Costa Rica: Day 1

(Hotel Brilla Sol in San Jose)
Woke up to the bluest sky I´ve ever seen. It´s probably not even blue anymore but another color only Darcy would be able to name. Breakfast consisted of fresh, sweet pineapple and guava, eggs with rice and beans. The greenery is impressive: big leaves, bright flowers. And it´s so thick that when the wind blows, it sounds like someone is walking through it. By 10:00 am it is hot enough to sweat from just sitting in the sun. Thus, computer break.Birds of Paradise

Met Renee and Ben back at the airport, headed to the ferry via rental car. Not fun waiting for the ferry in the heat/humidity. Arrived to our destination, Santa Teresa, around 11pm Saturday night. A private house atop a crazy steep hill.

Austin

My first time in Austin - finally - did not disappoint. It's about 60-70 miles North, so Nels Nelson and I went up this past Saturday night.

First stop: a restaurant downtown called Lambert's, which, according to their website, serves up inventive BBQ, modern Texas cooking, and carefully prepared cocktails. It was sooooo good. And, to our delight, there was a band playing swing/jazz music and people dancing in the upstairs area where we ate. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was really cool.



If you've ever traveled with me, you know I love taking food pictures. Shots of our salad (pecans, ricotta cheese, grapes, apple-cider vinaigrette) and what's left of our broiled oysters (topped with Parmesan, tomatoes, smoked bacon). Entrees: I got grouper with shrimp bisque sauce and he got a Yoakum Akaushi Prime Beef Strip, after I persuaded him to, so I could try it too!




Next we went to The Ginger Man, who, according to their website, strives to provide the best selection of fine imported and domestic beer and wine in comfortable surroundings. Indeed. There was a wall of beers on tap, much of it local, including what I got: (512) Pecan Porter. (512) is an Austin-based microbrewery. I didn't know that after I ordered it; they already had me at "pecan."


And here's me on the street downtown with a view of the Texas capitol building behind me. Our final stop was uptown, by UT, to see some bands. The venue, next to the hip Spider House Cafe, only hosts shows occasionally. We saw two great bands for $7 (there were actually 6 bands playing). Size wise, the place was somewhere between the Mercury lounge and the (old?) Knitting Factory main space - in other words, smallish/perfect size. Despite it being an all-ages show, we were definitely surrounded by peers and there was more than enough breathing room.

A super good first impression of Austin. I shall return.

By the way, while the Northeast got hit with a blizzard, here is Nels Nelson on the same weekend walking his dog in a t-shirt.

Over 75,000 square feet of grocery goodness!!!

Central Market: the greatest supermarket on the planet!



I was so worried that I was too spoiled by all the amazing food in NYC to survive living anywhere else. Imagine my delight when I stumbled onto this grocery store my first week in town - it's better than Whole Foods and Trader Joe's combined! I took some pics this weekend - I wanted to take more but I was a little embarrassed.


This guy was playing guitar in the sit-down section of the store Saturday evening.

Look how big the wine section is! I couldn't even fit it all into one picture!


Miles of barbecue sauce!


One guy actually stopped in his tracks in order to let me take my shot of the salts, which I just couldn't pass up, as crazy as I might have looked. 40 varieties of salt on tap!!!

I just found out by looking Central Market up on Wikipedia that it has a culinary school with cooking and wine classes. I'm so checking that out.

The only thing that's more expensive in TX

First non-NYC haircut since 2001. I was nervous but it turned out well. It cost twice as much as my haircuts in Chinatown did, but of course that was absurdly cheap. I went to the trendy Toni & Guy Salon in a big shopping center called La Cantera. The girl who cut my hair (Esmeralda?) was probably 20 and had green streaks in her otherwise black hair.



Overall a good experience, except I will miss the comfortable sinks at Top Cuts Salon in Chinatown, as well as not having to engage in small talk with Kwok.


Course, it will never be that straight again.

Culture shock

Shock might be a bit strong, but there are a few things that I am having to adjust to as I complete my 4th week here in south Texas.

Customer Service. Not only are the checkout/front-desk type people polite, smiling, attentive, but about half are down right chatty. I stopped into the UPS store today to buy stamps and the guy at the register asked how my Thanksgiving was! I had a whole conversation about salad dressing with the check-out guy at the grocery store, and the retail sales chic at the swim suit shop asked if I was going on vacation. This evening, I was spending a lot of time examining the varieties of apples I've never heard of, when a guy who worked there stopped in his tracks to ask if I needed help finding an apple!

Which brings me to the next item: Ginormous Grocery Stores. Every grocery store is as big as the biggest Super-Walmart you've ever been in. I have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find the door I entered through. I may not walk to the store anymore, but I must walk a couple miles each time I'm in one of these damn places looking for something. The big grocery chain in Texas is the H.E.B. (It's good but nothing compares to Central Market, which will get a posting of its own someday). You should see the selection of barbecue sauce - seriously half the aisle. I tried using a cart once, it didn't go well.

While we're shopping, let me tell you about Store Hours. Clothing stores close at 6 or 7 latest! This is difficult when one is used to shopping til 9. Also, the nearest H&M is in Phoenix, AZ. BUT San Antonio has pretty much every other clothing store you can name (Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, etc., etc).

Weather, or people's lack of appreciation for it. Every day that I go outside and it's sunny and 70 degrees, I'm ready to throw a party. During work on Friday, I walked out to the parking lot to get a snack from my car (I store nonperishable goods in my trunk), and another person walked past me - someone who also worked there, but who I didn't know. In New York, this person and I would have smiled and said "gorgeous out today!" because these days are so rare that it puts everyone in a super good, friendly mood. But instead it was just me grinning like a freak and the other person going about their business. And if I DO mention to someone how nice the weather is, they say, "yeah thank goodness it's cooled off finally," because this past summer, there was a record-breaking heat wave (over 60 days of 100+ degrees) and drought in TX, while NY was getting rained on.

OK, that's all I've got for now.

I'm such a tourist

This past weekend, went to the San Antonio Zoo, the Japanese Tea Gardens and some place called Wonder World, about 45 minutes North of San Antonio in San Marcos, TX to tour some caves. Fun!

Notice how I'm not wearing a jacket at the zoo.

Karaoke in San Antonio

My roommate and I walked in to this mega-smokey pub near where we live that has Karaoke on Friday nights to find a young Asian man with shaggy hair singing a country song!! Asian! (I contained myself from taking his picture). After him, the night was pretty typical with folks singing a mix of pop and rock favorites and a few boring ballads or country songs mixed in. I did the Carrie Underwood song "Next Time that He Cheats," which I figured was appropriate, and then an old crowd pleaser, "Just a Girl." I was a hit.














me, Valerie, her friend Anthony














Then, to my surprise, a young black dude, who was there by himself apparently, gets up and says his own original rhymes over top of Radiohead's "Creep." It was by far one of the most quality performances I've ever witnessed. South Texas - who knew?







Black dude

Texas Realestate

This cat's studio would easily run at least $800/month in New York

Canyon Lake

I'm still learning how to post pictures on this thing. Anyhow, after a productive Saturday morning, it was a sunny 82 degree November day and I decided spontaneously to go on a solo road trip up to Canyon Lake, a place I learned about from my car dealer friend.








This is a canyon.











...and this is the lake. I have way too good of a time with the delayed timer feature on my digital camera (thank you Jocelyn). The problem is it's only a 2 second delay so I inevitably look really awkward in every shot.
















It's pretty out in these parts.

San Antonio home

The best roommate ever

(she's not a Capri-Sun spokesmodel, but she could be)

The dining room

The kitchen

The living room

The back patio (and Bruiser)

The white things you see on the ground are bits of stuffing from a monkey Bruiser and Rizzo were given to destroy for fun.

The garden (temporarily empty)


The pond

Bruiser and Rizzo! So cute!
This is them jumping on me - the only shot (of many) in which I managed to get their faces. They are very excited 99% of the time.

Fist City

I think that working in a nursing home is the absolute best way to really get know the people of an area quickly. All of my patients look like this:



...which is really confusing to me after working in uber-diverse Queens. And they all have names like J.R. Ewing, no kidding. By day 3 on the new job I had a favorite patient. He is a veteran, like everyone in this town, and a retired minister. He pronounces all words starting in "w" with a "h," as in (don't forget the drawl) "hwell, I hwent after a hwhile."

He was complaining this morning about a nurse or a therapist from the past or whoever, and said "we were headed to fist city in a hurry..." Not trusting my ears I said, "Wait, you were headed where?" Sure enough he emphasized "fist city" and stuck up his dukes with a grin on his face, ready for a throw down. I laughed, admitting I'd never heard that before.

His grin grows and he snaps back,

"Yankee!"

The Roach Motel

This is an untouched digital photograph of the carpet in The Continental Inn (a.k.a. Roach Motel) that I stayed in for 5 nights (even though I paid for a week) upon arriving in San Antonio. What color do you think it is?? I honestly couldn't tell - blue? green? grey? brown? This motel was 100% nasty. It smelled like dog. I was one second from blowing out of this shit hole and finding the nearest Hilton.

Of course there was a roach, hanging out under the alarm clock of all places. So I couldn't sleep the first night, afraid the south Texan roaches were going to crawl all over my bed. The next night, I tap the alarm clock - just in case - and guess who is there again! What a dumbass! So I murdered that roach, and his friends must have gotten the message.

I slept with the dead bolt, the chain and the chair against the door so that the dead bolt wouldn't move. But no one really bothered me - it was just so depressing in there. It would be 80 degrees and sunny outside and just dank and dark and smelly inside. There was no fridge or microwave as advertised, so I ate nuts and dried fruit out of a paper bag (along with plenty of take-out). Thankfully there was cable and internet service, albeit slow/spotty. And I adapted to my surroundings, like a good little shape-shifter.



Now I am writing from the comfort of my new home,
my repugnance acquiesced by time and distance, but the scars the Roach Motel left on my soul may ne'er heal.

Things that would never ever ever ever happen in New York

I viewed a room for rent yesterday evening (the first one I went to see). A girl in her late 20's has owned this house for about 10 years and has never had a roommate (aside from her ex-husband). She's a cute little thing with long brown hair that was all blown out in feathery waves for a night on the town. I was my usual spazzy self full of nervous energy trying to make a decent impression, but we have a pleasant chat and the place is nice and I told her I'd probably call her over the weekend to let her know if I was interested. So this morning, I get this text message from her - it is 100% completely unedited:

"Hey girly, I hope you have a good first day!! And I hope you decide to be my roommate- I really think we'd get along great and build a great friendshi [sic]. If you decide so, let me know today before I leave out of town, that way I can leave you the key and you have the weekend to settle in and enjoy the house to yourself. Have a good day!"

For the record, I think this is really sweet and I may actually move in with her. . tbc

Texas Professionalism

I went car shopping today. I went to 3 dealerships and the only scumbaggery I encountered was at the Volvo dealer. It's a lot of fun test driving cars. I love telling the sales guy as he gets into the passenger seat of the car that I haven't driven for 10 years!

So the Ford dealership guy was my favorite. He was fumbling around and unsure of how to answer several questions, a super nice guy in his 60's with a little gray moustache. He has a big picture in his office of himself in a cowboy hat standing between his grown kids in some field (think a thinner "Gus Witherspoon"). At one point Tommy Guy Cude (his real name) offers to get the keys to a second car that I want to look at. I tell him I don't want to trouble him and he replies, "now you know better'n that." I think that translates loosely into "no problem."

The car I bought: