonalds twist cones. it was great. my parents arrive tomorow. hopefully we'll have more ice cream.
the title would make sense if you read the whole blog but i lost it.



i dont need to impress you.

WOW BANANA

So today is kim and my two year anniversary. its magical. I had planned a nice dinner out to the fanciest restaurant in town, but unfortunatly during the night Derek got drunk, flew 7 hours down here, broke into our appartment and then confused the closet with the bathroom, ruining all of kim's lovely evening gowns. She was devistated. So now we have to have a special dinner of kfc take out and Closs 3$ a liter wine (which when you mix 50/50 with water is damn near drinkable). thanks derek. thanks a lot.

Acutally... Kims parents arrived in San Jose on Saturday so yesterday today and tomorow we are hanging out with them (saved from kim out to another fancy dinner.... besides anniversaries are just hallmark holidays anyway.) This week will be fun. We have to prepare exams.... its funny when you realize that what you teach is actually a university course and if people fail its not your fault...

kim want to to go

so until next time.... jim there are communists here... infact they are now on like day 20 of countin the ballots from the last election and a pretty left wing guy might win... but we eat rice out of banana leaves...

one love

Olympic Fever at last

well.. the rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed... mostly because i was feeling sick. i blame the olympic fever i've been catching, which was only worsened on sunday by CNBC finally carrying a canadian mens hockey game. it was a terrible game. even worse was the fact that although the picture showed hockey the audio was still talking all about wallmart and ebay stock prices. so we had to watch the game with no sound, which was nice because at the exact time we muted the TV, our neighbour decided it was a good time to get another tattoo. nothing better when you're feeling sick than a crappy hockey game and the sound of a tattoo needle for two hours.

we also went out and saw syriana on saturday. i want to see a lot of movies here becuase they are 2$ each, so long as you dont mind seeing spanish subtitles underneath and hearing people talk, becuse its ok to talk in a movie that you dont need to listen to i guess. anyways, syriana. was really looking forward to this movie, but little did i know that the movie was half english and half farsi/arabic, all with spanish subtitles. now... i'll be honest i dont know why a lot of stuff happened in that movie with the no speaking farsi/spanish... but i would still give it a good 3.5 stars. and the guy from deep space 9... i'd go as far to say he should be nominated for a golden globe for that role.

today we teach. this weekend kim's parents come into town. kim says we will have to clean the house. fortunatly i will be feeling sick all week.

one love
dave

OXCARTS.... and more.....

Hello
So we're just staying in town this weekend. Kim is busy writing exams for her class and I'm busy waiting for her to write her exams for my class. Just kidding. I'm actually giving my class a pop quiz. They've been asking for it lately by saying things to eachother in spanish and then laughing. I dont know for sure they're talking about me but if they weren't why would they be talking in spanish. Oh, and dont give me that "because they dont speak english" excuse. they could translate through body language. 90% of communication is non verbal... and if i have to fail everyone of them they are going to remember that!

So yesterday we went to SARCHI... "the woodworking capital of Costa Rica." Kim couldn´t wait because they had everything from armours to beds to rocking chairs. Ahh the magic. We left fairly early to get there, but of course kim needs to stop and get food, and of course i read the guide book incorrectly and of course Kim doesn´t want to appear lost cause we were in a really bad part of town (WOMEN!) but eventually we found a bus that would sort of take us there. So the guide book (which i read incorrectly for a second time) seemed to indicate that there was a big beautiful bus terminal in Sarchi, but one didnt actually exist. And also the only things less well marked than streets in Costa Rica are the cities. So we coasted through Sarchi thinking we were on the outskits, looking for the beautiful terminal only to have the bus stop in a town about 40 mins away which was the end of the line. To celebrate our first big getting lost we drank a coke. i had the last sip. kim was mad at me because of this the rest of the day.
So we took the bus back and ended up getting to Sarchi at around 5 (after leaving San Jose at 1), just in time to see most of the shops closing. But all wasn't lost. We did find a few shops that were open so Kim could get her woodwork shopping on. The shops also had one of the famous painted Sarchi oxcarts. YUP YOU HEARD ME... OXCARTS!!! We took some pictures beside it but they didnt really work because it was sunset. I will forever curse our bad luck.

After a good 40 mins in the town we hopped on a bus back to San Jose and then got home. We celebrated getting home by cooking a chicken. It took about 3 hours to cook. The chickens here are really fatty too. Dont they know that factory farms make them nice and lean. When in the developing world i guess....

My prayers and wishes are with everyone of you.
david (kim is beside me and i think she approves this message too)

ps. because kim is the woodworking nut i encouraged her to write in the blog today, but she though her job was more important. So dont people start cutting me up for being the only one who writes on this thing. Blame her and her mixed up priorities.

Hanging out on a Sunday night with the Simpsons and my tattoo artist

Well... another weekend passed. I ate a lot of bread and salami. I don't know what it is about kim but she LOVES to eat salami whenever we're traveling. Like... LOVES.

Anyways we left at 630 am on Friday and went to Monteverde, which has two huge cloud forrest reserves. Its kind of the touristy place to go see monkeys... so we decided to go. We saw monkeys.
The bus ride was like 5 hours on crazy dangerous roads, which Kim snored through the whole time. We arrived in the town of St. Elena at like 1130, checked into our 12$ a night hotel (which had a lock similar to one on a bathroom door, except missing those two screws that hold the whole thing together, and went to take a canopy tour. The tour was essentially just going up for a long time to high places and then going down a series of ziplines through the rainforrest. It was amazing. From the highest point you could see both the ocean on one side and this majorly active volcano on the other. The ziplines were also really really high up which made parts really scary. It was fun. The couple ahead of us was from Athens Georgia. I remarked that that was the hometown of David Cross. They said ok, and that it was also the home to some football team. Then the wife said "WERE ALL HUGE BULLDOG FANS!" I'm not sure if they knew who David Cross is.

The next day we got up really early and went to Monteverde reserve. We heard it was a 'crowd-forest' so we got there early to avoid the clouds.... i mean crowds. (man wasn't that first joke hillarious!) So we saw lots of big trees and vines and orchids and stuff. It was cool. We didn't see the crazy amount of animals we were expecting, but we did see 3 different families of howler monkeys and some other little rodent thing.
Oh.... and those weesel like things that eat trash. There were lots of them near the entrance. Eating trash. Oh the majesty.
At one point we were standing on the continental divide... where on one side all rivers go east and the other they all go west. We celebrated by eating bananas. They were mushy from being in the bottom of the pack. So was Kim. Amazing geography just gets to her. WOMEN!!

Our final day we wandered around eating ice cream and Salami (leave it to kim) until 230 when we took our bus home. As we came into our compound at 830 at night we heard a strange buzzing, and saw our kookey neighbours had invited over their friend the tattoo artist and he was getting a giant eagle tattoo in his living room while watching Simpsons. Thats so like him.

As the sound of the electric needle rocked us slowly to sleep we both leaned back and thought, it's great to be home. Well not really home... but in our pink appartment.

Be well.

Getting out of town.

So not too much has gone on lately. We've had a few laid back nights mostly. Last night we both sat back, drank a few "Cuba Libras" (the Costa Rican name for Rum and coke... genius) and watched the grammys. It was strange because we could see either the US or Costa Rican feed. We decided to watch the Costa Rican one because everything was about 5 seconds ahead. When Kanye West said that "George Bush hates the Grammys" we knew we made the right decision. When we checked CBS they had cut to commercial.

Well we're bored of San Jose once more and this weekend we're going to Monteverde, a really famous cloud forrest reserve. We leave tomorow at 630 am and when we get there we'll check out the reserve. The second day we're going to go on a zipline tour of the canopy and then on suspension bridges. We're kind of excited because we haven't done anything downright touristy for a while. I feel a lot more comfortable in my raggy clothes when i have the excuse of being a tourist. When i say i'm a professor people just look at me funny.

Today we're going to eat marlin. I can't wait.
love dave and kim

also good luck Tom in your rectorship bid...

0 stars out of 200

Well... that was some superbowl wasn't it. How about those commercials. I don't know about you but i think that those guys who are running for president of mexico went all out on their ads that night. Also that ad for the auto dealership featuring cast members of that popular spanish soap opera was amazing. I mean I knew P-diddy was doing one but the guy who plays Fernando... the sherif from the colnial mexico soap. You know... sometimes it makes me wonder if the game has become too comercial.

Acutally the superbowl was fun. We played a game of american football with some teachers and students at the schools field which was fun cause most of the people only about 1/2 understood how to play. The coolest part though was that there was a rally for team Yellow and Red going on on the street beside the field. The way costa ricans react in elections is insane. From the early morning until well into the night there were people honking their horns to the set rythms of their team, and waving flags. WOW... if there is one thing costa ricans love to do... it's wave flags. There would be cars with like 9 flags of different teams... but they were still waving them and honking their horn. So this rally was blasting music and screaming like crazy every time a car with their flag drove by... and screaming even louder when a car of the other team drove by. it was nuts.

The result was that nobel peace prize winner got 40.6% and glasses got 40.3%... so they're recounting. these are tense days. As nobel peace prize said on the news... costa rica is a 'house divided.' Speaking of disapointments i found out that ULatina actually does have a team name. They're the dolphins. I'm so disapointed... although in some ways it does suit. I mean what better to name a school whos power house sport is cheerleading (seriously they're going to florida for the world championships or something.). Buzzards would have been way cooler.

Also the superbowl gave me the chance to try the hands down worst beer i've ever tasted.Most of the beer here is average. The big two, imperial and pilsen, taste like a typical molson or labatt. They also only come in cans. It made me wonder because in mexico, it doesn't matter what the beer is, they all come in bottles and you get limes. So at the party kim decided to try ROCK ICE LEMON. Imagine somebody took an aveage beer... poured in about two tablespoons of limejuice (from concentrate so its real sour) and then topped it off with a few table spoons of salt. It tasted like lime flavoured salt water. Words can not even express how disgusting this drink was. But the weird thing is i see people drinking this all the time down here.
Kim gives it two stars, but i don´t know if her ratings count when it comes to beer.

So if you ever see it in the lcbo give it a whirl... that way if anyone bitches to you about how Canadian is the worst beer in the words you can top it. Or at least equal it.

Democracy vs the Superbowl... the eternal struggle

Well its election day here in Costa Rica and if you didn't know from reading the papers you will certainly know by the cars. For weeks almost every car in San Jose has a flag sticking out its window to support its 'team.' I know this might seem strange comared to Canada's signs but it sort of cool when you find out that the public bus you're taking supports a particular team. On election day, however, all this changes. Everyone is out honking thier horns, trying to convince those last few undecideds that because they honk more, their guy is the best. At first i thought a few of the cars were hitting on me, but sadly... democracy defeats my good looks once again.

So yesterday we went shopping to pick up some chili supplies because the school is holding a football game and superbowl party today, and we want to have some good food afterwards. We also needed some beers. So we go to the grocery store only to discover that it is illegal for stores to sell alcohol not only on election day but also on both the preceding day and the day after the election. So in short, Costa Rican democracy is going to make this the lamest superbowl party ever.

Who the hell schedules an election on the superbowl. Personally I blame the football (or as i like to calls it SOCCER) union.

VIRTUAL TOUR OF DAVE AND KIMS SEXY TROPICAL PAD

Oh... Hi there. Didn't see you come in. What are the odds you'd be walking down Avenida de Cultura in beautiful San Pedro. Well... since you're in the neighbourhood, why not come inside my walled community and have a delicious cup of Costa Rican coffee. We have so much to catch up about!!!
Well.... Here it is. I know the windows are kind of blocked by staircases, but we like darkness. Also Dave, my charming boyfriend, loves being on the first floor because theres a coconut tree outside the front door that has some small buds on it that he's convinced will turn into coconuts, which he wants to pick and give out to the city's less fortunate. I always ask him why he cares so much about other people, and he always replies, becuase I'm a great guy, and thats what great guys do. I'm so luckey.
This is our lovely living room. The walls are pink and stucco. DONT YOU JUST LOVE IT. Have a seat in one of our many peices of wicker furniture. I know its not too comfortable, but isn't it rustic and tropical. I'll make us a cup of coffee.
MMMMMMMMMM..... Fresh Costa Rican Coffee, made the old fashioned way, by pouring water through a dirty old canvas bag into an old tin cup. I feel so authentic! Lets go enjoy our coffee in the living room, shall we.
Do you have enough sugar... or as we say here... AZUCA!!!! This is our library, which features our amazing entertainment unit. Dave also uses this room to store and play his cheap guitar he bought at a market, and hopes to pawn off on somebody at a hostel before we leave. This is also the wall through which we can hear such favourites as 'my humps' any time of the day or night... esspecially night. Oh that neighbour Bryan. He doesn't speak any English, but he is a character. Speaking of Dave, lets go see what he's up to.
Here's Dave, toiling away in the study writing post cards. Boy, he sure never stops thinking about folks back home. This is the one non-pink place in our house, so i thought it was a good place to put the calander i found in a case of Dave's beer.
While you're in the neighbourhood, I might as well show you where we work. Its just about 10 minutes down the railroad tracks from our house.This is Universidad Latina, our new place of professorship. The main campus has two huge buildings, with several smaller buildings nearby. This is the medical and science building you're looking at now. Actually today is a big day because the Med school is having its graduation right now in the next room. Neat... huh? You might notice the proud motto: Compromiso Serio. We're both pretty sure that that translates to
'A SERIOUS COMPROMISE'... which we think means something good in spanish. All i know is that if i had a doctor who had to comprimise on their education, I would prefer one who took that compromise seriously.
Anyways, I should get back home. I'm sure Dave has cooked something great by now. I really hope its beans tonight. Thanks for coming by!!!