Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!
I made it!! I had a really nice flight. We flew over a thunderstorm so the clouds were lighting up below us flashing with lightning and later there was a full harvest moon right out my window. The brightest, reddish orange moon I have ever seen. Then it hazed over. No one sat next to me on the plane so of course, I sprawled out and took a nap, watched Midnight in Paris that they offered on the plane's TVs, and wrapped myself in a couple blankets. I packed up all my things, sat up, and looked out my window with an hour left of the flight. It would be an understatement to say I was a little excited.
Our flight landed early and I found my suitcase and exited the airport to find Tammy and Juan (Tammy's boyfriend of about 4 1/2 years) within a half hour. The only bad thing was that my suitcase which was new Monday the day before I left, broke by the time it got to Costa Rica. (sorry, Mom and Dad) At least it has a ten year warranty!
Tammy and Juan had made me a welcome Rachel sign when I walked out of the airport. I haven't seen her in 5 years, and that was when we were still going through puberty so it was really fun to see each other again! And Juan is very nice young man. He pulled my broken suitcase to the car and opened my door for me, and we all set out to find an authentic Costa Rican restaurant. Driving through San José, they really have everything there. Within one block, I saw a night club, a lawyer's office, a house, a Taco Bell, and an auto shop. It is not such a pretty city, but every now and again you will see some charm in the architecture of a museum or church.
We stopped to get something to eat which ended up being KFC. And Juan suggested we stop somewhere (which ended up being Walmart) for me to enjoy it before we continue driving...and for good reason. The road from San José to Turrilba has, and someone has counted, at LEAST 150 sharp curves and travels up and down hills and all over the place for about 40 miles. If you get car sick easily, definitely want to be prepared with some dramamine to make this drive, I'm considering it for our drive back to San José. On top of it, it was foggy. So I was a little scared for my life. And a little car sick.
^Top. View from Tammy's house. Middle. Plant that grows near the steps walking up to her house. Bottom. Pig in the dining room!
Now that's something ya don't see every day. She's not supposed to be in the house so soon after this picture was taken, Tammy's mom comes running in 'Venga venga! No puedes entrar en la casa, afuera afuera!"I love pig's feet because I think it looks like she is wearing high heeled cowboy boots. Speaking of high heels, Turrialba is a small town with "nothing to do" (according to the locals, anyways) so when Ticos go into town, they dress up very nicely. Some even as if they are going to a night club.
14 septiembre, My First Morning
This is where Tammy lives and where I get to live (and love!) for the next 10 days. Her house has a really great story of the style of house and the family who used to own it. But, here's a cliffhanger, I will write about that later.
4:45 PM 14 septiembre Independence Day
Just now, I was about to take an hour siesta (I could get used to this..) when Tammy's two younger brothers decided to play karate with the chickens outside my window. All I hear is (HI YA WAAA CHA! WAAA! WAA CHA!) So I'm probably not going to get my siesta in, so I might as well fill you in on today.
This morning, I woke up and Tammy, her mom, and I all ran into town, a ten minute walk we made in about 2, so we could see the torch being passed in the central square of Turrialba. They are celebrating their 190th anniversary of their independence from Spain. The torch travels around all of the major cities and is brought to every school by groups of students in their gym uniforms. The students meet at the town square light their torch and run it out to their school. At this festival we saw traditional dancing, heard the national anthem, heard other songs, and saw a local high school student, David, get an award for excellence in special olympics.
Tammy's mom brought me a lemonade to bring with me into town. It was great, but I didn't finish it and so I put it on my bed. Later that day, when I was thirsty I grabbed it, brought it into the dining room and my arm was COVERED in small ants. I didn't look close enough to find out that on the entire bottle of lemonade and on my entire bed, were ants galore. Not my fave moment of the trip so far.
One of my fave moments has been trying the food. For breakfast we had empanadas with cheese and coffee (ah-mazing. I died a little, it was sooo good) And for lunch, the biggest meal of the day, we had homemade sausage, something like mac and cheese, and a vegetable that grows on a tree in their yard called Chayote. It is really mild tasting, similar to a potato and used as a filler in a lot of dishes, soup, as a side, sautéed, baked, etc. In addition to growing Chayote, Tammy's family also has cherry tomatoes, lemon and lime trees, mandarin oranges, zapote (pumpkin and all-spice flavor), guanabana (make juice out of this), cas (also make juice out of this), bananas, plantains, yuca plant, and arasá.
Beefed-Up Barbies
So we are sculpting an athletic body onto Barbie and painting on a sports bra and shorts and boxer's shoes and gloves to be on our farol. As you can imagine, the unrealistic body of Barbie was definitely not fit for a world champion boxer. We had to had lots of músculos! We will parade her around the city at 6 PM tonight where they choose a winner. So we will see what happens with that! Wish us luck!
This was our finished farol. The corners of the boxing ring are candles so that's how we incorporated the lantern!
Our farol took about 9 hours today to make, but this is unusual. Generally, it's pretty intense and the farol creating proess is planned way in advance. Below, there is a picture of a small house which needed about six men to hold up at once. I think it won 3rd place.
Here we are walking our farol down the streets of Turrialba. At the end, we stand at the city hall under a balcony where a group of judges looks down upon all of the faroles and votes for the top three most patriotic window displays decorated for this week, and the top four best faroles who represent the culture and history of their people. The winners win money, colones.
The town itself has about 50,000 occupants with an extra 30,000 in the outskirts, most of them were there at this street festival. And unlike other Costa Rican towns, Turrialba has kept the custom of decorating faroles and parading them around the town. It proved to be a tradition fun for all ages.
We must have had about20-30 pictures taken of our farol. Many pointed at ours and laughed saying "Mira, Hannah!"
> This farol says, "Because I love my country, I recycle!"
This one was like a small dollhouse. Many small details! Surprisingly, it didn't win a prize.
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