Costa Rica 2000

Sunday, July 30 - Kansas City to San Jose, Costa Rica

Skyler, Asher and I flew on Continental from Kansas City to Houston to San Jose, Costa Rica.  The inflight movie was Erin Brockovich.  Our plane departed Kansas City at 6:30 am, and we arrived in San Jose about 12:30 pm Costa Rica time.  (They are in the central time zone, but don't observe daylight savings time, so it was like mountain time.)
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We were met at the airport and taken to Hotel Grano De Oro.  Very luxurious.  We had three beds in two bedrooms.  The hotel had many open air areas including no screens on the windows and open air hallways.

We walked downtown, Avenida Central, and I bought us each an ice cream.  The old vendor said "cuatro".  I didn't know what he was talking about, because $1 is about 310 colones.  So I knew it wasn't "cuatro."  I handed him 100 colones.  He shook his head.  I handed him 1000 colones, and he gave me change.  It was 400
colones (just over $1 for 3 ice creams).
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We saw two parks in less than a mile, and they were very crowded.  People were just sitting, relaxing.  There were some live musicians and street vendors.  The vendors did not approach us like in Tijiauna.  We saw the Teatro National, but could not find the Museo de Oro (museum of gold).  We each bought a pop.  Mine was carbonated apple.  We bought two Tshirts for 2460 colones each ($8 each).  I bought 4 postcards.

For $20 I got 6100 colones at the hotel.

It was a cloudy day all day, but only misty once.

We were in the hot tubs outside while I wrote these notes.  It started to rain, so we went to the room before supper.  There were many US and Spanish stations on TV, one German and one Chinese.  Many English shows had Spanish subtitles.  I found that very helpful in learning Spanish.

We ate dinner in the hotel.  Very fancy.  Leather covered menus - beverage, entre and postre (desert).  We ate outside in a lush portion of the hotel with many
plants.  It was under a canopy with rain falling lightly around us.  There was a very slight breeze, and no bugs or flys to speak of.  Since the central valley is surrounded by mountains, I don't believe it is every very windy.

Asher ordered "pie de enchilada" (enchilada caserole).  Skyler ordered "pollo al coco" (chicken with coconut).  I ordered "sopa del dia" (soup of the day), "ensalada de espinaca y gorgonzola" (spinach, avacado, pears, gorgonzola salad).  The tortilla soup was tomato with thin totilla strips.  Cheese cubes, tomato cubes and avacado cubes were added.  For desert, "helado de banano con ron de coco" (banana ice cream with coconut rum).  If you like the meal very much, you say "Ricisisimo!"