La fin de semana primero The first Weekend in San Jose

So I left off at "I was ready for the day"... Well, I sure was, after 14 hours of completely undisturbed shut eye, I was ready to go out and explore. I woke at 7am. I figured everyone (Jenn) would still be asleep, and Maria wasn't going to be around until 9:30, so I unpacked all of my things, had a shower, and readied myself for the day. That took about a half hour. I couldn't believe I was bored in Costa Rica. LOL. I didn't even know how to make coffee [Enter instant headache]. At about 8:30 I met Daniel, our German housemate, he was on his way to work for the entire day. Nice guy, it'll be nice to socialize with him if his work doesn't engulf his life!
Jenn woke and came out of her room shortly after and showed me how to make the best coffee in the world using the best coffee maker ever. Like nothing I'd ever used or seen before, this cafetera was simply a cloth strainer hung via a metal ring over top a metal pot. Dare I say it makes better tasting coffee than a french press?? If you try one out, you let me know!
For desayundo (breakfast) Jenn made us some wicked mango smoothies and by the time we finished those, Maria arrived and we were on our way to pick up groceries at the local market.

I loved the market.. it has taken me a trip half way down the world to finally go to a Saturday Market to buy my groceries. I`ve always wished to go on a regular basis, and now I realise why. The smells, the people, the bargaining, its all part of the experience. Great food and amazing prices. What I hadn`t expected was all of the garbage and plastic bags that consumed the paths in which we walked. Through the center of the market ran a long train track (apparently still active) that I would nick name ``ankle-eater``... because thats what it did.. to me anyways. *Clutz*

Later on in the day we walked in to the center of the city where we has quesado, a typical CR lunch + my 5th churro of the week !.. , explored the Pedestrian street, the multitude of shops and swarms of black market specialists, forever calling out their latest sales or deals. We then walked through some streets near the art gallery and through an amazing display of the most beautiful flora, in a nearby parquette in the middle of the chaos of downtown. The names of places are now a blur, as is mostly everything when you have brain overload of information... so I will try and make this a more frequent thing, and try to write things down!! (sorry dudettes!)

We went to Mercado Centrale (The Center Market) when I experienced odd combinations of aromatics, namely dogfood, seafood, and roses... altogether at once.. Yum!? I forgot to mention that earlier Maria and I were going over health and safety and I joked about how you need to look out for those crazy old clepto ladies!! `haha`right? WRONG! While we were leaving the mercado centrale, an old lady decided to `ever-so-casually` slip her hand into my pocket. I felt this obvious physcial connection, and immediately turned around, giving her a looked that would have probably not killed anything.... To be honest, I was in complete shock that this lady would do this, and it was so obvious it was her, since we were in a narrow hallway and she was the only person behind me. She put this look on like she had no idea what my problemo was, and just stormed out of the store.. oh boy. I guess I was shocked because 1) it was Day 1, and holy cow, like, already!?! and 2) like, come on, an old lady!? Double Frick!

Anyways, we went on to visit a cute boutique named `N`, toured some back roads where tourism used to be and stole some ceramic to make a mosaic at the house. (The ceramic was left over, left at the side of what was an already completed floor mosaic, so it wasn`t really stealing.... )

We returned home about 3:30 exhausted from the long walking tour of the city and relaxed for about an hour before going out again with Maria.

--Side note-- How freaky is it that there is a bird here that makes a noise that sounds like someone tapping on your window!!?? Ay! --

Saturday night we went to an Art show for a bit because Maria used to work in the industry and she knows some people. She took us after to the top of the mountain to see la vista (view) of San Jose at night. Que bonita!

Then we went to a bar called Henry`s where I had a Heineken (yes, a Heineken) that was the size of a normal brown bottle and the price of a domestic at happy hour! Yes... :)
Still can`t bring myself to say that I like the beer, but I am going to start drinking the local stuff, to see what it brings to my tastebuds.

Tomorrow I will talk about what I did today. I`m getting tired but today was worth mentioning so I won`t forget!!
Besos

Ciao!