Day 1: San Jose, Costa Rica

Day 1. Arrived in Costa Rica at 5am and checked into Hotel Don Carlos, which is practically a historic tourist site of its own, past home of two presidential families. It's been owned by one family for three generations and is elaborately decorated with detailed designs in the stone work  and fountains everywhere you look, giant tropical flowered plants on every table and vines crawling around doorways, and little stone statues for our viewing pleasure that are slightly too anatomically correct.

We enjoyed a delicious typical breakfast, called "casada" (meaning "married", for the wives that packed their husband's lunches) which is a mixture of beans and rice and the meat of the day (delicious!), along with some heavenly tasting fresh pineapple and banana bread.

After taking a nap and doing a bit of research to feel a bit more prepared to brave the city, we went to the local bank and exchanged some money. I got to practice my Spanish a bit, as the teller didn't speak English. Success. Off for lunch, we found a little sandwich place and ordered some Arepas (little corn bread sandwich with savory meat stuffed inside, absolutely mouth watering) with some Yuca, a fried root that is potato-like and quite tasty.

We walked around the city, reaching the center only about 6 blocks from the hotel. We went to the Museo de Oro (Pre-Colombian Gold Museum), which is three stories underground in the Plaza de la Cultura. The museum exhibits thousands of pre-Colombian Gold artifacts, and also holds much of Costa Rica's cultural heritage of archeological objects dating from 500BC to 1600AD. Next we visited the Teatro Nacional, San Jose's largest church, Catedral  Metropolitana (rebuilt 1871), and did some shopping in local tourist stores.

We walked through a few of the many parks around San Jose filled with beautiful tropical trees, flowers, and vines, giving us a chance to catch a breath of fresh air amidst all the traffic.

I had plans to go to an Argentine Tango practica, which was advertised as being every Thursday night. However, after a fairly long taxi ride across the city, we arrived to find that it was cancelled. Hey, at least I got to practice my Spanish with a chatty "Tico" (local Costa Rican) taxi driver for our 15 minute ride! Instead, we discovered a nice little Italian restaurant for dinner, enjoyed some amazing focaccia bread, then headed back to the hotel to get packed for our next day's adventures.


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Day 1 accomplishment: Mom has learned how to ask "where is the bathroom" & "do you speak English" in Spanish. Yay!

Random thoughts/observations:
Glad I died my hair dark.
People understand my Spanish!
There aren't a lot of dogs in the streets.
There appear to be a lot of lesbian lovers.
How do women wear heels on these cobblestone streets?