last days continued...

OK...I´ve got a few more minutes sooooo...We wanted to get out of Manuel Antonio and decided to head to Alajuela a day early BUT the bus to san jose didn´t leave until 5 p.m. which means we would have arrived in san jose well after dark, would have needed to look for another bus station, then disembark in alajuela and begin lookin for a hotel. We decided that wasn´t the best plan, so, we took the bus to Jaco and stayed there for a night. I had never had any desire to go to Jaco, BUT, it was a cool little town. If I hadn´t of been so tired I may have tried going dancing. Anyways, we got off of the bus and stopped at the first hotel on our side of the street. It was a little place called LA COMETA and it was cheap and clean. The room was actually a really decent size and we had hot water and a/c so it was a great place for 36$!!!!! We wandered around a bit, made some phone calls, had a milk shake and bought some groceries. Here´s something about Costa Rica that is driving me nuts and really shocks me....in every other place I´ve been in the World even in Honduras and Guatemala, there are phone and computer places on every corner. NOT IN COSTA RICA. In all the places we´ve been, Jaco is the only exception. Before I left I told my mom. It´s one of those little things that gets to me now since people always talk about costa rica being more advanced that some of the other central american countries. In some ways it is...it that regard, it´s not even close. OK, enough whining.... We woke up early in Jaco and took the 9am bus to San Jose. Once we made it to alajuela we started looking for the hotel in pouring rain. The rain thing doesn´t bother me. I knew it was going to rain everyday and I was prepared for it. I have been pleasantly surprised since it hasn´t rained nearly as much as I expected it to. That said, I need to complain again for a minute. Another of my disappointments is in the expectation that the Costa Ricans would be the friendliest and most helpful people in the World. In general they are friendly and helpful, but not more than any one else. I must say I really think the people in Honduras and Guatemala are much more so... The other thing that bugs me (and I expected this as I read about the warnings on trip advisor) is that Costa Ricans (supposedly because they don´t want to dissapoint you), when asked for directions, will always answer you, regardless of whether or not they REALLY know where something is. This is happened to us a few times and can agree with others that you should always ask multiple people where something is. THIS TO ME IS NOT FRIENDLY AND NOT HELPFUL AND IS DOWNRIGHT INCONSIDERATE BEHAVIOR. I would much prefer that someone tell me, ¨i´m sorry, but, I don´t know where it is.¨ instead of having me wander BLOCKS AND BLOCKS out of my way, because they didn´t want to ¨disappoint¨me. OK, sooo after a few misdirections, we ended up at our hotel, HOTEL LOS VOLCANES, and it´s an awesome little place. Definitely a great bargain! We wandered around to find some food and ended up at a little place that was actually good. Here´s another thing I learned on tripadvisor that I will agree with. I won´t really call this a complaint, sinc I was prepared and it´s helping me to not gain weight, BUT most of the food here has absolutely NO FLAVOR. I don´t know how they manage to do it, but, most meals are very much uneventlful for your taste buds. There have been a few exceptions, DOS LOCOS in Quepos was amazing, the little place in San Jose was good, and the food last night was good. Also, the popcorn at the movie theater was THE BEST i´ve ever had. The other things that WILL NEVER disappoint, are 1) the bakeries 2)dos pinos icecream! Everything else, not matter how much you pay, is a toss up. Soooo, around 4:30 yesterday we decided to hop a bus and head to the nearest mall. I´ve never been in one in Central or South America and decided to check it out and go see a movie. We ended up seeing the first movie available and it was some new movie with Brendan Fraser about the Center of the World. It was all in spanish and I am SO SO SO proud of myself because I actually understood the majority of it. The movie was really cute and funny and the popcorn was so yummy! We were near hypothermia in the theatre though, since we got caught in a downpour before entering and were soaking wet inside where they had really strong a-c on. We were freezing! We were also happy the movie was short, not because we were cold, but so we could shop! The mall was really really cool and had some great prices. I found the most incredible suit and top, but of course, it was one size too small!!! I ended up with 3 really cute pairs of earing and some bracelets for FOUR dollars. We tried to get over to a bookstore, but, most of the shops closed at 8pm (which saddened me greatly) sooooo we didn´t have too much time to look around. In hindsight, we should have done the shopping before the movie (we would have been drier, too!) Luckily we found the bus in the dark and made it back to the hotel around 9 pm. It was a really nice night. Well, I´m waiting for Kristen to wake up (it´s 8 am here) and we need to do final packing, breakfast and leave no later than 10 for the airport. The water here was cold, so my 5:30 am shower was quite the wake up call for me! Let me revise that, the water was hot, long enough to burn me, then went back to cold....maybe 15 seconds total of not freezing water. Not really a complaint, I survived two months of cold showers in honduras. They never really bothered me midday, when I was hot and it was hot outside. BUT, the ones i had to take early in the morning were always really really hard on me.... OK...I know I´ve complained quite a bit and talked about being disappointed BUT all in all I really really have had a great time!!! I´m really happy I´m functionally fluent in spanish because it gets you so much further and really makes everything better and you are able to learn so much more about the people and to develop bonds. It is my belief that people actually treat you a lot better when you are able to communicate effectively with them. When I get back home I will try to write about things I may have forgotten. TAKE CARE!!!!