Gallo pinto and Broken Showers

Hey ya'll

As I am watching the worst Fast & Furious ever (I think its number 2, the one without Vin Diesel)
I write to you about the past weekend. If I could sum it up into a few words it would be Gallo Pinot and Broken Showers. Aiy aiy aiy...

We finished Spanish lessons on Friday, ending off with a good review of everything I still can't seem to master when in practice. Practice makes perfect right? Perhaps..
For some reason I was beyond exhausted (by now I can't really remember what I did on Thursday night.. oh right. I studied until midnight), barely able to hold up my head. It was tough. After lunch I decided to lay down and then go to the San Pedro Mall for a gift for the baby shower.
I laid down at 1 and 3 hours later woke up, with only an hour to get ready for Patricia to arrive.
I showered and packed my bag and then the phone rang. It was Patricia, letting me know that she had arrived and was at the Auto Mercado. Now, from my understanding, she had arrived there and was heading to my place. So I grabbed a quick bite and waited... and waited.. and... well, you know, she wasn't coming. After 10 minutes, I decided to call her back. Apparently I was to walk to the store to meet her. So I did. I only had to circle the the store once before I found her and that was fine. Jenori, mi novio's other aunt was waiting across the street. As we walked to the car, a drunk man came out of a nearby building, calling me "Gringa" and asking us for money. "No tengo" I called at him. He waited while we got into the car, and continued to stare at us, freaking us out all out.

Later we arrived at Lily's house (another aunt) where I would be staying the night with her and her girls, Dana and Daina. I also met Pedro, her husband. He speaks English pretty well; he told me that he had taught himself, in the very kitchen we were sitting in. I am quite impressed with the natural desire that some of mi novio's family has to learn how to speak in English. Props!

The night wasn't much to speak of, the food, as usual, was amazing. Lily made fried plantains mmm. mmm..
The next morning, however, was an interesting time. Lily asked me if I would like to have a shower and of course I said yes because it had been all of 12 hours since my last one. I brought my clothes in to the bathroom, put them on the floor to wait and started the shower. I'm not sure what it is, if the shower is electric or not, but I experienced the coldest shower ever. How uncomfortable it is to shoeer in the freezing cold.. Ahhh. I got to the point of rinsing and couldn't take it anymore. I don't think I even conditioned. I turned the knob to turn the shower off, reminding myself righty tighty, left, loosey. Yeah, I guess I forgot about "either way, neither way". The shower wouldn't stop so I opened the door to put a towel on and call for assistance.
When I opened the shower door, ALL of the water in the bottom part started pouring out of the shower, spilling out all over the floor, into my clothes and out into the hallway. In stead of assistance, I was calling for help. Dana came running, immediately pull the drain plug out of the drain (woops) and tried turning the knob to stop the water. Nada. Nothin was happening. As we walked through puddles trying to figure out how the hell to stop it, Lily came and turned the power to the water off. Phew. At least we stopped a flood.
From then on we had to use bottled water and the sink for brushing teeth, but whatever, I was just happy that was over.
Lily said Pedro would likely be able to fix the shower, but I felt like crap for the rest of the day. I am going to have to get them something.. I hope this didn't cause more trouble than it could have.

Later that morning I helped Lily clean and sweep the house and then we went to the building where the shower was going to be to begin setting up. After setting up the tables and chairs, we headed the Universal, the mall in Savana. We met up with Patricia and I bought some gifts for the baby shower. I bought Raul (the baby to be) a smoochie and a fleecy blanket, sure enough to get some "awww's and ooooh's" at the shower.
We returned to the hall to drop off the gifts and then went out for some pizza. The pizza in Hastillo is muy rico. Better than any Pizza hut, by far. Plus, we got to watch Cars in Spanish while we ate. Great combo.

The shower was to begin at 3 so we went home to get ready for the party. I didn't have any clothes left so Lily and Patricia lent me some, may I say, sexy ropas! A purplely-pink cami, a little more femine than myself, and ... wait for it.. whitey tighties! heehee. I was so nervous about getting them dirty. Read on...

The fiesta was something else. There were about 30 or so people, caterers and a *effing* clown. I really don't like clowns, but for some reason (maybe its that I was the only blonde and English-speaking person in the room) they seem to like me. He harrassed me to volunteer 3 times, and of those three times I nearly beat him up twice. It certainly made things entertaining, to say the least.

We opened gifts and then it was time to go dancing. I went with Ronald and Fabian, and their two girlfriends Gretel and Priscilla, respectively. Yay fifth wheel! Woot! Some of you may know me, so you might suspect that I didn't act like the spare tire, I was the the one on the unicycle! Haha, it was a fun night, we went to a bar and went dancing. The difference between going dancing here and going dancing back in Canada, however, is the dancing part. Now that I have done both, it seems to me that we simply "move" in Canada whereas here, dancing involves some serious skill. I Merengue'd and Salsa'd and shook it until I was sweating. What a time. Don't worry, mi novio, it was your cousin Ronald, and he was most professional.

Following the dancing, we went to a Karaoke (Holla: OISE!) bar. We didn't do much here, they kept bugging me to sing something in English, but I was at that drunk/tired stage and I wasn't into it. We had some food and I tried for one more beer, to no avail. I was done. Yep, 4.5 beers. A Costa Rican record. The beer here is great, it's called "Imperial" and reminds me of good beer from back home. Actually, it just reminds me of Molson Canadian. ;)

I called this post Gallo Pinto, and I haven't even mentioned why. You know about the broken shower, so I will tell you about Gallo Pinto. Pronounced 'Guy-o pint-o' it is a Costa Rican famous dish usually served at breakfast. It consists of beans, rice, spices and herbs. Yep, breakfast! I've had gallo pinto for breakfast for three days in a row. I want pancakes dammit! It's nice, and delicious, but I prefer have dinner/lunch for dinner or lunch, not breakfast. It's not wrong, just different. It's a different I'm fine with, just not used to.

This morning I woke at Patricia's house (yes, I know how I got there) to lights shining down into my room. I thought, why on Earth did she throw the lights on to wake me up? Are we going to church? She was talking to Sandra (mi novio's mother) on the phone, so I asked Sandra why Patricia would have done this, knowing rightly that I would be a tad hungover and tired? We spoke a bit longer; it was nice to hear from back home. I was pretty homesick last night (that fifth wheel thing kind of bothered me a bit). I gave the phone back to Patricia, so that Sandra could let her know that I wanted to go back to my house, as I was pretty tired and not prepared for the week to come.

When we hung up with Sandra, Patricia assured me of the sky light in my room, and then told me she would take me home. Talk about embarrassing.

As if this post isn't long enough, when I returned home today, I decided not to have a nap, as I was afraid it would last another 3 hours. So I showered and went to the mall in San Pedro. It's been a week since I've cleaned out my ears so I was happy to have q-tips again. *ahh*.. Everything here is pretty decently priced, I bought a comfy dress, a little thing for ove my bathing suit, and some nice flip flops for 30 bucks. Man, it sounded cheaper earlier. Oh well, still happy with my purchases.

OH! And I didn't go to Jaco today, unfortunately. The family thought it was too much for one weekend, and I didn't think the same until today. Next week we are going to Puerto Viejo from Friday to Sunday. Should be a wicked time. Tomorrow I start working at the school, so the week should be great.


With love. Cuidate!