This is the biggest whorehouse in San Jose.
Call me masochistic, laugh at my folly, and scold me for being irresponsible, but I love the sensation of sunburn! Warm and tingly, sharp and jingly, how can you go wrong? It feels so natural; perhaps I was a cooked lobster in a past life. The bug bites, on the other hand (or on the other leg or on both legs and all over everywhere), I could do without.
Travelling... an exercise in adaptability, in flexibility, in social skills and in getting over yourself. For some reason, exercises in getting over yourself have always captured my fancy. I mean, can anyone really do too MUCH of it? ...don't answer that. Back to travelling.
We are insanely lucky. In the first place, we're lucky to even be able to travel. As native English speakers, the whole wide world is open to us. Then, we're lucky to be able to travel with each other. (A tangent: I have the most sensible, responsible, laissez-faire, chill, adventurous travel companion imaginable. It's hard to conceive of having fun travelling with high-anxiety people. That mindset almost seems to defeat the point! Sure, there are a lot of things to be concerned about - every day I mention the budget, or go off into a reverie about logistics and bank accounts, distracting me from this amazing environment - but stress will generally hinder one's ability to deal with those things rather than help with them.) On top of that ridiculous pile of luck we roll in, we are lucky in the traditional sense of the word: We haven't gotten robbed (though we've met plenty who have), we haven't gotten too lost, or taken advantage of, or been in any sort of bad situation that didn't make up for itself ten thousand times over with character building. I hope that our luck is an indication of extra luck all over the universe, and that we're not recklessly using up other people's luck.
Puerto Viejo was fucking rainy the whole goddamn time. We stayed there four nights and then hightailed it back to San Jose, where we are now relaxing in this loving hostel environment whilst planning our excursion to Nicaragua on Monday. We get a few days in Granada, a week or so in Ometepe, and then maybe a few days in San Juan Del Sur before we head back to Costa Rica.
Other than the rain, it's been exactly what we were looking for. It took me a couple days to get into the whole "outgoing" mindset, so we spent our first two nights hanging out with ourselves and playing Spite and Malice, hungrily eyeing our fellow hostel denizens and hoping someone would be outgoing for us. Nope, not gonna happen. We're not in Seattle anymore. Now we're back in the swing of this constant social barrage that is backpacking. Here at our San Jose hostel, the owners are like Trent and Tatiana of the hostel universe, the guests are like us only not from Seattle, and there is a TINY PUPPY. Perfect. We also had some good nights in Viejo - met a couple from Canada who sings "folk" at a local fusion restaurant every week (the singer chick actually found out that I sang and pulled me up to sing a couple songs with her, which was practically like band practice so now I don't feel as guilty for missing a month of the band), and then spent a night with Canadians and Frenchies who bought rounds of tequila shots for all of us and took us dancing.
Don't walk anywhere alone at night. Only take the red cabs. Don't bring too much money with you wherever you go. It's a weird feeling, being in a place that you can't really trust. I've never had what people deem "trust issues", unless being too trusting is a "trust issue" in which case I should go see a shrink. It's easy to follow all the directives, of course, but it's certainly an alien feeling for me - I love wandering around alone at night. It's a certain way of connecting to a place that I don't have access to here. Very happy with not getting robbed, though. As some newfound native friends put it tonight, we will be lucky if they ONLY kill us. *sigh*
An example of our luck: This weird WEIRD weird WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD German dude took us and two Brits out tonight, we ended up getting separated from the nice Brits and following the German dude around. He's forty, been living here for a couple years, sticking around 'cause he got some chick pregnant, and likes to go out to the college district bars to hit that shit up. Apparently it usually works. Failing that, he mentioned that there's a fifteen dollar whorehouse. So anyway, we're following him around because we can't go anywhere alone (it makes Naomi SAD not to have autonomy) and he takes us to this bar he hates. It's all gothy! Made me happy - Jen and I had just been wondering where the hell all the goths and punks were in San Jose. Our German friend was not happy with the bar choice, though. He called them all Satan worshippers. (It's funny to me, cause doesn't Germany have a big goth scene? Bah, not important. Also funny: why would he want to go hang out at a bar he hates?) He's also really quiet and I don't quite know what his mind is about. So we're at this bar, I'm drinking a gross rum and coke out of a can, which feels weird cause I'm not used to holding a can, and he runs into these two friends he used to work with. They turn out to be intelligent, hilarious, helpful, generous, chivalrous, and far more entertainment than we'd hoped for with such a start to the night. They're Costa Rican, they're SO happy to talk to us, we get a lot of advice and give some and muse about philosophy and decide what the most important things in life are before German dude gets a little too friendly and Jen and I bow out into a cab. We have their number, though, so we can contact them without going through him. Long and boring story, of course, but it illustrates my love of this phenomenon - no matter how crappy something seems, there might be a gold nugget buried under all that poop.
tl;dr:
There once were two girls from Seattle
Who went on a trip to see cattle
One red as a beet
One brilliant and neat
And both should be given the paddle
Also, it was very late when I wrote this. I miss Seattle and I almost wish I hadn't taken a trip but damn, not quite.
Travelling... an exercise in adaptability, in flexibility, in social skills and in getting over yourself. For some reason, exercises in getting over yourself have always captured my fancy. I mean, can anyone really do too MUCH of it? ...don't answer that. Back to travelling.
We are insanely lucky. In the first place, we're lucky to even be able to travel. As native English speakers, the whole wide world is open to us. Then, we're lucky to be able to travel with each other. (A tangent: I have the most sensible, responsible, laissez-faire, chill, adventurous travel companion imaginable. It's hard to conceive of having fun travelling with high-anxiety people. That mindset almost seems to defeat the point! Sure, there are a lot of things to be concerned about - every day I mention the budget, or go off into a reverie about logistics and bank accounts, distracting me from this amazing environment - but stress will generally hinder one's ability to deal with those things rather than help with them.) On top of that ridiculous pile of luck we roll in, we are lucky in the traditional sense of the word: We haven't gotten robbed (though we've met plenty who have), we haven't gotten too lost, or taken advantage of, or been in any sort of bad situation that didn't make up for itself ten thousand times over with character building. I hope that our luck is an indication of extra luck all over the universe, and that we're not recklessly using up other people's luck.
Puerto Viejo was fucking rainy the whole goddamn time. We stayed there four nights and then hightailed it back to San Jose, where we are now relaxing in this loving hostel environment whilst planning our excursion to Nicaragua on Monday. We get a few days in Granada, a week or so in Ometepe, and then maybe a few days in San Juan Del Sur before we head back to Costa Rica.
Other than the rain, it's been exactly what we were looking for. It took me a couple days to get into the whole "outgoing" mindset, so we spent our first two nights hanging out with ourselves and playing Spite and Malice, hungrily eyeing our fellow hostel denizens and hoping someone would be outgoing for us. Nope, not gonna happen. We're not in Seattle anymore. Now we're back in the swing of this constant social barrage that is backpacking. Here at our San Jose hostel, the owners are like Trent and Tatiana of the hostel universe, the guests are like us only not from Seattle, and there is a TINY PUPPY. Perfect. We also had some good nights in Viejo - met a couple from Canada who sings "folk" at a local fusion restaurant every week (the singer chick actually found out that I sang and pulled me up to sing a couple songs with her, which was practically like band practice so now I don't feel as guilty for missing a month of the band), and then spent a night with Canadians and Frenchies who bought rounds of tequila shots for all of us and took us dancing.
Don't walk anywhere alone at night. Only take the red cabs. Don't bring too much money with you wherever you go. It's a weird feeling, being in a place that you can't really trust. I've never had what people deem "trust issues", unless being too trusting is a "trust issue" in which case I should go see a shrink. It's easy to follow all the directives, of course, but it's certainly an alien feeling for me - I love wandering around alone at night. It's a certain way of connecting to a place that I don't have access to here. Very happy with not getting robbed, though. As some newfound native friends put it tonight, we will be lucky if they ONLY kill us. *sigh*
An example of our luck: This weird WEIRD weird WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD German dude took us and two Brits out tonight, we ended up getting separated from the nice Brits and following the German dude around. He's forty, been living here for a couple years, sticking around 'cause he got some chick pregnant, and likes to go out to the college district bars to hit that shit up. Apparently it usually works. Failing that, he mentioned that there's a fifteen dollar whorehouse. So anyway, we're following him around because we can't go anywhere alone (it makes Naomi SAD not to have autonomy) and he takes us to this bar he hates. It's all gothy! Made me happy - Jen and I had just been wondering where the hell all the goths and punks were in San Jose. Our German friend was not happy with the bar choice, though. He called them all Satan worshippers. (It's funny to me, cause doesn't Germany have a big goth scene? Bah, not important. Also funny: why would he want to go hang out at a bar he hates?) He's also really quiet and I don't quite know what his mind is about. So we're at this bar, I'm drinking a gross rum and coke out of a can, which feels weird cause I'm not used to holding a can, and he runs into these two friends he used to work with. They turn out to be intelligent, hilarious, helpful, generous, chivalrous, and far more entertainment than we'd hoped for with such a start to the night. They're Costa Rican, they're SO happy to talk to us, we get a lot of advice and give some and muse about philosophy and decide what the most important things in life are before German dude gets a little too friendly and Jen and I bow out into a cab. We have their number, though, so we can contact them without going through him. Long and boring story, of course, but it illustrates my love of this phenomenon - no matter how crappy something seems, there might be a gold nugget buried under all that poop.
tl;dr:
There once were two girls from Seattle
Who went on a trip to see cattle
One red as a beet
One brilliant and neat
And both should be given the paddle
Also, it was very late when I wrote this. I miss Seattle and I almost wish I hadn't taken a trip but damn, not quite.