palmares

so i'm back in costa rica. had a very long day of traveling on saturday... because i used my frequent flier miles to get here, i had the crappiest schedule. i flew out of boston at 9am heading for detroit. i had an hour and a half layover there. then i flew to atlanta. where i had a THREE and a half hour layover. then i was finally on my way to san jose at about 6:45pm. we arrived at about quarter to ten and i was SO PLEASED that when i got out to the luggage carousel, my bag was already making it's way around.

so i had already arranged for this transport service to pick me up at the airport (not only is it easy, but it's cheaper than a taxi) and take me to the hostel i thought i would be staying at. but i had an e-mail from my friend colleen earlier that week saying that she had found us an apartment. it was too late to change my destination (and i think they will only take you to hotels) so i went to the hostel and immediately asked the guy to call me a taxi. i gave colleens directions to the driver and he took me to my apartment. :)

we live in a small apartment building, there are maybe 6-8 other apartments. there's a big living room, a decent kitchen, a patio (which is in the center of the block, so has no view, but does get sun and maybe we'll put a plant or something out there), a bathroom with real hot water (not the costa rican favorite - the thing that heats the water as it comes out of the shower head), and our two bedrooms. pretty nice.

so we slept kind of late sunday, then went out for breakfast and some exploring. had my gallo pinto con heuvos, which was so good (and much better than my own attempt at home). did a little grocery shopping. then colleen called a friend from work about this festival type thing that was going on. so it turned out that we had to cut our exploring short and go home and get some stuff together to head out to san ramon to go to this festival.

so the festival is not far from san ramon, in a town called palmares. it's hard to explain... it's kind like a state fair, but not. i mean, there are some carnival rides, lots of greasy food, little shopping stalls, apparently there was a horse parade last week. but along with those things there are also a number of bars/discos/clubs built on the site. massive places, with multiple levels. i think during the days there are also concerts.

so we got there late afternoon. we wandered around, went on a couple of rides. i had some thing the name of which i can't remember, but it was a hot corn tortilla smeared with sour cream, very yummy. then we chose a bar with a reasonable cover charge and started dancing. there was also a stage inside. sometimes there were just dancers on the stage. there was also a guy who had his body painted like a leopard dancing around with a black light and a giant infaltable ball. and another guy painted silver and wearing wings with a disco ball and flames shooting out from his wrists. very strange stuff. but the dancing was fun. :)

so we stayed in san ramon with colleen's friend (steven, who also works at the same place she does) and got up early this morning to catch a bus back to san jose. needless to say i'm a little exhausted, i've had a pretty intense weekend. and now i'm trying to get my bearings... i'm still looking for a job. there was the possibility that i could get a job where colleen is working, but i arrived later than she had wanted and so they had to shuffle and assign the classes with the teachers they had. not a big deal. so i'll be job searching and learning to navigate the city this week.

anyhow. i'm here now. write me e-mails!