And in other news...

I got stung by a jellyfish.

It was kind of exciting.

In 421 characters or less

I think I said most of what happened this weekend in my Facebook status:

Ali Cottong fell in a puddle, got totally soaked, decided FUCK IT, ran around in the rain from bar to bar to discotec, got tired, ate a chicken skewer from a street vendor, walked back to the hostel, didn't shower, hoped for the best, slept on the bus ride the next day, saw Harry Potter with Spanish subtitles, might have lost a couple thousand colones somewhere along the way but thought OH WELL, PURA VIDA.

But I forgot to mention the hammocks.

I admit it

I'm a tourist.

I went to the center of San Jose yesterday and bought souvenirs. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a shark tooth necklace. Or two.

Anyway, it ended up being a really great day. I went to a part of this city that actually looks like a city, not like we're lost in the suburbs! I rode three new buses that I hadn't been on! I found souvenirs that I actually wanted to buy! (I'm not really a fan of dead butterflies glued to pieces of wood and framed - those seem to be tourist favorites here because they sell them EVERYWHERE.) I ate fries from a burger joint where I later saw two cockroaches run out from under the kitchen door! I looked out for pickpockets! I wandered around and asked at least five people for directions to the right bus stop! I felt like a total tourist and I loved it!

This is a picture from within the bus that we took home.

This is the sunset that we saw after we got off the bus.

This is a picture of a life-altering experience.

Allow me to explain.

After dinner, we went to the neighborhood barbeque for the second time. It's this little stand on the corner of the main street where there's just this guy grilling meat. Everyone stands around and watches while they wait for their meat. If you're a vegetarian you probably won't understand, but for us meat-eaters this is kind of a religious experience. It's like Christmas, or Yogurtland, or both at the same time, or your first kiss, with just as much saliva involved but not quite as sloppy or with any horrible/scarring memories attached. UNREAL. Last night, I got some sort of steak with barbeque sauce. OH. MY. GOD. Hot of the grill and covered in the perfect amount of sauce, with some lemon-y cabbage salad and a potato on the side, it was perhaps one of the best things I have ever eaten. Ever. LIFE-ALTERING. The night before, we all got kebabs, and I'm not sure if what I was eating was chicken, pork, dog, or armadillo. I couldn't tell and I didn't really care. The food is that good. We all got cheap beer and ate while sitting on Iris' porch steps.

MAGICAL.

Great poets and great prices

Last week, I bought a copy of Pablo Neruda's ¨Odas elementales,¨or ¨Elemental Odes,¨which is a book of poetic odes to all sorts of things, ranging from solitude to artichokes. In honor of Pablo Neruda's birthday, which was this Sunday, I decided to write an ode. It's more in the style of Walt Whitman than Pablo Neruda, but whatever. Here goes!

Ode to these Five-Dollar Shoes

Oh, sweet five-dollar shoes!

Your two halves unite my two great passions:

Saving money

And spending it.

Your cheap rubber soles

Traverse,

Navegate,

And steer me through

Asphalt, cement, concrete!

Helping me flee from stray dogs, creepy men, and catcalls!

(You are more aptly compared to sails than sales.)

Resting on public buses,

Napping within carpeted taxis,

And dozing on linoleum classroom floors,

You wait for me until I am ready to get up again.

Black wings of mercury!

With you, five-dollar shoes,

I fly through this city even when I am walking.

Your laces,

Though knotted tightly,

Do not bind me.

(Instead, our unity gives me greater freedom.)

But how much longer can you hold together?

Already, your canvas is fading, your laces are stained, and your soles are holey.

(Your souls are holy.)

Five-dollar shoes, what would I be without you?

Probably

Barefoot.

Bored and waiting for the bus

More bus stop shoe shots!

I'm already terrible at this whole updating thing

The last three days have consisted of:

broken umbrellas (Iris')


unashamedly feeding the pigeons


and finding the Costa Rican equivalent of Yogurtland.

Wet

It's been raining a lot here, but that's probably because we're in the rainy season. This photo is a shout-out to Laraine, lover of umbrellas and other cute things.

Two different kinds of oops

Last Friday, a couple of us journeyed to Playa Jaco, which is a beach on the Pacific side of the Costa Rican coast. We woke up at 5:30am to get a taxi at 6:00am to get to the coca cola factory at 6:30am to buy a ticket for the 7:00am bus that took two and a half hours to get to Playa Jaco at 9:30am, where we had to wait another hour for the rest of our group to arrive at 10:30am because they missed the first bus. All in all, it was a good trip. We passed through breath-taking scenery on nausea-inducing roads till we finally arrived at the beach, and thank god it wasn't rainy. We stayed there for a couple of hours, in which I somehow got sunburned only on the upper left side of my back. Framing the red patch of my skin, you can still see the white fingermarks from where I did put sunscreen on my skin. Oops. Another oops is that we accidentally drank tap water with our dinner, which turned out to be non-potable, meaning that if I suddenly go into the fetal position due to intense diarrhea cramps, I'll never drink tap water again without asking if it's been filtered 57 different times 54 different ways.

How to tell the difference between a tourist and a native of San Jose

In the city of San Jose, Costa Rica's capital, everybody dresses up. I feel like a bum tourist in my my comfy little shorts-shirt-and-sandals get-up. Most people here wear long pants, even when it's super hot outside. The men wear slacks and button-up shirts. The women get glammed up with classy makeup, nice purses, and they almost ALMOST ALWAYS wear heels. They even wear heels in the rain, and it rains here almost every day. I'm in awe whenever I see these women stepping over puddles and up onto curbs in heels as if it were nothing.

Houston, TX

Big airport, long layover. Boredom ensues.

More detailed posts to come later, once I can find the notebook where I wrote everything down!

Seven and a half hours before take-off

Murphy's Law means that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

But sometimes that's the best thing that can happen to you.