Day 63: Sam's Guest Post

Bueños Tardés from lovely San José. This is Sam Tobias (no relation) writing a guest blog posting for LTD. Gabe has given me free reign over this posting so I can say whatever I want. What a dangerous thought. Anyway, today is our last day in San José. I will be flying back to my motherland in New Jersey and Gabe will be continuing on to Guatemala to volunteer, passing through a bunch o' countries on the way.
Our last day in San José was spent doing almost nothing. We woke up early, as always, around 7, ate some breakfast, lounged in the tv room, and met some new people--two Israeli girls who were stopping here for a while on their travels throughout the world. They taught us a new card game, Tacki, which is a whole lot like Uno but called Tacki. Gabe tried to convince them I spoke Hebrew but in reality I do not, aside from some random, useless words like grapes and dog (a favorite dish of the Koreans, no?). They told us about a good Israeli restaurant a few blocks away so Gabe and I headed out.
The Israeli food was delicious. The man there spoke Hebrew, English, and Spanish--I spoke to him in English and Gabe spoke to him in Spanish. Gabe ordered some sort of megamix of Israeli hits, hummus and vegetables and whatnot. I ordered the felafel, which was really good, and I do know felafel. Full bellied (a type of penguin, no?), we moved on to our day's adventure.
We walked to La Posada de Don Tobias, a hotel a few blocks away, to see if they had any t-shirts to buy. They did not, so we satified ourselves with taking pictures outside the building. The owner didn't have much to say about the history of the place , except that it was founded by some Danny Tobias. Don't know what that was about.
Getting into the heat of the day, we took the bus to Heredia and then another bus to some other place in order to hear some live music. Upon arrival we discovered the place was not in town but in fact in a different town. Too late to bother with it, we took the bus back to Heredia and tried to find an Internet café where Gabe could Skype his mama. We were not successful so we booked it back to San José to make it there before she signed off. We made it and now here I am typing. Gabe's in the booth next to me, Skyping it up. In some other booth, a man is singing michael Jackson hits quite loudly.
Going in reverse order of what we've done (which will probably seem to make no sense once I'm finished), we'll start with Sunday. I bumped into Gabe quite accidentally on the line for the men's bathroom at the airport. Oh hi, Gabe, how funny to run into you here. Well, you'd be surprised at the people you meet in the middle of Juan Santamaria Airport.
Gabe made the arrangements for us to stay at the Galileo Hostel, a nice yet still cheap place somewhere I'm not sure of in San José. That's the thing with my sense of direction. Because it doesn't exist, it's lucky to have Gabe, someone who isn't directionally handicapped leading me around. I would probably follow him off the edge of cliff. I feel kind of bad because it's not like I can make up for it in Spanish either--my most utilized words being gracias and jugo de naranja. Oh well. I suppose my contribution can be conversing, mainly about my deep knowledge of international politics and affairs...perhaps not.
I'd have to look at my own travel journal, but I think I can remember somewhat what has happened over the past couple days. Earlier in the week we hit the Jade museum and the National museum. Both showed the great cultural history of the Ticos, or the native peoples. Like most colombus-discovered lands, they went through a time of prosperity, met the Spaniards, were virtually wiped out, evenutally achieving independence. One of the best things about the country is that it disbanded the army in 1948. All their money goes into education and health care now rather than pouring it into the military, one of the main reasons why they're not as big a mess as the other countries in the area.
The capital c on the computer is not working so I have avoiding the name of this country but alas I must say it eventually. Here are some important things to remember about costa Rica (forgive me for the lowercase c).
1. The army was disbanded in 1948.
2. It's small but very happy--he people are very friendly
3. The currency is the colon. Be sure not to tell some one they look like a million colones, though it may be a compliment in America. Its insulting here, being that it's only 2000 dollars. Believe it or not they do have Who Wants To Be a millionaire here but I think you would find that its a disappointing amount of money.
4. costa Rica just recently was found to be the happiest country in the world, though I'm not sure by what means they measured that.
5. The national phrase is Pura vida! and you can say it to whoever you want, whenever you want. Not too much though. You don't want to look like a tourist.
I am running out of time on the computer so I will keep this short. We went to the town of Quepos, a beautiful beach town, staying at the Hotel Sanchez, which is a lot less shadier than it sounds. The beach was a paradise, and I have some sunburn to show for it, though Gabe, practically a black man these days, has none to show for it.
Honestly, much of our time here has been spent relaxing, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Its been a pleasure,
Sam Tobias