piratas del caribe

so. my big plans for this weekend were to, in honor of my birthday, go to see the new pirates movie, go out for indian food, and maybe go dancing. who knew it would be such a project (well, i should have known, many things turn out to be a project here - such is costa rica, but i love it anyway).

so colleen and i head out around 1:30 for the 2 bus, 15 minute walk to this mall called the terra mall, which we had heard had really lovely, posh, rocking, reclining seats at the movie theatre. we were aiming for the 3 o'clock show. well. that didn't really work out. we were on possibly the slowest bus ever. so we arrived after the movie had already started. we thought maybe *maybe* we could get in before the actual film started (though i do really enjoy the previews). but the ticket guy told us that the show was sold out. our next option would be at 5 o'clock. which might have been okay, if we hadn't been planning on having dinner back in san jose. seeing the 5 o'clock would have put dinner at 8 or 9, and we were supposed to be meeting my friend jasmine.

so we decided to head back to downtown - to the mall san pedro and just see it there, in the non-posh, regular theater. well, naturally we missed the 4 o'clock show there. which was sold out. and again - the 7:20 show really cut into dinner. so i got my haircut (a mini-spanish adventure - i didn't have my vocabulary planned out ahead of time and there was a little confusion, but the girl spoke english. and another girl spent *seriously* about an hour drying and styling my hair. NEVER in my life has anyone spent that much time drying my hair. it was exhausting) and we went to meet jasmine for a drink before dinner.

well, that was the idea anyway. but there weren't really any non-old man bars near the restaurant. so we just went in, sat down, and had some drinks and appetizers for a while before we ordered dinner. the food was really nice, the waiters sang to me in japanese (i had a choice of chinese, thai, or japanese - it was an asian fusion restaurant). then we headed out with some world teach volunteers (my friend steve coordinates the program here) for some dancing. yeah! dancing! so we had a fabulous time dancing at this club called castro's until the wee hours. my merengue is improving tremendously (i didn't actually attempt any salsa).

so the plan was to see the movie on sunday instead. so i met jasmine at the mall at 3:20 to get in for the 4 o'clock. but of course, that didn't happen. instead we bought tickets for the 7:20 show and cruised around the mall for a little while. i bought a new pair of pants for work. we had some coffee and a snack. checked our e-mail. then we went up to get in line for our movie (we had seen some lines outside some other theatres earlier) around 7.

strangely there didn't seem to be many people waiting outside our theatre. until we were directed to the line - which ran nearly the entire length of the mall. so we waited. and waited. and waited. around quarter to 8 we finally got moving into the theatre. and of course there were no seats left that were together. so we sat across the aisle from each other. and the film FINALLY started at 8 o'clock. but it was worth it. :)

que triste! (an unfortunate weekend at the beach)

so the weekend at the beach didn't work out exactly like i had envisioned... jasmine and i caught our bus at 2 and were on our way. there was a little rain - but that's to be expected, rain in the afternoon is sort of how "winter" goes here. we met colleen at the bar/restaurant across from the bus station in quepos as planned. we had a drink and then headed over to manuel antonio to our hotel.

when we found our hotel (we took one wrong turn, but didn't get too lost) it was pretty nice. plenty of space, our own bathroom, as ceiling fan (instead of a floor fan which would have caused some trouble when deciding where to place it so that everyone got some breeze). there was a restaurant attached for no fuss breakfast. we cleaned up from a long day of bus journeying and headed out for dinner by the beach.

had some lovely food and a few drinks (nothing crazy). sat around and enjoyed being near the ocean (though we could see it - because it was so dark - or hear it - because there was loud music coming from a couple of the restaurants nearby). ahhh... the beach.

so the next morning we were up sort of early (around 8:30ish). got our swimsuits on and headed out for some breakfast before hitting the beach. saw a deer (which was kind of weird - not really something i associate with costa rica), a monkey, and a hummingbird while we ate. and as we were finishing it started raining. so new plan, we would drop of some of the beach stuff and head into quepos to get our bus tickets back to san jose on monday. which we did. and then we got the paper and sat in the bus station restaurant for a while, had some more coffee, and read.

tucked inside my tico times were a bunch of little fliers. some for apartments for rent. and a couple for a spa treatment package. interesting... so we decided that since we had gotten rained out of our beach plans, we should get a massage and mud wrap instead. (and did i mention it was jasmine's birthday?). and the spa was called "the raindrop spa". so appropriate. so i had possibly the best massage of my life (but to be fair, i've only had like 4 other massages ever, so it might not have been *that* fantastic) and then we headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.

we decided to go to a restaurant called barba roja, which is on the hill above the beach and has amazing views, for some happy hour drinks and a little snack. luckily it had finally stopped raining. (now that it was too late to go to the beach). so we enjoyed some mango margaritas, some nachos, and the view. then we went back into quepos (we seriously rode back and forth between quepos and manuel antonio at least a million times) for dinner at escalofrio, a cute little italian place with brick oven pizzas (so delicious). a couple more drinks at monchado's and then back to the hotel.

next morning jasmine was going to catch a bus back to san jose at 9:30 (she has an afternoon class) and colleen and i were going to hit the beach for an hour or so before i had to catch my bus at noon. we got up and it was kind of sunny. we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. walked jasmine out to the bus stop. then it started to sprinkle. then it started to rain. ugh. so after a short walk on the actual beach we went back to the hotel, packed up and headed over to quepos to catch our bus.

we did have a cat at the liquor store sighting before our bus arrived, but it wasn't wearing a dress, and i'm not even sure it was the same cat. looked like a new cat. so maybe next time i'm in quepos they'll be letting it wear the other cat's dresses. and i can get a photo. i'm being 100% serious here.

new job and back to quepos

so. i know it's been forever since i've posted... but things are going well.

i've been at my new job now for a few weeks and i'm settling in nicely. my classes are good, it's taking a little time getting used to the new books and what kind of things i can do with the materials. but the students are nice. my classes are pretty small (between 4 and 11 students) and they're mostly pretty amusing.

i was observed yesterday by my boss... which was a little nerve-wracking (i don't like being judged...) so apparently i'm doing well except i need to work on my board organization, do more error correction, and circulate through the class more when they're working in small groups (he caught some of my students chatting in spanish, which i didn't notice - but to be fair this is my class of 11, and i'm only one person!)

i actually - technically - have saturdays off now. well, i was supposed to teach a kids class on saturday morning (which would have been my only kids class, and i wanted to teach kids. oh well). but on the first saturday of the new bimester at instituto britanico, it was the last saturday of the old bimester at centro cultural. which i had already told my new boss, so he was going to have someone cover my class for me. it was nick, one of the other new teachers, and apparently they loved him so much that now he is their regular teacher. and i have been moved to substitution duty. in theory that should mean that i have most saturdays off. but. my first saturday i get a call at 7 am (which i tried desparately to ignore, but they kept calling...) to come in and teach a class for someone. and then earlier this week i was informed that i would be covering a class for a teacher who had to go home for her brother's wedding today. well, i showed up, ready to go, got some coffee and headed to the classroom. and waited. for about an hour. none of the students showed up! so i corrected some papers i had and took off.

so now i have a little time to kill. i already bought myself a lovely pinto con huevos for breakfast. and i'm meeting jasmine (the other new teacher) at 1 and we're getting a bus to quepos to meet colleen for a couple of days at the beach. it's very exciting, i haven't been to the beach in forever (feels like - not since easter week in nicaragua!). also i'm hoping to catch a glimpse of the liquor store cat wearing her dress.

i'm currently trying to find a new place to live. colleen is leaving at the end of may and our place in rohrmoser (on the west side of the city) is pretty far from my new school (on the east side of the city). so a friend of a new co-worker is trying to help me find somewhere (he's a little strange, but he's teaching me how to salsa and merengue - which is so much fun!), and i've been e-mailing a girl from craig's list about sharing with her. so we'll see. i technically have my apartment until june 15th, so i have some time and plenty of people in san pedro (near school) who are willing to let me crash with them until i find something. no worries.