Empanadas, galletas Maria y relámpago

Well, it seems that I have fallen behind. Technology hasn’t been behaving very well for me lately, and it seems that everything I brought with me to Costa Rica has broken or picked up a virus (that would be my computer…). At times like these, I miss my dad and Chris even more (and wish I had taken a computer class or two).


Saturday I went with my tica friend, Karen, to ‘tiendas de ropa americana’, also known as thrift stores. Personally, I think that’s an amusing name, especially considering that most of the shirts I’ve seen here have little sayings in English and are probably the true ropa americana. Karen told me that people wear such clothing and have no idea what they say, and since she speaks English we were both able to derive amusement from this. Our shopping was a true success for me, as I needed some clothing. After ripping my absolute favorite pair of jeans and only having really dark jeans to wear (unfortunate in the afternoon sun), I found two pair of light jeans at the thrift stores along with a sweater. Yes, I needed a warmer sweater here in Costa Rica. I probably won’t use it much, but when I do I’ll be thankful. Afterwards, we went to her house for a wonderful lunch (her family is awesome) and a mango batido (juice made from blending the fruit, to which milk and/or sugar are sometimes added). The batido had the mango skin in it for extra fiber, with the big chunks strained out at the very end, and was really good. I never thought I’d willingly eat mango skin, go figure.

We visited the Festival Internacional de los Artes that night and we tried chocolate made by a group of indigenous people that came to sell their products and watched a fire dancing/ hula mini-parade. I found a stall that was selling earrings made from seeds and feathers, and loved every bit of it. I’m really impressed by the nature-based crafts here!

Yesterday I visited the Feria Agriucultura, which is basically the farmer’s market of Costa Rica. Everyone goes there on the weekend to get fruit and vegetables, as well as meat, cheese and bread to a lesser degree. There is also always the random merchandise, like bootlegged DVDs, but I am much more interested in the produce! There are so many new things for me there, such as pejibaye (the fruit from the palm trees that produce heart of palm) and bananos rosa, tiny bananas about the length of a pointer finger. There is this one fruit that has a purpley outside and huge black seeds on the inside, and a huge green, bumpy fruit called a guanabana that looks like a white pineapple on the inside (it’s my favorite batido con leche flavor). This is not to be confused with a guyaba, which is a smaller, round fruit. Crazy! Then there are all the more normal exotic fruits, such as papaya, mango, passionfruit and coconut (or immature coconuts, pipas, which are usually just used for the water inside and not the flesh, though I really like both). I will have to post pictures at some point.

My friend Karen came and visited, so my tica mom and I made her empanadas arregladas (empanadas with a salad on top) and a dessert referred to as ‘postre con galletas Maria’ for the layer of Maria cookies between a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk and lime juice. The Costa Rican empanadas are made from corn meal, and are very heavy, whereas the empanadas I’ve always seen are light and spacious inside. She and my tica mom got along great, and my tica mom wants her to visit whenever she can just as Karen’s mom has welcomed me into their home. That all worked out very nicely ^_^

My tica sister’s birthday was Sunday, so I chose a gift from my stockpile of US gifts I brought along just for occasions like these and brought it to her in her room in the back of the house. Just as I was handing it to her, lighting struck right next to the house, and I screamed and jumped as I watched it through the window. That’s definitely the closest I’ve been to lighting, and it was enough to shake up both my tica sisters, my tica mom and Karen, so I didn’t feel as silly for being frightened.

The rain stopped after a while, but then started up again tonight. I love the sound it makes on the roof, which must be metal. If only it could drown out the noise of the cars driving by, it would be perfect.

Lately I’m exhausted, and I can’t seem to make friends with the people in my choir. I think it’s just hard because they all already know each other, and I don’t want to jump into a conversation I already don’t understand. I’m not a completely hopeless case, though, because I semi-befriended another person I met on the bus after asking him if I was at the right stop (rain makes things confusing, and I really didn’t want to take the wrong bus and end up on an accidental adventure) and then finding out that we were the only two people to get off at the stop in front of my house. There should really be a class on ‘Spanish small-talk skills’ for us shy, foreign students, but considering I got a ‘nos vemos’ after chatting while it rained on us, I can’t have done so badly.