If there was ever a contest for the longest blog entry, this one would win.

I am actually intimidated by the length this blog post needs to be due to my recent failures at keeping all you 10 readers out there up-to-date on my life and your expectations of my customary excruciating detail within each post. Anyway, let’s start with the rain. So we had some sort of rain record with twenty something straight days of rain. And it was rain all day and serious rain too. Everyone has a little bit of seasonal affective disorder in them…the rain is lessening now so it’s usually beautiful all morning and then rains for a few hours in the afternoon which is extremely doable for me. So anyway, the thrift store. SO cool. It’s called Ropa Americana and basically has all of the Salvation Army reject clothes…it is this huge store with an upstairs section where each piece of clothing is 60 cents and you have to dig through a 20 foot by 20 foot by 2.5 foot high pile of clothing. I found a free people sweater in there…and some pretty classic articles of clothing including a child size tie dye t shirt and a huge skirt I’m turning into a dress…then downstairs they have sections of things like one section is $2 a piece and there is another that’s $4 and you have to buy all of your things from one section before moving on to the other and there are people yelling over the speakers in Spanish the whole time about all of their great deals…it’s an interesting place. I also found THE COOLEST satchel bag for $3.

PUERTO VIEJO

So several weekends ago we decided to go back to Puerto Viejo because October is summer in the Caribbean side (aka not pouring rain constantly) and everywhere else we wanted to go had flooding and roads blocked off…anyway, Molly, Maria, Anna and I all went there early together and it was just so much fun. We stayed at Rocking J’s again and “slept” in hammocks for 3 days and that place is literally just so cool with such a good vibe and you are guaranteed to make at least 3 new friends a night. Just check out their website http://rockingjs.com/. So we went to the beach, went running on the beach in the late afternoon just when the bugs were swarming and got our legs basically chewed off which we would later scratch and turn into scabs and then form scars and we picked up several hundred full sand dollars and it was awesome. We also kept forgetting to eat…like one day all I ate was 2 pieces of bread until 5 pm and then we went to the supermarket to get food to cook for dinner and of course Anna and I lost Maria and Molly and then bought a mango and peeled it with our fingers and inhaled it like savages while walking back…and then we cooked plantains with onions and guac and refried beans and then pasta and sauce and then went out and danced like mad women. And we met so many people! I personally talked the most with several German men (traveling separately, I actually talked with them about political structure, education systems, healthcare…), several guys from throughout the US, some Australian men who may have been as old as 30 but were using sticks to pole vault into the ocean so their ages are therefore entirely up in the air…and two amazing girls traveling together named Nicole and Hannah, one from Canada the other from New Zealand. Also, the first night we split 3 dishes at the hostel that were AMAZING. We had a thai vegetable sauté in peanut sauce, the most AMAZING cheese-less nachos in the world, and this vegetarian burrito that for some reason they snuck blue cheese into (that was a little weird especially because I don’t really eat cheese…) We also taught a bunch of (some belligerent) German men how to play beer pong but they really hate listening or following any rules which gets quite frustrating. And went night swimming and then somehow Anna and I ended up lying in the sand talking and later that same night I fell asleep on the beach…bad idea-SO MANY MORE BUG BITES. But it was just such a nice and relaxing live-in-the-moment weekend that I had really needed after so much rainy weather, stressing over classes, getting kind of homesick, and being stupidly uptight. I would guess I slept a grand total of 11 hours over 3 nights…insanity for me.

DINNER WITH THE PROFE

            Upon getting back from Puerto Viejo, I communicated with my African Writer Professor from AU who happened to be in San Jose visiting his brother who lives there in order to see him. I went to his brother’s house from 2 in the afternoon until 9 at night, talking about everything, laughing, eating grapes, and eating the Indian food he prepared for dinner. Their house keeper is awesome and looks about 20 but has a 21 year old son and speaks perfect English but had known nothing when she had started with them 5 years before. We had dinner with a Russian and Costa Rican couple, and I just loved how open and friendly everyone was and how the ideas of being “politically correct” or not sharing details were thrown out the window. It was intellectually stimulating, fun, and awesome to have a taste of home. Also, I had begun a baking spree with vegan chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies that had tapa de dulce in them and my host family and professor were obsessed and ate every last one I gave them. That night I had my professor drop me off at FoFo for Molly’s birthday which was really fun and hilarious and they were obsessed with the cookies too!

GRANADA, NICARAGUA

            So there was definitely some spontaneity involved in this one. I had wanted to go away because there were so few weekends left for me to travel, so I was thinking Montezuma with Abe. The issue there was that there was rain forecasted for the whole weekend. Actually, rain forecasted for everywhere. So anyway, Shelley eventually called me telling me how much she wanted to go to Nicaragua. Anna, who had been planning on going to Panama that weekend but her plans fell through, said she was down for doing something with me. I was super stressed out and had no time to plan anything because it was already Thursday and I had class in the morning, volunteering in the afternoon, and Marco’s birthday celebration at night. Throughout me running around that day, somehow Anna and Shelley managed to plan an excursion to Granada, Nicaragua that would leave the following day at 5 am. We went there in TicaBus, which is actually hilarious because it has a leaping deer on the side of it, definitely copying Greyhound. It charged about $30 to make the approximately 8-9 hour trip to Granada from San Jose, which, for here, is astoundingly expensive. However, the bus did have air conditioning (SO COLD), show movies, and have a pretty disgusting bathroom (the other buses we take NEVER have bathrooms!) We had the option of going in another bus to the border, crossing on our own, then catching a 2 hour public bus (actually an old school bus from the US that couldn’t get recertified for use in the US) to Granada which would have saved us about $15, but that would have been slower, a figure-this-out-on-your-own type thing, a dash of danger, and a bathroomless venture. As we had it, they did basically everything for us in leaving Costa Rica and entering Nicaragua. We actually ended up taking a different TicaBus that didn’t go all the way to Granada and then took a taxi there. Taxis in Nicaragua are very different from those in cities in Costa Rica. They don’t have Marias (the digital thing that uses a constant rate and tells you exactly how much money you owe based on time and distance) and, in many cases, are missing door handles, parts of the seats, etc. Also, within Granada, cabs are a flat rate of 10 cordobas (less than 50 cents) a person for wherever you would like to go.

            Once in Granada, we checked into Hostel Oasis, the nicest hostel known to man. It cost 9 dollars a night, with one free 10 minute international call a day to anywhere in the world except Central America (ironic, no?), a swimming pool, around 6 computers with internet for guest use, and the cleanest, most comfy beds ever. And also with a central location. We then went to a shop with handmade crafts and bought most of our gifts there-so cheap and the woman was adorable! And went to a restaurant for dinner-I had decent gazpacho and this delicious fruity drink. We then walked around a bit-Granada is such an amazing city. It has beautiful colonial architecture, amazing cafes and restaurants, delicious and super cheap street food, art and jewelry venders at every step, live music everywhere, cheap or free museums, fascinating history, and countless things to do. We went back to our hotel because we had an early adventure day planned with a trip to three islands on Lake Nicaragua the following day. The crazy thing was that when we got back to the hostel, this girl came up to me. It happened to be that Nicole and Hannah, the girls from New Zealand and Canada, respectively, whom we had met in Puerto Viejo, just happened to be in Granada at the same time as us, staying in the same hostel!

            Our friends accompanied us on the island tour the next day-we went to a small island to drink some coconut milk and relax, to Monkey Island where we got SUPER close to the monkeys (I mean it helped that they were very comfortable around people and used to getting fed by them-something not so good that seemed to be not only supported there but encouraged, in comparison with Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica where it is heavily frowned upon due to the reliance of the monkeys on humans this can cause and the harm the food can cause them). We also went to El Castillo, which contained the Fortaleza San Pablo , which is a fortress from 1784 built to protect the city from pirates. We stopped at “Hidden Port” which is an island with an absurdly priced restaurant and an area to swim and a pet parrot. We also got to open up a flower that you see above that leads to a fruit that looks kind of like a coconut that only birds can eat. It was decent but not an unbelievably thrilling tour. Upon returning to the mainland, we got to see a group of cows grazing; they were the skinniest things I have ever seen-you could easily count their ribs. So we have a terrible system for raising cattle for slaughter in the United States-fattening them up on corn and soybeans that their systems aren’t meant to digest, not giving them any space to move around, leaving them in unsanitary conditions, and injecting them full of vaccinations and artificial growth harmones. Therefore, we like to idealize things in countries in which this “fast food” idea of raising animals does not (yet) take place. However, that doesn’t mean that animal treatment standards are by any means up to par. It’s quite a reality check and reminded me of how every single dog (even pets) in Guatemala looked. It’s just different expectations of what’s considered healthy.

            After that we went to lunch at a pizza place, and I got a homemade vegan pizza. We then shopped around at the street vendors and befriended them. One man taught me how to make the intricate metal jewelry designs, and I’m so excited to employ his methods in his jewelry when I get back! Another guy the night before had told us he wanted to cook dinner with us in a house “that was really more like a hotel…”. We practiced our Spanish and had a lot of fun. We then went to a free museum with a huge private collection of hand-made pottery from as far back as 300 C.E. and with mostly female figures in the “position of power” pose with their hands on their hips and breasts as signs of fertility. We then went to a super awesome art studio and came back to the hostel to meet up with Hannah and Nicole and also Maria and Molly who had arrived on the crazy buses. We went to a restaurant where you could get two rum and cokes for $1.25 or two of those delicious fruity drinks for less than $2 and where I got vegetable soup and rice for about $4. Then we went out to hang out and dance and met someone who lives in Columbia Heights in DC! We danced for a bit then went to this really cool bar with a huge pool and met some guys from New Zealand and went swimming. And Anna kept seeing this Nicaraguan man, probably around 30 something, who was in love with her. The next day we walked A LOT. We ate breakfast at this really delicious place we had discovered right across from the hostel owned by French people and where I could eat either gallo pinto and grain bread and jelly or gallo pinto and potatoes and fruit for less than $2! It was fabulous. Then we wandered around and got ice cream for lunch (a dollar for me for 2.5 scoops of sorbet, a cone, and a sort of biscotti cookie!) and had a political discussion about presidential candidates and the death penalty and eventually made our way to the lake where we met a vulgar drunk man and decided to get off of the beach and buy some street food and wander back into the center for dinner. Which ended up being a dollar and street food of gallo pinto, patacones, and salad wrapped in a banana leaf. Then some people got some stuff from my favorite street vendor who sold these sweet corn tortillas and also corn cobs grilled that tasted kind of like popcorn. Throughout the weekend we also got sugar coated cashews, sweet coconut ball type things, plantain chips with pickled cabbage and chili, a bag of fruit, this weird bread that they said was filled with sugar but actually had clumps of sugar and parmesan cheese in it, and probably more things. We then came back to our new hostel to change and such (ahhh this new hostel was next door to the other and was $5 a night including a computer with internet and gallo pinto, bread, an egg and coffee for breakfast and we somehow finagled our way into getting a private room with a HUGE king bed and a bunk bed to comfortably fit the five of us!) and went to go listen to live music from these people we had met on the street that day, one a French girl with dreads and the other a very socially outspoken Latin man. His voice was pretty bad, but the atmosphere and the filled-to-the brim with shoeless hippies thing was pretty awesome. And this kid played a couple songs on the flute which was SWEET.

            The next day we went to buy our tickets home and then went to the San Francisco Museum where for $3 we got an entrance and a tour! It was founded in 1529 by a Franciscan clergyman with most of it reconstructed and little of the original remaining. One of the rooms was awesome with tens of zoomorphic statues found on the island of Zapatera and from between 800 and 1200 CE. They represent gods of the indigenous people who constructed them and portrayed the animist culture, with animals combined with humans for many of them, constructed to respect the most important people. Each person had an animal with which they had a special connection or a mutually protective relationship, and the people portrayed were constructed with their sacred animal. One such statue was a woman with a crocodile/alligator on her back, and the breasts are now concave because the Spanish settlers found the statue vulgar as it was and removed the breasts, leaving holes. There was also a room with different pieces of pottery, showing the progression from simple hand pots to coil pots to wheel thrown pots. There was also a room depicting the popular games among the native people, both physically demanding and seemingly dangerous, and one meant for men and the other for women.

            After the museum, Anna and Shelley went to catch a bus back, and Molly and Maria and I went and bought a package where for $27 including tax we got a DELICIOUS lunch at the Garden Café and an hour AMAZING massage at a gym and spa. In between lunch and the massage we went to make mosaics. We paid a little over $6 a person and were there for over 3 hours making pretty small pieces. Man, is it slow. It was super cool though and we got to break glass and do everything ourselves…although pieces of glass were flying and I’m not sure how none of us got glass in our eyes…We then had to run to make our massages and literally died. It was amazing. I’ve only gotten a massage once-when I was doing gymnastics and my coach recommended it-but it was with all of my clothes on and rather painful because my back was so tight. This time it was like a massage you see in the movies, which, at first I felt a little uncomfortable with especially since I had a man, but oh my goodness it was so great. Then we got dinner at this Mexican place the little boy at our hostel recommended (the hostel was run by a family in their house) with our Israeli friend (he was super interesting-had lived in India for a year, LA for a while, and was now wandering without a plan, just knowing he couldn’t go back to the US because he disagreed with their policies. Anna and Shelley and I met him the first night when we were going to check out this hostel and I thought he worked there and kept insisting on speaking Spanish to him but he had no idea what I was saying because he didn’t speak Spanish…) Anyway, this place was really cool with torches and we were the only people there and they cooked the food right in front of us and the owner was a woman from an island near Alaska but my tomatoes tasted kind of like alcohol…We were there for a really long time and at the end the woman gave us a 30 minute speech about her political and educational philosophies on the world, some of which were pretty ignorant…like when she said we wouldn’t have so many devastating earthquakes if we didn’t detonate so many bombs…but she was nice and meant well. Then we went to the center and took some weird pictures and then found the “Imagine” café which had just finished live music. But I sweet talked one of the young guys who had been playing and convinced them to play again. And I drank homemade ginger ale and listened to their AWESOME reggae swing music-there was an upright base, a cahon, a guitar, and a violin and they sang. Great way to end the trip!

BAILAR EN CLUB 212

So I made some oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip (vegan of course) cookies for Marco’s birthday and went to my grandparents house to celebrate with a delicious dinner and with such awesome family. My host mom had made me special separate rice so that it was vegetarian, and also they had this homemade pickled vegetable thing that reminded me of the ones my family used to buy when I was little but better and had green banana in it and I ate so many servings that my host family decided to make a giant jar of it. That night my friends and I dressed up (I as a hippie with 3 head scarves and a long skirt from the ridiculous thrift store and gypsy earrings) and went to FoFo and we were literally the only people dressed up which was great. Then we went to Club 212 where the free drink was a Red Bull. Which was so dangerous for me because I always accept free things but never drink caffeine. We literally broke it down on the dance floor for over 3 hours. It was awesome. They had a pretty demeaning sexy costume contest and then another regular costume contest and then hired dancers who did the Thriller dance and were AWESOME. And my friends and I just danced like wild people and felt beautiful and didn’t care one bit what other people thought. And we had a bunch of people come up and join are group and made friends with some people and danced salsa with some Costa Rican men and just had an absolutely amazing time. I got home at 3 am even though I had to wake up at 7:30 the next day…

PERROS DE LA CALLE

So Sunday I did the “Perros de la Calle” thing that I had done with my class before and brought Anna and Molly with me. We brought a bunch of food and went to the Red Zone district of San Jose, feeding dogs and people. This time I actually got to talk to people and had an amazing experience. At one point there was a tiny kitten behind a giant garage-type door crying out to us. We didn’t know what was behind the door or if the kitten could get out, and I fell in love with it. We stuck food and water under the door, and I lay on my stomach for literally ten minutes looking in the crack under the door just watching it and then I stuck my hand under and it put its paw on top of it. Later, we went to a part where a guy came up to us three Americans. In perfect English, he told us his story. He lived in Newark, NJ for 30 years working as a cab driver, waking up at 3 am and finishing work at 7pm 6 days a week. He got exhausted and eventually returned to Costa Rica with $40,000 saved up. He started relaxing and enjoying himself and got carried away, and eventually the money was gone. He told us that in Costa Rica “you don’t have to work to live” and made it seem like that was something quite bittersweet. I was so glad to finally get a glimpse into how someone goes from living a productive life to being homeless, and finally I started to understand. Just as sometimes, when I’m really stressed out, I’m tempted to run away from school, to just give up in all that I’m doing, lifestyles get too much. I never give in to giving up-I usually can take a break if I really need one and do things that I enjoy and relax me. But not everyone has that option; they can’t take breaks when they need them. And it’s so easy to get burnt out. And what happens, if, for example, you are living in a bad part of New Jersey, in a run down apartment, without any free time to enjoy yourself or any time for friends, family or hobbies and then you go somewhere else where you can live on the street for free, drink when you have the money, eat because people are generous, and have all the leisure time in the world? Now, many people would choose the first option because of “dignity”, of “work ethic”, of many things that are socially ingrained in the majority of us. Especially because we are American and work comes before happiness. But I understand 100% where he is coming from. He wants to go back to the US, to start again, but he is caught up in this lifestyle, in a downward spiral. There are many other reasons people are homeless, but this is such an interesting glimpse into one man’s situation. He then asked for a kiss on the cheek from each of us and was sure to tell us that he didn’t have any diseases…then we met this other guy who was definitely not 100% there but was hilarious. He started singing to us and playing the drums on a nearby pillar and it was super catchy. There were also several transvestites, which got me to thinking, in the US, a place much more socially liberal than Costa Rica, transvestites are not widely accepted. Just imagine what they must go through in Costa Rica. I’m sure the only work available is on the street as prostitutes, and there are no social resources for them to go to to connect with people, to feel comfortable in their environment. But this group of homeless people in this area was a community, and it was amazing to see. Not even gonna re read all of this before I post it because it is SO long and I am so tired. I hope it makes a little bit of sense.