|
The number and variety of casinos and sports books
here is amazing. Usually they are situated in a hotel
in the downtown area and are quite luxurious. There
are also lots of sports books that reside in office
facilities and cater directly to the American market
via telephone to Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, etc.
It took a little while to get used to this, as it's my
parents who are the casino people in my family.
support for the casino & gambling industry is an
industry in itself here. Just look at the project I am
working on, writing code for a poker website. It's
titillating as, being Canadian, I still have the
feeling of it being an illicit activity. :)
I have experienced hamburger heaven. Not since I last visited Peter's Drive In in Calgary have I had such a tasty burger. There is a small chain here called The Hamburger Factory and they make wonderful, tasty burgers. Lynnethe ntroduced me to it recently, and fortunately for my waistline the nearest one is downtown, a little far to go to everyday. It is sort of similar to Harvey's, in that you order, they grill it then you choose what you would like on it. The variety of toppings is amazing, including some pretty powerful chillies. An interesting item to note is the cookware, now ordinarily I wouldn't bother mentioning this but since I had to go buy a pot to make my popcorn in I am going to. It seems that the cookware of choice here is aluminum. Pots, frying pans, kettles, anything that could go on the stove. This made it entertaining the first time I made popcorn and realized that the pot handle is also made of aluminum. Ouch. There are stainless steel pots available, at a higher price of course, in the ritzier department stores. I have yet to discover a second hand furniture/appliance store so don't know if these items are available there as well. In addition to the plethora of weaponry a number of people carry machetes, in the city, through downtown, across their backs. or hung from a belt As with the guns I was a little surprised to see such obviously dangerous weapons (after the initial shock of the guns) carried freely in public. Until I discovered that they are mainly used for cutting grass. Now because this is done by hand the grass tends to have a "hacked" look to it and is cut extremely short, how short you ask, think of the first time you decided to cut your own bangs with kitchen scissors. I have mentioned that the people here are very friendly. I am still getting used to people strangers speaking to me on my way to work. Most people will say Buenos Dias (good morning) as I pass them. Now I don't know about you but I was raised in a culture that tells us not to talk to strangers, Well, dammit I am going to say hello if I want to. I just hope they don't turn out to be machete wielding murderers, a common fear amongst Canadians who leave their home country and travel abroad. The only exception being travel to the US, there we know they all carry guns around so machetes are out of the question. :) Okay, so I'm a little off the deep end there. The Tico Times is the local English language newspaper (yes, they have an online component www.ticotimes.net). It's a nice little paper that covers a lot of Costa Rican news about environmental stuff, strikes, government & residency issues, visiting dignitaries, world news, business, gardening, classifieds, etc. The usual newspaper stuff, just on a smaller scale. The paper is about 25 pages and sometimes includes special inserts, the one last week was on the changing economy of Nicaragua (they are changing their country to be more tourist friendly and trying to reduce the crime to encourage more visitors). Of course I usually forget to pick one up and mooch off someone at work or read the website. I have found at least one English radio station, but I've got to say, the content kind of sucks. Now, I have nothing against old rock and roll, having heard a lot of it first hand, but how many times do I have to hear "You've got a Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman before I throw the radio out the window. I think I've heard one pop song the whole time. There is a semi-classical radio station, in Spanish, that I turn to occasionally just for variety (unfortunately there is no CBC-like equivalent that I can find, I only get CBC at work on the Internet). As mentioned previously the Canadian Consulate has monthly get togethers for the local expats. The first one I went to included my visitor from Edmonton. This last one I was on my own, I met a number of Qubecers as well as people from Ontario and BC. The crowd is predominantly retired Canadians here for the "pura vida", no taxes, good weather, and opportunity to get together and do fundraising (what else do retired people do?). The way to pay for drinks is interesting, instead of just paying for a drink (logical) you buy a little yellow card (1,000 colones) that they mark off the value of what you want. The card gets tacked to the board behind the bar. Only Canadians would invent bureaucracy for buying drinks. :) In typical Canadian fashion those retirees don't relax and enjoy their retirement they have to do events that raise money, and I suspect to keep them busy. The money is, naturally, for a local charity (what else would Canadians do with excess money?) In the space of one month there was a garage sale (already mentioned) and a Thanksgiving dinner (yummy turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, mmmmm). I didn't win any of the door prizes, there wasn't a microwave giveaway so I didn't miss much. The Canadian ambassador was there and mentioned that she spent more time outside of Costa Rica than in it, hmmm and how is that effective? Actually she is responsible for being the ambassador for a couple neighboring countries as well (Nicaragua & Panama) and has done a lot of work helping build the new free trade agreement between central America and Canada. It is a much anticipated agreement, especially by the coffee growers (they have recently decided to get out of the bulk coffee market and focus on quality coffee). And this is in addition to the monthly consulate parties. |
|
|
 |
|
Home |
Interests |
Links |
Costa Rica Stories |