April 21, 2006
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.
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.
April 15, 2006
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
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
April 12, 2006
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*
April 3, 2006
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
.
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
.
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