Travelling the King's Highway: September 2010

I have to confess. I've been greedily reading all of the different blogs my friends write, and avoiding my own. I think of things to write, and then I fall asleep. Or a class shows up. Or I'm in a bad, no-good mood, and I don't want to spread the nastiness. Thank you to all my friends with blogs, especially those of you who are so far away from me right now. It's so comforting to see and hear you through your words.

It's been busy. We've gone to the beach, Manual Atonio National Park, to be exact. We saw monkeys, three-toed sloths (I think. It might have only had 2 toes...) and raccoons right on the beach. There were birds, fuzzy spiders, and huge spiders! There was some questionable attire to be seen on the playa, though thankfully the person in question did not belong to our group. I don't think we would have let her leave the villa we stayed at in that get-up. Just wouldn't have been kind.

We also discovered that the farmer's market, the ferria, in Guadalupe, is only a 15 minute walk from my apartment. It's fantastically cheap and fresh, though you do need to wash everything very thoroughly because of the pesticides. Farmer's Market does not equal organic! The ferria is loud, smelly (in a good way, usually) and so...well, exotic for someone like me. It's not polite stalls set up, where the sellers wait for you to come to them. It's stalls of people trying to get your attention, and offering you samples, and some of the fastest Spanish I've ever heard. It does help my math skills somewhat; I'm getting better at recognizing my numbers in Spanish.

Last Thursday was Children's Day. I don't know if that's international, but here in Costa Rica, it's a pretty big thing. We had ice cream at lunch time on Thursday, and then Friday morning was the chaos. The elementary/preschool teachers set up a carnival for the students! There was ring toss, face painting, "bobbing" for apples that were on strings hanging from the building overhang. There was cookie decorating and frootloop necklace making, bowling and more. The highlight for many of the children was the fact that the parents association was selling Silly Bands. These stretchy, sometimes smelly, little bracelet things are all the rage; fights broke out later in the day about who's were who's. I even received one from one of my little grade two's; I'm not sure who, as it was a streak of motion. Hair, hands, and suddenly I'm holding a stretchy green band in the shape of what I think is a dinosaur. I can only imagine how many of these I would have had as a kid, what with my obsessive collecting habits.

The highlight of that day was taking so many adorable pictures. I'm going to post most online with Facebook, and ask that people not tag them. Here are a few I couldn't resist putting up twice.