Gin and Soda

Mom has this weird fear of crocodiles and alligators. Kind of like how I fear the gin bottle going empty on a Sunday. I find her fear strange, since these things are not wandering around DFW. But, whatever. So, I thought of her yesterday as the bus stopped on the way back to San Joshit so we could lean over this bridge and take pictures of these crocodiles. I imagined while standing there throwing Amarante over the side.

Here are some pictures of the "scenery" every day when we walk to school. Good times....good times. The bronze statues I have named "The sad people." They stand in front of a main bank in downtown San Jose. I don't know why they're there, as no plaque or anything exists about an artist, etc. However, I'll bet they're all so depressed looking because THEY'RE IN FUCKING COSTA RICA.

The others are just random scenes. Imagine inhaling pure diesal fuel as you walk and it's just like you're here.

Oh, and for some fun reading, see today's main story at http://www.ticotimes.net/topstory.htm.

Adios, freaks.

V

Yeah, the beach sucked. Turns out it's the closest one to San Jose. That's it. It's not neato, it's not fancy. The "hotel casino" was a dive of a motel with a small room filled with slot machines and a tiny pool where this freak guy in a THONG bathing suit kept sunning and BENDING OVER. There were two Toucans in a cage by the pool and I would plot at night as to how I could set them free. With my luck, I figured, their wings were clipped and they'd just jump out of the cage, into the pool and drown. What a shitty life.

The best time that I had there was the last night. All the others wanted to go eat at some taco place on the "strip" (yeah, strip of crap-ass stores and bars filled with sweaty people wearing bathing suits that are too small for them) that was supposed to be good, but which Alex said had flies swarming all over the salad bar. Yum! So I ate by myself at the hotel restaurant, which really was very, very good. I bought a $12 filet mignon and drank two glasses of wine while watching the ocean. It was much prettier at night because you couldn't see all of the rocks, mud, and beach peddlars. My waiter, Manuel, talked with me for an hour. It was great, as I got to really practice Spanish, and we laughed a lot. I was the only person there, so I got a lot of attention. The steak was great. Hopefully I didn't get mad cows disease.

I'm attaching beach pictures which look really good considering that crap place. You'll just have to believe me that it was nothing special....maybe I should be a photographer.

The beach is pretty lame. I've been to several beaches in my life, and this is at the bottom. It's not dirty, but it's nothing fancy. Lots of rocks on the beach, and the sand is a murky, charcoal kind of color. And the water comes up so high that all of the sand is wet, so there's not really a place to put down a towel and hang out. The town is pretty Miami-like, but there are a lot of gringos and it feels safer than craphole San Jose. I think I'll just stay drunk all weekend and stay in the hotel casino. Buying the first freaking ticket home I can find....

V

Just one of my views on the way to school this morning. This one was just for you, CK.

So we’re off to the beach tomorrow for two nights. Playa Jaco on the Pacific coast. And we’re in robo class this morning and start talking about it. There are two Costa Ricans that have been taking the class with us, Aldo and Camilla, a boyfriend and girlfriend. When we tell them where we’re going their faces change and they get this, “Oh, that really sucks,” look. Oh shit, I’m thinking, here we go. They proceed to tell us that Jaco is “muy sucio” or “very dirty” and that we need to very, very careful of the “thieves and men.” And that the waves are really strong and there’s a bad undertow. They said about ten times that we need to go a half hour farther to this really nice beach that’s in a federally funded park with white sand and a beautiful coastline.

So, I guess this whole trip just gets to be a total disappointment for me. There is a minute part of me that is hoping we’re not in the dirty area of Jaco, but considering how the rest of this place has been I’m not betting on it. Amarante sucks as a tour guide. Jaco is where this group always goes, and there’s even three previous students flying in JUST to go with us to Jaco. So, either their super young kids who have never seen anything beautiful in the world before and think this is fancy, OR they’ve never seen any other beaches in their lives. OR, the ultimate or, Aldo and Camille are wrong. I feel a beach blog coming on…

So last night I was awoken really violently by what seemed to be a rifle shot. I’m assuming it wasn’t really a rifle, but some sort of a gun. Dogs starting going nuts. No one in the house got up, that I know of, so I just sort of waited for something to happen. A siren, someone yelling. But I never heard anything else. So either someone next door off-ed themselves, or it’s just normal sometimes to hear loud guns being fired.

Several nights ago I heard walking on the roof. Since all roofs are tin with no attic or insulation, it’s easy to here stuff up there. It was really heavy walking, and again the dogs starting going nuts, and all I could think of was that it was a person. It was just too heavy for a cat or dog. That night, too, I figured someone else in the house would hear and get up if it was an issue. But no one did. So, I ignored it.

This morning my housemate said that she heard the walking last night and also thought it was a person. Then she goes on to say that she’s been told of robberies where men get on the roofs and pull open the tin siding and jump into the houses. Unbelievable. And then I get on the bus and Scott says that his Tico mom just figured out this morning that he’s carrying his laptop in his backpack every day. “And you’re not taking a taxi?!” she asked. I just looooooooooove this “secure” environment that we’re in. Just LOVE IT.

V

Hopefully it will load...the green part is the enclosed patio and driveway, the pink part is the house.

I'm still trying to put up pictures. But the internet here is not letting me. I've tried over and over. So, now I'm going to try one at a time....here's my house, if you can see it through the bars.....

God I need a drink...

This shit just keeps getting weirder as we go along. So, the whole point of this program and my coming here was twofold. One, I would be learning to program robotic lighting instruments and and video production. Two, our five weeks of work would cumulate into some sort of a performance for the public. For example, one year the group designed a “halftime show” using robotic lighting and music for a local rodeo in San Jose. Sounds fun. So, I’ve been curious as to what our show would be. How big would it be? How many people would see it? And so has everyone else. In fact, we’ve been asking each other, “So, does anyone know what our final show is going to be?....Has Amarante mentioned anything to anyone?....Hey, do you think it will be cool like the rodeo?....Anyone?”

WELL…the people in the “Animatronics” class have been working on making stuffed animals become plugged in puppets with moving mouths for some undisclosed puppet show. We figured it's just class work, but for some random purpose. (They’re not learning true animatronics. They’re building gay little skeletons inside the animals with lame little motors. But I digress, as usual.) MY classes in robo lights and video have nothing to do with a puppet show for grade school kids, obviously.

How wrong I am. My classes may not relate to a puppet show, but oh contraire, my ability to give free labor does. So today Amarante calls a “meeting.” Oooooh, fancy. He whips out this calendar which shows that NEXT week we, WE, are going to be presenting “the puppet show” at the AMERICAN EMBASSY for school kids. He says it all serious like, very control freak-like and smug, adding, “Do you realize that’s only four days to work because we’re leaving for the beach this weekend?” Okay, hold it…. Can we please rewind? What the FUCK are you talking about? How can you tell us today, after we’ve been farting around for two weeks in this poopville, that we have some special appearance at the US Embassy to present a SHOW and you’re telling us four days ahead of time??..... Would someone please mail me a large machete so that I can break my skull open?! Oh, wait, I forgot!…they cut the grass here with those. Bueno!

So, we’re staring dumbly and Amarante mentions that “you all know the script, right?” Uhh, no, no right! We all say we have never received an e-mail with the script, and then he’s all, “Oh, well I’m SO busy with meetings all the time, I sometimes loose track of what I have and haven’t done. My bad.” Whatever…so then I’m assigned to work with Scott on building the puppet stage, which Amarante has designed, and which doesn’t make sense. But that’s a whoooooooooooole other story. So I’m all, “And how do we get the lumber?” “Well, you’ll need to start by making some phone calls.” What the f…….I don’t speak Spanish you klodnick! How am I supposed to ask for luan and 1X4s when I don’t know what those things ARE CALLED IN COSTA RICAN SPANISH?! So THEN I say, “And with what vehicle am I supposed to bring luan sheets back to the museum in?” And he acts all holier than thou as if I shouldn’t be asking and real slowly says, “Well, there are these guys who are delivery contractors who hang out behind the lumber yards that you’ll have to work with, but don’t take their first offer, you need to barter. All of this is part of your experience here, I can’t be everywhere and get to my meetings, now come on guys."

I’m really curious what the hell his meetings are about all the time. He’s always flitting off to here and there, no one knows where, and no one, including the other two professors, speaks fluent Spanish. So, who knows what he’s saying on his cell phone all the time before he leaves. NO ONE has been to one of these Embassy meetings. We just keep getting these little tidbits about, “Oh, the Embassy blah blah…script….performance space…blah blah.” And of course we’re not all really listening, just assuming that it’s all related to whatever our fancy show is going to be at the end of the program. (Yeah, yeah, assume, you-me-the ass, I got it.)

And then tonight during robo lab hours with just Scott, Paul, and me left, Scott says to Paul, “You’ve read the script, right?” And I’m all, “How did you get it?” So Paul says that he got it from Amarante last week when he was asked to come up with some music cues for it. And then Scott says he had read it because he noticed it sitting on Amarante’s desk and he’s nosey and no one was around, so he read it knowing it was related to something we’re doing. Well, they both start talking about how BAD it is, and Amarante freaking wrote it! Now, mind you, I’ve written several scripts for various projects, from City of Fort Worth commercials to a musical review, and, believe it or not, even a puppet show. And I realize I’m no genius, but I guess I’ve done a good job at them because I keep getting asked to write scripts for various things. So, I assume I don’t suck. (DON’T say it!....) But these two guys are telling me that a theatre professor at one of the premiere universities in the country for over twenty years wrote a suck-ass script? For PUPPETS?! Now, let me get allllllllll of this straight….

I paid money to come to this program on the understanding that I would be learning robotic lighting (I am) and video production (sort of) in an international environment (check) that was tropical (no tropics in hell, thank you), relaxing (maybe if you subtract the running away from crack whores), and SECURE (this word is literally on the program’s website). As an added bonus I get all of the yucky stuff that I’ve already written about PLUS now I get to go to a San Jose lumber yard and barter with some guy in a truck, build a set, help sew together puppets, and I’ll bet money that before this over I’m one of the puppet voices. Which means I’ll be an actress in an American Embassy children’s show for local school children speaking a language that I learned from a high school spanish teacher with a west Texas accent THAT SUCKS.

Soooooooo….when do we get to create a robo light public performance….?....that's fancy?......(enter cricket noise here)………anyone?.....

V

I have to say, that coming home everyday from hell to this family is a blessing. I can leave the visions of the ghetto behind and be in a quiet, safe (due to the bars and gates everywhere), clean place where the food is awesome and there is lots of laughter. Laura, the 36 year old daughter, has one of those wonderful, infectious laughs that lights up a room. It is fun everyday to get her going on something. For everything that I can’t say in Spanish, I act out, and she and her mom seem to enjoy those stories the most. If only they were alcoholics like me, then this would be the party house.

Today, Sunday, it has rained all day. It stops every now and then for about ten minutes, but then starts up again. I’m sitting in the formal living area at the front of the house with the door open and enjoying the breeze and the sounds. Currently the Catholic church up the rode is ringing its bells like crazy, I guess reminding all of the sinners to hurry up and get to mass. A guy on horseback went down the street an hour ago, which made Jerry, the little mutt dog next door, go ape-shit. Of course, Jerry tends to go ape-shit at everything that goes by, but this was especially exciting. He’s like a cat, as he scales up the three foot concrete wall that surrounds the yard and weaves in and out of the bars that go around the rest of the place. It was a shock the first time he did this to me, as he was there so fast, barking like crazy. Now he never comes out and barks at me. I guess I’m on the “good” list finally.

Okay, nice stuff is over. I don’t know how much of this made the news in the US, but there was a major fire at a hospital here in San Jose this past Tuesday. I got an English Tico Times, and the story is awful. Yet, after being here for two weeks, no surprise. Nineteen people died, and it was all due to negligence. The fourth floor where it happened was full of patients that were incapacitated for whatever reason, couldn’t walk, and that floor had no escape besides the stairs. Plus, there were no fire hoses, or fire alarms, no smoke detectors, etc. AND, there were warnings in the past about the problems with this building related to fire hazards and nothing was ever fixed. The whole city is a fire trap, if you ask me. You can read the story at www.ticotimes.com.

Also in the current edition, but unfortunately not online, is a HUGE article about the horrific problem this country has with trash. Sixty percent of the country’s trash is not properly disposed of. It goes into streams, rivers, water on the coast, or never gets picked up. The government has passed the buck to the municipal bodies, and they only receive half of the money “asked for” from the people, and therefore there’s never enough money to fund proper pick-up, and therefore nothing happens. They don’t have the power, for whatever reason, to add a trash bill to the water or electric bill, and therefore there’s never any money. There was a strike last week in the northern part of San Jose because the workers kept asking for brooms and brushes to help them clean up sidewalks, and they’ve never gotten them. The article also went into detail about how Costa Rica boasts as a culture that they’re so environmentally friendly here, and how that’s a total deception. That tourists who come here to vacation and see a pretty country are deceived. The weekly political cartoon showed a tour guide with two depressed Americans and he was saying, “And over beyond that pile of trash we have a rain forest.” Even in the questionable parts of New York that I’ve been in, I don’t remember seeing piles of trash in front of every business, on every residential street, all the time. And that is what I see here every day. It’s sad that the people don’t have more power to help themselves. Everyone passes the buck on to someone else.

Devon, the other American in my house, is back today. She’s super cool, too. Her boyfriend was here visiting for three days so they had a fun, frolicking time at a nice hotel. Bitch. She speaks perfect Spanish, so among the four of us, a lot more gets said.

The sun is out. Amazing. Back to studying Spanish. Oh, the rain is back again. Wow, that was fast. Nevermind.

V

I’m trying to find positive things to talk about. I really, really am. I’m ignoring the daily crack whores and the homeless man that I have to step over on the way to school, just to spare you all a lot of the true horror of San Jose. But I can’t ignore today’s adventure.

So, this was Saturday. The big “hurray it’s not a weekday walking through crack whore’s neighborhood!” day, and our itinerary included a trip to a rain forest to ride zip lines over the canopy. You know, pretty birds, being high in the air with the nature of the rain forrest, monkeys, etc. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Here’s what the brochure should REALLY say.

First of all, we get there (after an hour and a half tour bus ride with seats that flatten your ass to a flatness you didn’t think possible) and you have to then ride in a twenty person boat down the “Snake River” for a half hour. Oh, and did I mention that we were SHARING our tour bus and had to stop at FIVE hotels to pick up people? Which took an HOUR and a HALF. But I digress….back the adventure. So, after dousing myself with 100% Deet, I’m ready to delve into the rain forest and the “Snake Reever.” I’m hoping to see iguanas everywhere, and toucans, and other brightly colored birds, and monkeys etc., etc…..Please insert snickering little munchkins laughing from the forest because they know more than me here.

The Snake River was nothing more than the Guadalupe River in Texas, except it’s a little bit wider, and we DID see one sleeping crocodile. And two iguanas. And a turtle. Ooooooh, a turtle!...And like, five monkeys, which were so far up in the trees that I’m not sure how the tour guide spotted them in order to point them out to us, unless he had stapled deceased monkeys up there earlier in the day. “Howler monkeys,” he said, though they were dead quiet, which lends more support for the stapling theory. Not much for a half hour boat ride through a rain forest. We eventually arrived at the canopy joint and I hadn’t taken one picture, NOR have I seen one damn snake, thank you.

We have to get harnessed up for the zip line, one if those rock climber, total body get-ups, with straps wrapped around your butt, up your crotch, separating your boobs, etc. Nice and snug. Then they hand you a helmet. “Dad would be happy I’m wearing a helmet,” I think. I put it on, and in about 1.4 seconds my brain suddenly says, “RETREAT! Back up! Back up! Whatever you just did, make it stop!! For the love of all that is HOLY!!!” What my brain was referring to was the overpowering odor that my nose had picked up on emanating from the helmet. Good God, I have never smelled such a putrid stink before in all of my life, and it was WRAPPED AROUND MY HEAD. Please imagine, if you can, the foulest smell that could possibly come out of someone’s ass, and then magnify that smell by a million, and then get a big handful of the smell and spread it all over your face. You’re close. The sweat and stench of who knows HOW many previous canopy zippers was imbedded in those helmet straps, and a trip to the bathroom and subsequent washing, WITH SOAP, did nothing. For the love of God, I wondered how I would manage for TWO HOURS with this shit on my face.

So, yeah! Off to a ten minute horseback ride to the starting point. I lift my assface onto my horse just a moment after I had watched it lovingly run and bit another horses’s ass. (Yes, ass is today’s theme!) Mind you, I’m remembering back to the day when I was around 13 years old and I’m on a trail ride with my parents just like this, one horse following the next, and my horse kept putting his ears back in pissed off mode, and suddenly my 13 years flew by quickly as I was bucked into the air and landed on my ass. Mom was bucked, too, and literally broke her back, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. But here I was again, same sort of follow the leader horse ride, and my horse doesn’t just put his ears back every now and then. No. He’s got them back the whooooooooole time. And I have four pictures to prove it. Ah, when will the joy end?

So I manage the ride with Grumpy, and we’re at the first platform. We have to climb 60 feet into the air, all while the harness straps are causing crotch wedgies and my thick gloves, which of course, also smell like ass, are making it hard to grab the ladder. At least everything was super detailed in the safety department, as you are constantly being clipped and double safety-clipped on every part of the zipping and climbing. But, of course, I guess the actual ZIP LINE could break as you’re flying through the air at twenty miles an hour, in which case your safety harness is total crap, but I left that one up to the Universe to decide. Hell, I had ass on my face, what the hell did I care if I crashed 60 feet to the ground?

Now, did I mention that the rain forest is freaking hot? Well, it’s sweltering. It’s hahhhhhhhhhht. So we’re all sweating like ass pigs as we trudge through this adventure. The zip lines consisted of five ladders, nine platforms, and eight zip lines. Every time the seven of us, plus two guides, did a zip, we then all had to wait on the next platform until everyone was finished and a guide started first on down the next one. So, you know about the ass faces. Well, let’s imagine all of our bodies starting to stink like hell, too, and then all nine of us crammed onto a roughly five by eight platform in between each line. EIGHT times. EIGHT little platform parties. I don’t know what the hell I used the Deet for, there’s no way a mosquito was coming near us.

So this zipping took freaking two hours. One of the girls in the group actually had a mini- heatstroke and had to sit and have water poured on her, etc. while we all waited in our ass-state on the platform. In my head I’m thinking, “Just push her down the zip! The air will cool her off more than baking ass stink is going to help!” But I kept my mouth shut.

FINALLY, it was over, and I didn’t see ONE damn colored bird or snake or monkey or shit the whole damn time. And I was looking for them, mind you. Every time we were baking asses on a platform, I was hanging off to one side trying to breathe clean air while looking for SOMETHING to take a picture of.

When we got back to the outdoor pavilion place to get un-harnessed, I rushed to the bathroom and washed my face three times. Gawwwwwwwwwwwwd it was gross. Our lunch was there at the pavilion thingy, and then we had to take the boat ride back to the bus, and then the hour and a half ride home, re-flattening our asses.

I want the power, just for one day, to design a Costa Rican vacation brochure. Just one.

V

Didn´t allow me to post more pictures. Won´t be able to try again until Monday when I´m back at the museum with my computer. So, just pretend you´re looking at a lot of pictures of a third world country neighborhood. Ready, go.

Stupid Costa Rica internet. AH-HEM.......let me try this AGAIN.

I am trying to, HOPEFULLY, post pictures of the neighborhood. Hopefully this will explain the shitty scenery that I have to look at every day. Thank God for the weekends. The green wall with the bars in the close-up shot is my house. The street with lots of bars and buildings is my street. The pink two-story building is a "fancy" house in the neighborhood. And all of the buildings shot from above with the tin roofs is a clump of houses from the neighborhood. I will probably have to upload pictures in seperate entries.......

All of the bars everywhere make everything so glum.

I am not a negative person. Ha ha…okay, you can stop laughing. No, really, I may bitch a lot, but I’m not actually a negative person in the sense that I hate life, or people, etc. Well...maybe I hate a couple of people, and hopefully they will die soon, but that’s another story. My point is, that I dont' mean to keep harping on the same thing, BUT….

Numerous times during my adult, traveling life I have said to myself, “Self, it would be awesome to live in ‘this’ major city.” These thoughts were of course occuring during vacations in New York, Boston, London, etc. However, there’s this funny little fact about life. It sucks. And IT will screw with you because it’s fun for Life to do that to you. Life will sit up on its fancy mountain top, sipping on a cocktail with a little umbrella in it, and think, “Haha! This is fun!” So, Life screwed with me and took out “this” big city and put in “a” instead. Hence, I get to live in San Jose for five weeks…the fifth city of my life to live in, and along those lines, if we think about vices, number five is avarice, yes? Well, I'm feeling pretty greedy right now, as I want everything that's not here.

So, I’m stuck in San Jose for another three and a half weeks, and I need to start concentrating on the NICE things about this hell hole so that it won’t become a suicidal tendencies catalyst. So here goes.

The biggest one is gin. They have gin here, they call it “ginebra” and I can order it in a restaurant or bar in Spanish, thank you. They even have “ginebra Bombay Saphire.” And you can buy it at any grocery store. Handy. Another cool thing is that I opened my big mouth, as usual, and got myself out of that first crapville of a house. Now that I’ve been in the new one, it is SO clear what a cheap deal that last place was! That cola cabeza (butthead) only fed me white toast and fruit every morning. But my new Tico mom gives me beans and rice (surprising, I know), eggs, cheese, FRENCH toast, fruit, and tea EVERY freaking morning! AND, my bathroom has new towels in it every day. AND she’s washing my clothes every day! I freaking have only one pair of socks, a t-shirt, and underwear in the dirty clothes, she washes them. Maybe I should test her with ONLY one pair of underwear and nothing else…..hmmmmm. Too bad I didn’t bring my boots, they need shining.

We’ve eaten at this “Americanized” restaurant a couple times, but it’s been yummy. It’s called “Café Mundo,” or World Café, and the food is muy yummy and the portions are big. I was able to have dinner the other night and still brought enough leftovers home for the following night. Lots of Gringos eat there, as it’s in the “nicer” part of downtown by the Mexican Embassy and several nice hotels, etc. It’s in a big, 1910 Victorian home, which makes it feel very Austin-esque. However, compared to the Tico prices that we’re getting used to paying, these American tourism restaurants start to suck in the “I’ll take my check now” category. Why? Because they charge the same prices that you’d find in the U.S., and after you’ve had a freaking steak here in a Tico restaurant for six bucks, you don’t want to pay $2.50 for a gin and $8 for a salad. Well, okay, yes you do on that first part, but that’s beside the point. Food here is cheap, and it’s going to be weird going back to the states and ordering fucking nachos (chips and beans people) and the price is $7.95. I mean, what the crap?! I moved into a new neighborhood in Fort Worth before I left that’s right by a Carnival grocery store, the “poor Mexican store” by Texas “standards.” I am SO going in there when I get back to see if I can get groceries at Tico prices. If Ticos pay so little for food, why aren’t we? Is a hamburger really worth four to six bucks? Really?

Well, I’m sleepy, and I need my sleep in order to keep up with those young bastards. This Saturday we go to some other rain forest and ride a zip-line across the tree tops. That, along with a ten minute horseback ride and vertical wooden ladder climb up to the zipping staging area, all surely equal death for me in my parents eyes. You never stop worrying about your kids…guess I can’t stop that.

On a side note to Dad - we learned all about electricity here in my robo class. So, I’m all cool with that volts verses amps verses wattage thing. I’ve had to apply it several times. Soy muy inteligente.

V

Today was another rough day of classes for me. Partly because of all the gin I drank over the weekend instead of being a computer geek, and also because I’m just plain older than these 19 and 20 year old kids in my class who WHIZ through every new lesson like it’s “sooooooo easy.” I hate them. Okay, not really. Well, maybe a little.

Today was also the first day since we’ve been here that it rained from 2pm until 9pm straight. It wasn’t in a constant storm, just a continuous rain. But at least this damn place will be “clean” in the morning when I walk to school. Which brings up another thing, my legs freaking hurt. We walk about seven blocks to the bus station in the morning, uphill half of the distance, and then once we get off we walk about a mile to the school, which is pretty much up hill the whole way. The last stretch of about 200 yards is at a freaking 45 degree incline. Alright, alright…35 degrees. But it’s freaking hard, and every day by the time I reach the top, the museum door, I’m literally wet with sweat showing through my shirt, front and back thank you, and am panting like Katie Holmes on the end of her Tom leash. And not to mention the leg power needed to beat off all of the beggars and pickpockets that swarm around you constantly from the bus drop-off to the museum. So, my legs are sore as hell. I feel like I’ve been on a Stairmaster for three hours all the time. This BETTER be improving some muscles, somewhere.

So, all of those things today, plus Bernie e-mailing that he was trying to get a ticket here for this weekend, but then the cheap fare he found couldn’t be found again, got me to bitching on the way home to Alex. He’s the twenty year old that lives across the street. Yes, one of the smart bastards. But what made the night a huge freaking stress reliever was that he came over and explained everything we’ve learned reeeeeeally slowly, and I totally understood it all. He made better analogies than the professor and drew pictures while he talked, and that’s how I get things. So my homework tonight made total sense, and now I feel smart. I just hate that it takes me two hours compared to these kids’ freaking twenty minutes. Or, as our Costa Rican video teacher would say, “Twenty meenoots.”

Enough bitching. I haven’t said anything about the excursion this past weekend. It, naturally, was a peek into what so many people have been calling, “the beauty of Costa Rica.” Because I cannot stress enough, there is none of it in the center of the country. We went first to a live volcano. It’s wildly impressive and exciting because it really can blow at any minute. The opening looks like this gentle sea of white water, which is actually swirling gases. Sections of it even become yellow from sulfur being in the mix. We stood up on a huge platform overlooking the opening and the crater-like whole that surrounded it. Our guide suddenly said, “Can you tell that it is actually a mile in diameter?” It’s freaking huge.

We then went to the “La Paz” waterfalls and surrounding rainforest and gardens. There is a fancy hotel there that runs the show, all of the bridges and walkways and gardens, so it’s like “Natural rain forest waterfalls over Texas.” On the grounds of the hotel is this huge butterfly sanctuary and an insane humming bird population. There’s a large garden with dozens of humming bird feeders and there are so many birds and they swoosh by your head so fast and so close that it’s like mini jets flying by. I wish I had another day there because it was really not until the following day that I figured out Bernie’s digital camera better, so several of the bird pictures were out of focus. Sucks, because they could have been super cool.

And then we all got back on the bus and gleefully rode back into hell. At least I now know that there’s gin here.

V

It’s amazing how much a CLEAN HOUSE can change your whole outlook on life. My new house freaking rocks, and it’s clean and more “upper class” for Costa Rica. Now, you have to understand, housing to Costa Ricans is solely a necessity to stay out of the rain, to have a place to keep your stuff and eat and sleep. And along that idea, Costa Ricans don’t care much about wealth or having a bunch of stuff or anything like us. They pretty much just live in the now, and work only enough to make sure they eat and have a “house.” Now, houses, 90% of them, are what we would consider shacks, really. They are all crude buildings made of simple plywood walls on the inside of most of them, and stucco on the outside while they paint very bright colors. And all of them, ALL of them, have bars on every window, every door, around every yard, and some with that curled up “do not enter” wiring stuff that we put around prisons and shit. They are not very large, and the ones that are truly “rich” houses are few and far between compared to the rest of this city. I will be sure to take some pictures soon of the neighborhood and post them so you can see how the places are made. All roofs are made with tin for some reason, I guess because it’s so cheap. Remember, houses are purely for necessity. Three of us went walking today and saw two very rich houses in one neighborhood and one of them was very Spanish-looking with the red roof tiles. We figured an American lived there. The house actually had a yard. Which is another point. Yards are not that big of a deal here. Most people, and again I’m meaning 90%, only have the small enclosed yards in the front and one inside. Houses with yards by our standards are maybe one in every 200 or so houses. They really just wouldn’t believe how we live.

So, my new house is much nicer in construction, though still a fire trap, as they all are, and is in a much nicer area. When we walked today we learned of the much nicer area around us than most, and found some great restaurants, an internet café, and several shopping centers that were nice. I’m only about eight blocks away from my old place, but it’s just a different world over here. My new family consists of Laura, a 36 year old accountant, her 18 year old son with some name that starts with a “D” (I only met him once), her mother. No men, and I didn’t ask why. There is another homestay person here, a Spanish teacher from Boston, but I haven’t met her yet. She’s visiting friends in the northern part of the country. I’ve got the freaking biggest room in the house in the back, with my own private bath. Outside my window is the inner patio, and outside my door is a room with a sunroof and some nice furniture. This must be the grandmother’s room when they are not renting to homestay people. It’s super clean and they are very nice. When I came back this evening, they had already emptied my trash in the bathroom, apparently clean my toilet, and done my laundry! It was all hanging outside on the indoor patio! Oh, that’s another thing, Costa Ricans rarely ever have dryers. Don’t know why. Well, maybe because they think electricity is expensive, though they pay way less for it than we do. Amarante’s rented, four bedroom house which IS on the very nice side (it actually has sheetrocked walls) had an electric bill of only $35.

So, things are looking up. I feel so much better about everything now that I’m out of that first place. I went to two other houses today where Barbara and Scott are living and I’ve definitely got the best deal now with this huge room and private bath. They were jealous. And there are four of us now that live within blocks of each other. We’ll be walking each other home now all the time.

Time for bed. Class manana.

V

Oh yeah, definitely rats in this here house. So, I come home this evening and my “Tico mom” and her son are gone and it’s just dad and me. He’s in the kitchen and I go in there to say hi to the dog in the laundry room where she “lives.” I feel sorry for the poor thing. I would bring her home if I could. She can go “outside,” but it is an all-concrete, totally enclosed patio. I hate shit like that. But anyway, just as Tico dad is leaving the kitchen, but is definitely still within earshot, two rats run along the rafters in the laundry room and start fighting. SQUEEK! SQUEEK! So I didn’t get to have any eye contact with ol’ dad, but he knows that I know. Hell, the dog knows. She looked up casually like she hears it every night.

Now, like I said, I’m not a rodent hater. But, it’s just like if you had a house in the states and you suddenly had feral cats living in your attic, pooping and peeing and spraying their male stink everywhere. You just can’t have it. These are uninvited, non-cleaned-up-after rats. No esta fresca.

But, all is well, as I’m moving to a new home tomorrow. I talked to the homestay lady in charge this afternoon. She told my family here that I wanted to be closer to the other American students, that I was having some stress with the school. I was glad to hear that she put it that way, so things aren’t awkward tonight. However, Linda, the homestay American chick who works here, said she would investigate the home at a later date because this family wants to have more exchange students. AND, with a large emphasis on AND, this family did have a bad rating in the clean category by another American girl in the past. But, for whatever freaking reason, Linda didn’t take it seriously enough. Well, let me help you make it serious, then. I’ll have a chance tomorrow to tell Linda about the rat cha-cha in the rafters.

She did tell me about my new home, however, and it’s right across the street from this other student that I like. He’s from Austin, a twenty year old kid that works at a theatre there and he grew up in Mexico. He’s forcing me to speak in Spanish with him only. It pisses me off at times because I can’t get the words right, but I know he’s doing me a favor. So, he’ll be able to walk me home. At my new place I will have my own room again with an attached bathroom, fancy. Plus, it’s a mother and 36 year old daughter who live together and the daughter speaks some English. And since my main issue has been cleanliness, I’m assuming that Linda really checked this place out. Hopefully my next entry about living here is mejor, no mejor que nada.

Now to more interesting stuff. I was hoping to lose some pounds here, or put on some calf muscles or something with all of the walking, but DAMN, the food is freaking fattening and GOOD and CHEAP! I want to eat all of the time! I want to eat when I’m not hungry, it’s insane. These people eat rice and black beans every day in everything. They just make up different names for it. There’s rice and beans with chicken, rice and beans with pork, rice and beans with beef, rice and beans with eggs in the morning, rice and beans with beans, rice and beans with rice…it’s nuts. And what are the sides, you may ask? Well, of course some queso, or guacamole, or more beans and rice, or some pico, or some rice, or some beans. But I have had fruit every day. Pineapple, mango, melon, oh, and damn….that banana thing that isn’t a banana. They eat those fresh, or fried up lightly in a pan. They’re freaking good.

Tomorrow we visit a rain forest with waterfalls and then a live volcano. With my luck, the freaking thing will blow. I was better at robo lab today. At least that’s one thing. And I made this thirty second video where the letters in my name fly around in space and then come together in the correct order at the same time. I’ll have to show you later, however. Can’t e-mail it to you. BUT, what’s cool, is that this program we’re using, Adobe After Effects, is like expensive and kick ass, and we all got it free on our computers. Yeah, illegally. We get Photoshop on Monday. Sweeeeeeet. Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

V

"Thursday, I don't care about you....."?????

What’s the "Thursday" part of that song from the Cure? ….. “...Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart, oh Thursday shouldn’t even start (?), it’s Friday, I’m in love.”….?? I can hear it in my head, but not reeeeeeeeeally. Obviously.

Well, new developments on the home front today. At least the beginnings of them. I had a moment with Amarante today by himself, and he asked me why I looked so sad today. “Well, a lot things,” I was thinking.

I can’t hide how I feel on the inside, Mom has always pointed this out. What was on my face at that moment was: 1) I’m sick of breathing diesel fuel with every freaking breath when I’m outside, 2) my house is dirty and it’s stressing me out, ME, the messy one3) Robo class, robotic lighting, went really fast today and I’m only one of two people starting from scratch and I couldn’t keep up and I hate it when I can’t figure something out, and 4) at lunch time I found out that a friend of mine, Mike McClure, dropped dead of a heart attack yesterday while jogging on the trail. The last thing depressed me because he was a fucking cool person, extremely intelligent and funny, was in the Texas Exes group, and helped me with getting the banquet together this year. He’s also Stan’s best friend, and Stan is a super close friend of mine, so I was sad for him. And obviously for Mike’s wife, etc., and the Exes are going to the funeral tomorrow, and so on, and all of this put together made me miss home a lot. SO, when Amarante wanted to know what was up, I told him about Mike, got a little teary eyed because of all the stress and my wanting to escape for just ten minutes, and then I said there were rats, or mice, or something in my room. He said I can move and that he would call the woman in charge this evening.

I didn’t want to be a Costa Rica wimp, I told him, nor did I want to be rude to this family by bailing, but he said rodents weren’t acceptable. So then at dinner, I went into detail with the other students about my house, and they ALL said that I had a shitty deal and needed to get out. And they’ve got a point, it’s going to stress me out in relation to my work. Then they all walked me home and said how my house was definitely shady looking even from the outside, and that theirs are definitely in a different class. Barbara pointed out that I did PAY for this, so it shouldn’t be this yucky. True. She has a freaking gated community with a security guard at the front. So, I’m going to tell Amarante tomorrow that I want to move. He thinks that I would be put in a house with one of the others, Katy. That would be good, because we would always be together, could help each other with homework, etc.

I am very sad about Mike. Cool, generous, funny, excellent people do not deserve to check out at 40-something years old. It’s just not supposed to work that way. It’s just not.

I wish his family peace, somehow.

V

Well, I’d just like to say that I am not a rodent hater. I’m not. I’ve had lots of rodents as pets. Weird, but true. Even rats. WHICH, I’d like to bring to the forefront, I am apparently sharing my room with. I’ve heard distinct rustling in the closet each evening, but I figured it COULD be large roaches, whatever. Tonight, there’s squealing. Not from the closet, but from the corner of the room at the end of the bed, where a large bean bag lives. I wonder if there’s perhaps a NEST in that bean bag. Lovely. I’m not afraid of them, but you have to admit, it’s kind of, oh, I don’t know, lower class and icky…

Speaking of which…today in class Amarante, my professor, wanted us to each talk about our experience so far. I brought up the “lower class” homes we were staying in compared to home in Texas and that I would appreciate so much my own when I was back in the states. He then proceeded to say, “Did you all realize that you are all in upper middle class homes?” There were a few “wows” and such to this. HOWEVER…

So we go to this bar that we saw on the way home yesterday in the nicer “neighborhood” with the mall. Very clean, very much like an American bar, ala Austin, with a big, outside covered patio, lots of tables. And we stay for about three hours talking and eating. Yes, yes, and drinking. The gin was PERFECT. Anyway, so all of the sudden the owner comes over to talk to us, and I was thinking, “Oh shit, we’re being American loud and he’s going to tell us to be quiet.” No, he came over to point out that the President’s brother had just come in with some friends. He wanted us to know this so we’d think it was cool, etc. I did read in my Costa Rica book that this is very normal, and that the President of Costa Rica goes wherever he wants all the time, and it’s not a big deal at all like it would be in America. So anyway, and then the "Commissioner of Tourism came in, blah blah, and “Be sure to come back tomorrow night when we have live music!” His English was excellent, and he told me he lived in England as a child and learned it there. But my POINT is that I asked about the area around his bar, because I noticed the house across the street was very fancy for San Jose, and that I had seen a maid come out and water the plants. He said it was a rich area. I told him the neighborhood that we are all staying it, and he said, “Oh yes, that is all lower class.” I KNEW it! And you wanna know where Amarante is staying?! Oh yeah, in the neighborhood with the mall. Bastard.

Interesting San Jose fact #2
Because this used to be a “small town,” there are no addresses. Literally. Nowhere. No street signs, no numbers on anything. If you want to go somewhere, you have to describe or name a landmark and then say where you want to go in relation to it. So, if I want to go home in a taxi, I have to say in Spanish, “Please take me to the Sabanilla neighborhood on the main road, two hundred meters east of the La Cosencha intersection, the white house on the right.” La Cosencha is the main street light area/intersection below my house where the gym, pharmacy, etc., is and it’s known simply for that name. So, if you want to MAIL something here, you cannot, literally, give an address. You would have to write out the paragraph, or whatever, needed to get the mail there. So I guess if I was to mail something here to my family, I would have to tell UPS or whoever, “Please deliver to the white house on the right side of the main road in Sabanilla about two hundred meters east of the La Cocencha intersection.” And I guess I’d have to write it out in Spanish and English. Nuts.

Hope the rats don’t want to cuddle. (Don’t worry CK, I’ll mail ya one.)

Adios, until manana.

P.S. I'm a little homesick today. :(

Que lastima! Necesito praticar mi espanol mucho! Todas las personas que hablan MUCHO rapido, entonces yo tambien, “Uhhh…que?......Que?”

The second day in San Jose was much easier to handle simply because we are learning our way around better. Well, at least we’re learning exactly how to use the bus to get to school and to get home, and where some landmarks are (like the bars with gin). At this point, I cannot imagine ever wanting to live in this city for an extended period of time unless absolutely necessary (like this class), nor can I think of a reason to vacation here. And I’m talking about only San Jose and the surrounding area, which is the biggest hub of the whole country. Again, I can’t wait to see the rest of the country. If only we were living and working in the rest of the country. There are four million people here, and two million live in San Jose. And everyone is on top of everybody else.

I’ve noticed that there are not “neighborhoods” here, like areas where there are only homes, as we do it. Everything is smashed all together everywhere. My house is in the middle of about eight houses, and then on one side is a pharmacy/gym/gas station, on the other side a grocery store ala Tom Thumb, but not as big, of course. Also, buildings mostly are not separate here, as you would find in New York and such. My strip of houses is all built with the houses attached to one another, with tiny courtyards inside each house, on one side or the other. Dad will hate this…every window and door has bars on it, even though you can only see the street from one of them. The others, like mine, face the courtyard, which is maybe eight feet by thirty, from what I can see out my window. I haven’t had time yet to check out how the dog really lives out there. But I’m pretty sure it’s all concrete, as outside my window this morning was her poop. Surely she would go on the grass if she had any. But anyway, every window has bars obviously for protection from crime, even in the courtyards I guess so thugs know to not try jumping the roof and into the yard. So, if there’s a fire, this could suck. But, this is a very small house, maybe 900 square feet, and my bedroom door is next to the garage entrance which is the main way in and out. Actually, I think it’s the only way, as the master bedroom is in the back, and there’s no door to the outside from it. I only have to leave my bedroom, turn to the right and there’s the door to the garage. So Dad, I could go out one door and hit the garage door opener and THEN run away screaming from the fire. Well, run away into the insane traffic ten feet down the driveway and be hit by a bus.

Who would ever think I would be happy to see a mall? Well, I was this evening. We went to the main mall for dinner because there is such a big food court and because it’s on the way home. But it’s so CLEAN in there! The mall is the main place where the richer Ticos shop (Ticos is what Costa Rican’s call themselves). So, I guess this is why it’s so kept inside, and it’s spacious and all, just like one of our malls, just not so big. Funny, it’s as clean as one of our malls would be, but when we go to one back home we don’t think, “Nice! It’s so clean in here! Kick ass!” Plus, the mall here is air-conditioned! Nothing much is. I’m thankful that it gets cool in the evenings or I couldn’t sleep.

So we have dinner there, and I wasn’t very hungry as I had a snack at happy hour (woo-hoo, one of the college students in our group is a “normal drinker” by my standards!), but three in the group had steak. And I mean, STEAK. A Chop House, or other fancy kind of restaurant, steak. And they all paid around 3000 colones. That’s freaking six bucks, people! And not little steaks, more like 15-20 ounces. I’m so getting the filet mignon next time, it looked awesome! And HUGE.

Tomorrow we begin our classes. I downloaded the manual today for the first robotic lighting instrument that we will be working on, so I’m going to read a bit before I go to bed. I envy all of you with cool bedrooms, ceiling fans, and grass outside your windows.

Oh, and we students made a pact today that no one would ever ride the bus home or ride in a taxi alone. I was thrilled that one of the guys suggested this, and then we all agreed. Even if someone wanted to stay after dark at the school to work, one of the rest of us would stay with them and work on stuff or whatever, so we would always be together.

Buenos noches,

V

San Jose interesting fact #1
The bus drivers like to drive with both of the bus doors fully open most of the time. Sit close to the door and the bus goes over a really good bump, adios amigo!

Well, it is my first night in San Jose and I figured I should take my last waking moments to write about my day.

San Jose is nothing like I thought it would be, not really. It is very humbling, and I already know that I will appreciate SO much when I return. The closest place that it is similar to in my travels is the far north side of London, the cheaper, scarier area of that city. Or perhaps a cheap and crowded area of Miami...another student said it's just like Mexico City. That makes sense. It is very, very dirty, crowded, and noisy. All of the cars and vans and buses, etc., are so loud! Not just honking, but the engines. This is a medium to low income country, heavier on the low side. Flying in, there were beautiful mountains and valleys and trees, but the city is dirty and hot. My house is on the main road “up” the mountain from downtown, so there is the constant traffic sound outside. However, once San Jose sleeps, starting around 11pm, it becomes amazingly quiet! Nothing moves!

The house… The houses are very simple, cheaply and poorly made structures, one on top of another. The biggest investment are the huge iron gates and doors that keep the outside out on each one. Crime is apparently a huge deal here, as we have not even had our official first meeting yet with the group, and already I’ve been warned about ten times to be careful, to not walk alone at night anywhere, and to watch like crazy for pickpockets. One of the girls from the previous group last week was robbed at knifepoint, but she gave the guy 2000 colones and he was satisfied and left. That’s four dollars to us. Enough for a decent meal here. Tonight I had tortilla soup, which came with a side of chips and quacamole, and a beer (the famous “Imperial” of Costa Rica) and my bill, with the tip and tax included, was 2800 colones. But anyway… My house is very small and crowded by our standards, reminds me of my crazy cousin Rita’s trailer home! It is also dirty by our standards, dust and dirt, bugs in corners, etc. The walls appear to be just a thin plywood on a cheap frame. I can hear home fireworks going off somewhere right now, perhaps an American for the 4th. Hope this damn place doesn’t burn down. These are simply poor people here. I have pictures of my new place in Fort Worth on the computer, but I wouldn’t dream of showing them to this family, as it would look like I was very, very rich. My parents’ house would be a mansion! Ha! Living here will definitely be very humbling, and I don’t think I’ll be apt to bitch much when I get back if my kitchen isn’t finished being remodeled or my tub still leaks.

Our classes are actually in the “Museo del los Ninos” in the middle of the city, the Children’s Museum. The building used to be a prison! I haven’t learned when it was remodeled yet, but recently, I think. You can find it online, I’ll bet. The museum really only takes up one wing of the “prison” while there is a theatre in another section, and a library, a cafeteria, and offices. We have two classrooms and an office. The museo is about a 30 minute bus ride from where I’m staying...well, plus a twenty minute walk, partly through the red light district! The bus stops very close to my house for the ride in the morning, but drops off a little ahead of my house on the ride back, so I will have to walk a couple of blocks at night. Not too thrilled about this after all of the warnings already about the crime here, but I guess I’ll get the hang of it. Tonight one of the teachers, who I’ve met before, walked me home. He, Robert, has been on the program before like me, but now is hired by Amarante, my professor, to come back and help teach others. Adam, a grad student at UT with Amarante, who has come here three times I believe, is a quirky nerd guy who did not seem to care that he was getting off five stops before me on the bus line. Robert should have gotten off with him, but being a married, older adult, he made sure the rest of us got to where we needed to go. That Adam guy is easy to talk to, but definitely in his own little nerd-land. I was irritated that he didn’t care to make sure we were getting home safely when that’s what Amarante told him to do, but was relieved when Robert just did it. Adam is a little out there. If it’s not technical, he’s not really tuning in.

Today we just got acquainted with everything, got some money, and got home by 8:30pm. (We are only one hour behind Texas time.) Robert and I went to the store about five blocks up from my house and I got some water. Not supposed to drink the tap water. Hope the tortilla soup doesn’t get to me…. Tomorrow we begin our studies. This Saturday we travel to the volcano, a butterfly sanctuary of some kind, and a coffee plantation. Sunday is for resting.

More tomorrow hopefully. I will post pictures of my room today. More pictures in the next couple of days. Adios.

V