first week in da books

Just finished my first week in Xela.  Unreal.  My family's really awesome - mi madrasta or step mom as I call her is a great cook and always makes sure I have what I need.  Just as I thought the lil one's a total monster.  She's nice to practice spanish with and everyday after school she wants to play like the hyperactive 4 year old she is.

To be frank going to spanish school gives me a hard on.  Not literally of course.  Well usually not.  But compared to my working days in tech where all I could think about was lunch and my packed bong Lamar waiting for me at home, I can't get enough of the immersion.  I get to speak spanish for 6ish hours a day and then homework takes up another 3 or so.  The only time I hear or speak english is with other expats though my roomie and I have agreed to only speak spanish to each other.  Kimberly, my roomie, moved in about a week after I did.  And unlike the last kimberley i knew, she's not a soul-sucking psychopath hellbent on selling ads.  Shes really chill and a good roomie to have.

Everyone at the school is thuper awesome and we've been having a great time.  Its nice being nearly the youngest again and the group is all serious about learning and living abroad.  Tho i'm a bit worried about the incoming groups of college kids on summer break.  Of course, thats my target demo. jk!  but yeah, the ones ive met are a bit green in the life experience realm.

Xela's a great, quiet place to settle down.  I feel comforted by the lack of tourists, poor infrastructure and shoddy roads.  And of course, omg, the re-emergence of a robust street food scene.  Tortas, sausages, tacos, carnitas, Xela has it all on the street.  And really these are the only locals I've gotten to know so far.  Interestingly enough, guatemalan tortas are tots different than mexican tortas.  Tortas here are kinda just a plate of meat with rice, beans, etc.  Tho they have mexican tortas here as well.  Air pound.  After bars close its kinda like walking around the mission at night except the whole town's covered in awesome food.  Oh dudes and the markets are great, like being back in Vietnam, kinda.  With all the sounds, colors and smells of a good third world farmers market.  Food porn will return soon to FB I prom.

It costs me about $5 a day to live with a shared apt and 3 meals so I don't really see a reason to leave anytime soon.  But I do have DirecTV as well.  Living the third world stereotype lol.  Got to watch The Rock in spanish yesterday.  Man, Nick Cage's facial expressions translate brilliantly to spanish.

The night scene's been dec.  We found a bar just like Thieves and I got to play some pool.  Anytime Bert, and I'm down to beat you in Guatemala too.  Then we ended up at this awesome underground after hours gay club (only gay clubs stay open late here, i'm not surprised).  It was in a laundromat that was converted to a dance club.  And of course it had the cheapest, stiffest drinks in town.  Sickter brah.

Alright thats it.  Talk soon amigos and I leave you with an awesome quote from benny franklin.

"si sabes gastar menos de lo que ganas, has encontrado la piedra filosofal"

in other words, save your money dummies and come visit me.

tarzan swing, high roller, settling down

Spent a few days in Monteverde and I´m glad I made it up there.  Totally different scene than the beaches I´d been plopping myself on for the majority of the trip.  Took a couple hikes through the cloud forests which was breathtakingly beautiful.  Saw a ton of fauna, most of which are on my "omg i´m pissing myself" list like a 4 foot snake, tarantulas and a green viper.  Also took a night hike where I got to see some sloths among other, less sexier, animals.

I did the adventure thing too which was fun but I donno if I need to do it again.  A whole bunch of ziplining over the forest with a giant 150ft Tarzan swing at the end.  Kinda like bungee jumping except you´re sitting.  Actually, yeah, pretty much just as scary as bungee jumping without the hellish headrush at the end when you´re dangling upside down.

I really enjoyed Costa Rica but I was glad to leave yesterday.  I was just getting sick of meeting kids in hostels that had just graduated, had never been out of the country, and were in awe of "how crazy it is that they call burgers hamburguesas here" and stuff like that.  Of course, it´s not their fault, but I´m just excited to settle down with more long-term folks.  I´ll be back to Costa Rica of course.  It´s probably the best place to have a beach rave anyway.  Walouuuuuu!!

I got to the airport yesterday and they informed me that I had a first class ticket that granted me access to the VIP lounge.  Now, I had just bought the cheapest ticket so I really don´t know how that happened.  And I´ve never flown first class.  As those of you that know me can attest, I usually prefer eating grilled meat sitting on a curb, and I think the best AC on a bus is just opening the window and taking off your shirt.  But anywho, I went to the lounge and was treated like a king.  Pretty uncomfortable.  Same on the plane.  Holy Turd!  It was like a 5-star meal with Steven Starr-esque presentation and such as the peasants in coach wallowed in their hunger.

I got into Xela, Guatemala around 7pm and walked into my school where everyone (8 students and 5 teachers) were having fam dinner.  Gah I miss the ole days, and it was a great welcome for me.  BTW you turdheads in SF really should get that going again.

Then I moved in to my homestay and met the family - husband and wife with two daughters (13 and 5).  I can already tell the 5 year old´s gonna be a handful, in a good way.  Anyway I have a pretty sweet bachelor setup and gawwwwwd it feels good to settle down.  After 3 months of living outta a suitcase it feels so nice to have a dresser and long-term bed again.

School starts on Monday and tonight´s the soccer championship for the Guatemalan league and Xela´s in it.  Things could get thuper weird.  Yeah boi!

grown-up treehouses, sandra lee, ATV

Well it takes about two hours to become completely familiarized with Montezuma, which was nice.  I met up with Allisone the day after I got there which was supeaaaar.  We checked into a sweet hostel with an ocean view and such up in the forest by the beach. 

Since food is quite meh in this country and pricey to boot (notice the severe lack of food porn on FB right now!?!?!), we opted to cook most meals instead.  The first night we made ramen, like uh the instant kind, with some chopped veggies, chorizo and fried egg.  Good and all, but dersicles simple.  We were the talk of the hostel that night, with all the guests wanting to know more about our cooking and how we pulled it off.  A bit odd, like we won an inspirational award or something.  But I really must thank my cooking partner Allisone, God, and my culinary inspiration, the drunken goddess Sandra Lee. 

We hiked to some watersfalls one afternoon in the jungle which were really nice.  Allison jumped off one of em but me, being a gigantic pussy, did not. 

On our last day we rented an ATV to check out some of the more remote beaches along the Peninsula.  Allisone drove.  She almost bucked me off a half dozen times before we left the parking lot but soon her feminine driving prowess took over and we plowed our way through the hills, up along the coast.  Pretty epic scenery. 

On the way home we stopped bya  fisherman and bought an absolutely beautiful red snapper.  Like sexier than P Cruz.  We grilled the snapper in banana leaves and it was deliciouuus as ms. lee would say. 

As we wrapped up din we got pulled into a two hour convo with the security guard which turned out to be pretty awesome.  We talked about where the sluttiest and most ignorant girls come from (the U.S.), his 9 children from 5 diff women, working life, etc. 

Took the bus out of Montezuma at some god-foresaken hour this am and headed to Monteverde.  Updated the link to pics on the right. 

hasta pronto

super jeal, wrong team, stuck again, new developments

Manuel Antonio, though touristy, actually grew on me quite a bit.  I ended up being the only guest at this family-run hostel which gave me a great opportunity to practice spanish and hang out with the fam.  The owner is a hottie latina with a personality stronger than costa rican coffee.  If she wasn´t 40 with 3 kids I tots mcgoats would have been all about that.

The other morning I walked into the kitchen to find a man about her age cooking bfast without his shirt on.  Though I knew it wasn´t meant to be, I must admit that I felt a tinge of jealousy surge through my veins.  Well anyway, he offered to go with me to watch the lakeshow later that night (they´ve really been sucking btw) and I was down.  At the bar that night he asked if I wanted a chica por dinero (hooker).  Nah dude, I don´t play that game.  I asked him the same.  He gave me a look of longing before whispering, "no, un chico".  LOL turns out he´s the hostel owner´s gay brother.

Spent the next few days with the fam having a good time.  Went snorkeling, hiking through the park, etc., all good.  They took me to a secluded beach outside of town where it was just poor locals and washed up American surfers.  BTW eating mangoes by biting through the flesh is like wayyyyy better than wasting your time trying to cut pieces off the pit.

I stayed a couple extra days in ML Antonio to help redo their site and got a free night´s stay and some food.  She wants me to come back and keep working so who knows!?!?!

Well, I was down until last night, when her brother texted me that he liked me.  Um, yeah.  I made it abundantly clear in both spanish and english that I only play on one team, but I kept getting the sense that he wanted to help me switch.  Don´t know if I´m going back now!!

Got into Montezuma after an epic 7 hour journey yesterday that spanned across sea and land, over mountains and through winding passes.  No, not really.  It wasn´t bad at all.  Within an hour I was chilling on the beach, smoking a phat spliff with a hot chick and rasta swedish dude by my side.  I think I like this place.

In other news, I´m crazy excited that we just got our initial funding for the One Family One Garden aquaponics initiative.  We´ll be putting a garden with school curriculum in a high school in Oakland and another one in Guatemala.  Thuper excited but kinda scared too.  I mean it´s gone from me just getting stoned and scribbling notes and sketches to now I actually have to make it work.

But as the great philospher Russell Brand says in Get Him to the Greek, "I think I feel nervous.  But it´s good to feel something!!"

huevos con tequila, vale la pena, chores, ridealongs, 4 to da flo

I burned 4ish days in San Jose doing largely nothing and it felt great.  Thankfully the guide books were wrong again and English is not that readily spoken in Costa Rica.  Sure you could def get by speaking english, but it´s been great practicing spanish and the locals have been thuper friendly in helping me learn.  It´s been reaasuring for me because it turns out the roughly $1K I spent on spanish tutoring over the past years has been worth much more than just a hot face to look into every week. 

I met an Aussie gurl named Briley at my hostel and we hung out for the next couple of days.  She didn´t speak a word of espanol so she was relieved I could help get her around town.  After about 20 minutes of meeting her I invited her to din din and dranks with my new friend Allison, which Euhana hooked up for me (danke!).  The next day Briley and I had pretty much the most exciting day you could have in San Jose.  Went on a quick hike in the nearby mountains, walked around town, ate some chinese food (actually really good) then went to the movies. 

And I know what some of you might be thinking (ahem, Jane).  OMG did you hook up!?!?!  OMG was it like a date!?!?  OMG!!

Nope.  Truth be told, those days I spent with her were probs the best time I´ve had with a girl with my clothes on in 10 years. 

Next day caught the bus to Manuel Antonio and just chilled.  It´s really beautiful though def touristy.  The next day Allison and some of her coworkers headed up here where they have a house through work.  Sick. 

We dicked around on the beach all day before hitting the sauce hard.  We meandered our way through a few bars in Manuel Antonio, dahncing to some epically sultry live music.  Then we stepped out to make our next move where Allison chatted up some cops and convinced them to give us a ride into Quepos.  Check. Ridealong to a bar knocked off the bucket list. 

After a couple stops in town we headed to the outskirts to a dirty lil discoteca.  We stood about 50 yds away and it looked pretty standard, feebly lit by a few fluorescent bulbs and haphazardly strung XMAS lights. 

I´d seen it all before, in Belize.  Locals only, a few bad seeds stalking around the bar, putting up a facade to trick tourists.  Calling you friend but switching between english, spanish and creole to mask their true intentions. 

"Uh iono bout this one guys," I squeaked.  Allison shot me a repugnant look.  "Dude, we´ll be cool," she assured me. 

Well hallelujah, good thing I listened to her.  We walked in and the place was completely different than the outside led on.  We were the only gringos and became entranced with the live band pumping merengue, salsa, etc.  Goodness these latinos know how to dance.  Like what the turd. 

But then they switched to a house DJ.  Yeah muchachos, get off MY dahnce floor.  Time for me to shine.  And oh did I.  We dahnced all night until they switched back to latin music.  Guidebook lie numero dos - gays DEF do not need to hide in Costa Rica.  These two gay couples took over the dance floor and everyone quickly scurried off.  It was unlike anything I´ve ever seen.  Like I wanted to go home with them.  They were that good. 

Made our way back home and I crawled onto my sleeping mat to a view of the sun rising over the jungle and the symphony of waking birds and monkeys.  Pretttttty, pretttttty, pretttttty mel. 

I think I´ll stay here for another couple days and head to the ML Antonio park, get in the water, etc.  Then head to I don´t really know.  Maybe Monteverde or Montezuma. 

Hasta pronto amigos. 

Got in to San Jose safe and sound.  My new number is 011-506-50199959 (just dial that whole thing).  Just in case ya'll need to seek my wisdom, have someone to drunkenly rant to, or otherwise just chat with. 

The hostel's pretty nice, really fratastic.  Had drunken arguments with a 50-year expat last night about the U.S. economic situation.  He's a Romney supporter tho so he doesn't have much credibility in mi opinion. 

Getting a brief chance to explore San Jose today has been fun and speaking Spanish again feels amaze.  Gah I had enough of trying to speak that Mars Attacks Vietnamese language. 

Oh.  And las chicas in Costa Rica.  Oy choy oy!

hasta pronto amigos