So, Saturday I was robbed. The bad thing was that I was most definitely watching my back. And I KNOW that a backpack becomes a frontpack while in downtown San Jose, but I had a backpack because I was planning to go on a hike and I was not entirely prepared because we walked through the sketchy part of town on the way back, not the way there, due to the arrangement of bus stops. But the good thing was, all they took was my sunglasses holder! Somehow they had gotten into the two smallest pockets on my backpack, and I never put anything in the outermost pocket due to paranoia (which has now been justified), but my camera was in the second smallest pocket. I was prepared for tricky pick-pockets, as I put it inside an inner zip pocket inside the pocket they got into, so I could just imagine their disappointment when they could see the camera through the mesh but couldn’t get to it quite in time. I did, though, as I got a weird feeling and immediately checked to see if anyone had been getting into my bag. I just know that I was really lucky, or maybe a mix of smart and lucky, and that if I ever want to bring my backpack anywhere I need to tie the zippers and be even more vigilant. Hopefully we won’t end up in the bad part of town the next adventure we take.
My adventure earlier in the day was amazing :) Karen and I went to INBio Parque, which I thought would entail some intense hiking, but it instead turned out to be a smaller area with little educational activities. We went on a guided tour to start out, and I just have to say that the tour guides here are amazing. I feel like they’re always really fun, friendly guys, and I haven’t had a problem dragging interesting facts out of them. There was a boy/girl scout troop (they are mixed-gendered here, which would have been awesome for the states as we could have maybe had a better mix of camping and domestic activities) and a family from Florida with us on the tour. The family from Florida spoke Spanish with the exception of their mischievous 7 or 8-year-old son, who was pestering the ever-patient guides in English throughout the tour. He was completely shocked to learn that I spoke English when I spoke to him, which highly amused me. The guides taught us about such things as the ‘ave feminista’, which is a bird who drops her eggs off with a male and runs. I told the guide I thought it was a good idea, to which he responded that he thought it should be 50-50. Heehee, sure.
The concept of the park was that there was a tropical dry forest right next to a tropical rain forest, and the pathways led us through these different ecosystems. Along the way, there were little rooms with terrariums that held snakes, frogs or bugs so that we could see a representation of what lives in the forest. To me, this was pretty much a cruelty-free park because there were no captured birds or animals stuck in cages for us to gawk at, though I do sometimes feel badly for the flying bugs or the really big snakes. There were captured mammals at one point, but they were in a barn and petting zoo as part of the ‘sustainable house’ on the property and definitely had room to move around. It seems they only keep the baby animals (sheep, goats and bunnies) around for people to hold/pet, which is probably for safety reasons and because they haven’t yet learned to RUN from the grabby little kids. Okay, well, I guess the park wasn’t cruelty-free when it came to the bunnies, but I’m hoping that because young children are short they don’t have that far to fall…It seemed that the older rabbits picked on them more than the kids, as they liked to bite off parts of their ears o_0 That was a new concept for me and bunnies.
The coolest part of the sustainable house was the bio-digester, which uses decomposing food waste for energy in the form of gas. Although I want a worm box, which they also had, for food waste, I wouldn’t mind getting energy as opposed to soil from that food waste. Karen and I both decided we had learned a lot from the tour, and I got my animal fix by hanging out with the baby bunnies. They were so interested in my backpack when I put it down, and they didn’t try eating the straps like the goats, so I got lots of bunny attention (even the skittish adults) :D My tica mom says she likes animals, just as long as they stay away from her and aren’t in her house. She’s a big butterfly fan.
One of the best parts of the park was the feria gastronomía that just happened to be there that day as an event. I was in food heaven, and had some amazing chocolate mousse (though it didn’t rival dad’s family recipe that Eva made over summer ;) ). Karen and I bought all sorts of food and then split it, and the countries we ate from included Lebanon, Thailand, the Netherlands somewhere (fail on my part), Argentina, France and Greece. I have to take my hat off to France, which is a rare occurrence for me, because they were the ones with the mousse. They also had a fabulous butter cake…I don’t know what it was, but it was at least 50% butter. The US had a table as well, and we had barbecued chicken, pork rice (?) and apple pie. There was also some dessert that looked similar to a brownie, maybe, but I had no idea what it was. I guess that’s what we eat. Yay home country!
That night I went to see the choir I’m in perform at the Zapote church. Technically, I could have also performed, but I don’t have any formal black or white clothing (the uniform) and once I went I discovered they knew two songs I had never heard before. The truth is, I probably wouldn’t have gone, but I live so close to Zapote that I’m practically in it, so not going felt silly. Therefore, I was there as support, and maybe to get one of those six choir performance reviews out of the way…probably more the second reason ^_^;
They sing so beautifully! I was really impressed, everything sounded good. The one ‘off’ bit was that there was a soprano who, just by herself, sang way louder than any of the other sections, but her voice is so clear and wonderful that it wasn’t such a bad thing. That is hard to do hitting all those high notes, but she is just incredibly impressive and did it without any sign of strain.
I sat with a person who used to be in the choir and was now there just to watch his friends, and had no problem chatting with him for a while (though I still couldn’t click with the choir, which I tried to do again before the performance…hmm). The man on the other side of me started to talk to me near the end to tell me that they sang a song about the national flower of Costa Rica, then to tell me that they sang a bolero that is traditionally sung by three people and accompanied by guitars, and lastly to tell me that the performance was wonderful and to wish me a good night. I love little interactions like those.
After the performance, I went to tell them how much I enjoyed it, but sorta just ended up standing awkwardly and watching them be best friends. Then I went to the bus stop, asked a man if I was in the right place, and instantly struck up a conversation with him. Phew, it’s not me after all, it’s just choir dynamics. I love reminders that I’m not socially hopeless after being with the choir! He and I chatted on the bus as well, and for a moment I was nervous that he was a little TOO curious about where I was and what I was doing, but he was just a nice guy coming from studies at a nearby church. He’s an Anglican, and the first non-Catholic I’ve met here.
Once I got home, I wanted to see what the bus driver had given me for change. My change should have been 15 colones, meaning a 10 cent coin and a 5 cent coin, but he only handed me one coin. I figured it wasn’t that important if he shortchanged me, but when I pulled it out of my pocket, boy was I surprised. He had given me a quarter! Thinking about it now, American currency is used here fairly regularly, but I just hadn’t seen it in so long. He shortchanged himself, as there are 510 colones in a dollar (yes, the exchange rate has changed drastically since I’ve been here, and it wasn’t in my favor). I guess my gringa-ness was overwhelming for him, although I was told once again today that I don’t have an American accent when I speak Spanish. The tour guide told me I sounded like I was from another Spanish-speaking country, not from the US, so I took that as a major compliment :)
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