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Okay, I have seen 2 cats and there is rumour that my
boss has one (a white cat named Kokanee ... my boss is
from Victoria). The dogs, what can I say? Regularly at
6AM (sometimes sooner) there is a dog chorus in my
neighbourhood. There doesn't seem to be any reason
behind the singing, maybe just a car driving by. I
guess it's OK on a weekday, but not on the weekend.
Although, it's not that easy to sleep in here, the sun
makes an appearance at around 5AM, and goes down
around 6:30PM, there is NO daylight savings time here.
Ah, the Elf you ask? It is real ... it's a gas
station, I don't know if it is an independent or a
larger company, I was just amused by the name.
My neighbour and co-worker Mercedes owns two condos, side by side. She recently purchased the second one for her son, who can live on his own but has some mental disabilities that require her to be nearby. So she is in the midst of a major renovation. If the new place turns out anything like her old one it will be very modern. We are planning a house warming party sometime soon for her new place and mine. I wonder what they will think when I make sushi, or may be I should make a traditional Canadian dish .. poutine maybe? Moose steaks? The guy in charge of the programmers has a serious obsession with Star Wars. Most of the times the passwords are characters from the movies, and most of my test computers have name like Padme and Amidala. The atmosphere is pretty relaxed, with the occasional break to check out the latest movie trailers or to play a game of WarCraft (something I have yet to indulge in) or Half Life (I'm not very good at it). Because we are programming our system for all users we have all kinds of computers and operating systems to deal with. Recently I have been learning the minutiae of the Mac. Any of you Mac users out there have any interesting tidbits to share I would appreciate it. I have finally learned how to force quit an application, especially useful as I have been able to crash the Macs a few times, and they said it couldn't be done ... they never met ME. Ha ha ha ha ha. (Evil laugh) There are a number of cheap chicken restaurants here. Many of them cook the chicken over an open wood fire. Wow, is it good. You can get a 1/4 chicken, rice, beans, chimichurri and a drink (juice or pop) for around 1,000 colones (about $4.40 CDN). Most of the lunch places around the office go for around 1,000 to 1,500 colones for lunch, including drink. I have also discovered chimichurri, it's sort of like Mexican salsa. It's made from chopped tomatoes, onions and cilantro, simple fresh and very tasty, especially with tortilla chips. If you are looking for fast food there are plenty of choices. We have, of course, McDonald's (for an "evil" mega-corporation I must admit it's nice to see something familiar once in a while). There is also Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Papa John's Pizza. There are a couple Costa Rican fast food joints, one is called Campero, very similar to KFC, but with table service. There is another place by my condo called Tunas, I don't think it's a big franchise (Campero seems to be everywhere), and I don't know what they serve, I am guessing tuna, but that may just be my overactive imagination. Correction for you karate people, the dojo here trains Monday and Thursday evenings, there was a bit of confusion with the instructor's accent. It's all sorted out now. The club is quite small. In the few times I have trained only once have I seen another black belt (the sensei keeps telling me there are some but I haven't seen them). Usually there is only 4 of us, including the instructor. The dojo is in a ballet school owned by a gentleman from Argentina who was a well-known dancer many years ago. I have heard a rumour that Demura Sensei may come to visit sometime this year, I have seen the crest for the new Genbukai Association, very nice. If you think you need more holidays this is the place to be. In the first 5 weeks I was here there were 3 holidays, Independence Day (from Spain), a holiday to celebrate the joining of a province from Nicaragua (long time ago) and then Mothers' Day. Mothers' Day here is always on the same day, even in the middle of the week. I don't quite know what they do for Fathers' Day yet. I think that was the big crush until Xmas, there seems to be about one holiday a month like in Canada until then. I understand that the whole country just about shuts down for a week, oh goody, fewer drivers on the roads. :) I see many interesting sights on my walk to work, one of which is Musical Mary. She's a statue. Across the street from my condo is Collegio des Angeles (Angel College, hmmm, those kids don't look like angels to me). In one corner of the parking lot is a statue of Mary, on a raised dais, enclosed in glass and has classical music piped into to a speaker mounted above. There doesn't seem to be music all the time, and I was surprised there was none on Mothers' Day. ;) As well, I walk through Parque Metropolitano La Sabana (Sabana Park to me). It is the site of the first International Airport for Costa Rica, and yes I can walk across it in 15 minutes, good thing they built a bigger one. I am always amazed by the people there in the morning, dressed up in sweat pants, sweat shirts and jackets they are jogging in high temperatures and humidity, I break a sweat just walking across the park, they actually run. Then there are the ducks in the lake, nothing strange, we have ducks in Stanley Park. These ones are spotted all over (although I did see a little yellow duck the other day, Sesame Street here we come) and will wag their tails at you. I suspect it is a threat if you come too close, a little hard to take seriously when you are laughing. I have never seen so many uses for corrugated metal. Here it is used for fencing, siding, roofing, gates, and just about anything else that you can think of. I have only seen one "shanty town" where the poor people live, it is constructed mostly of this metal. I have also seen it painted a nice red and used for roofing (cheap Spanish tile effect). It is often used around construction site, no they don't have those nice little peek through holes so you can see what is being built. I am expecting my first visitor from Canada this weekend, hopefully we will find something interesting to do. I have mentioned the volcanoes or a canopy tour, I'll let you know. |
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