A walk and a snake (26-31/12/2006)

We've had quite a relaxing week here since Christmas. On boxing day we both went for a walk with 'Mandy' the dog. Taking dogs for a walk is quite interesting here as every house seems to have one. After alot of barking and close encounters with little scrawny animals we headed up the side of the hill/mountain we're staying on. It was ridicously steep and so half way up Timothy decided that he needed a little help from Mandy, she wasn't that interested though.

The weather here has been nice and so we've spent a bit more time around the pool. The pool was also our first meeting with a snake which one of Donalds kids found swimming about. He thought it was dangerous at first, but afterwards we found out it was a snake called 'false coral'. Donalds children (Isaac and Nasaret) wanted a photo with it, and I too, took a very relaxed pose for the camera.

Merry Christmas - Feliz Navidad (25-12-2006)

Merry Christmas from us (and the dog). Just thought we'd post a few photos on quickly before we leave to spend the day with an English family who are staying here for a few weeks. Last night was good fun with a big Costa Rican family spending about 3 hrs watching them open presents, all good. Helen made some sweet biscuits which went down a treat, the usual "Que Linda, Que Lindissima! (how beautiful how bigger than beautiful) was said a fair few times. We'll put some more photos on soon.

Thankyou so much for the presents and cards mum and dad(s), it was real nice opening them this morning. Absoultly loving the sticky toffee Christmas pudding and cashew nuts. Also a big thankyou to Geoff and Beth for sending us some top draw presents. They all made the day more Christmas-like for sure Hope you all have a great Christmas at the big Cox gathering, (Helens on the phone to you right now in fact). Hope you all have a good Christmas day at the Coleman/Lawrie household with those classic games. I've froze some flour this morning so we'll see how that old chestnut goes down in Costa Rica.

Loads of love Timothy and Helen xx

Also a very Merry Christmas to all our friends at home. Have a quality evening. One big congratulations to Tiva and Sari, thats superb (nice work mate). We'll try and phone tonight, but might not be possible. Loads of love xx

Here are some photos we've added later. This was the group of people we spent Christmas day with. An english family, an Australian couple, two Americans and Woody,Sue and Corie Rowland who have been in Latin America for nearly 30 years and head up the work here. (As you can sort of see the frozen flour game went down a treat.)

Timothys Birthday (20-12-2006)

Well for the first time in my life I had my birthday in the summer. This was the view from the window of where we have Spanish lessons.

Helen made me some cheeky pancakes for breakfast and she brought me the Costa Rican football shirt for my birthday. Nice. I also opened a fair few cards from people so thankyou very much. We then had our Spanish lesson in the morning followed by a nice 'almorzar' (lunch) cooked by Ana. The photo sort of shows Brian and Stef, a great couple who are staying here on the campus at the moment. There house is a nice little cabin which they've kindly let us use a few times. We'll be staying there over Christmas as they've gone back to America for a few weeks. Brians does alot of work in overseeing the building projects around the campus and Stef is currently taking a gap year from her medical training.

After lunch Helen had arranged a surprise for me by inviting a load of people on the campus to appear from a little side room in Brian and Stefs place. Unfortunatly we forgot to take any photos of everyone but we did get one of the cake Helen and Stef made. It was superb. Stef and Brian also made 'custard icecream' would you believe, after Helens tip off that I'm quite into custard. I never knew such a substance could be made, it was all good.

The day didn't stop there. Football in Costa Rica is big. Unfortunatly it's a bit like the Scottish league where only two teams ever seem to win anything. 'Surprissa' and 'La Liga' are the two big teams and they met again in the National final (FA cup equivalent). The first leg happened to be on my birthday so we got tickets to go and see it in San Jose. It was quality. Quality experience, less than quality football. Apparently all the good players go to Europe. The score was 2-0, we'll be watching the 2nd leg on a big screen here on Saturday. The stadium was a bit different to english ones. From the outside, all good, but underneath the stands was like the bullring indoor market. You could get food, clothes, kitchen goods, underware, tupperware, holidays....the funniest stand we saw added a whole new dimension to the true football fan. It was a stand which sold purple coffins (the colour of the team) embedded with the clubs logo. They like their football here.

A little bit of Salsa (17-12-2006)

We stayed at Anas house after the festival and she whipped up a nice breakfast. She calls her house a hotel, "not 5star" she says "but it's friendly". Ana's daughter Sophia wanted to teach us some salsa. So she put on a few tunes on her computer and we danced away in the living room. Helen apparently has got the right movement, I however need to work on my hip action. The good news is though that everyone shes taught from England has got good rhythm. I won't let the team down.

Festival de la luz - Festival of lights (16-12-06)

We we're invited by our Spanish teacher Ana to go to a famous festival in Costa Rica called 'Festival de la Luz' in San Jose. We went with her whole family which was quite amusing. We took our first bus ride on our own to the capital from San Isidro. The buses look superb.

The festival starts at around 3 but people get there around mid morning to get a good seat. They close off the main road in San Jose and people line the streets. Ana's family went fully comitted which we like and bought chairs. cool box, pillows and even the mattress from one of their kids bedroom. The festival is basically a parade and mainly consists of bands and people dressed up traditionally. There we're certainly quite a few strange entries into the parade. The masked witches being one, followed by Cadburys chocolate, which was all good.

By the time it got dark (around 6) we'd never seen so many people on a single street before. Unfortunatly the camera struggles to show it but it was crazy. We we're glad to get there as early as we did. At 6 the greatly anticipated 'bombetas' (fireworks) were to start. Obviously they didn't start at 6. like most of the carnival is was run with what we've come to know as Tico Time (Costa Rican time) which is all good. The name certainly didn't disapoint, they seem not to bother to much about pretty looking fireworks but rather the most enormous explosions they can get hold of. (Brought me back to the 5th November in the bridge carpark). After that it was back to

more parading and it finished around 10:30. We we're staying at Ana's house in San Jose.

Christmas Party (11/12/06)

Today we had our Christmas party. There was about 30 or so people and they seemed to all like the Tamales we made the day before. It was a good time to practice our Spanish, although the main phrase we seem to use was 'Despacio, mas despacio por favor' (Slowly, more slowly please) We played a gift exchange game, where everyone brings a present for someone else and you pick at random from under the tree. As you can see Helen and I felt slightly denied.

Tamales Day! (10/12/2006)

In England we have Christmas pudding, mince pies and turkey. Well in Costa Rica a traditional Christmas food is called 'Tamales'. Well today (Sunday) we had the priviledge of making these with our Tico friends (Tico= Costa Rican person). On the campus there are a Costa Rican family: Donald and Erika and their two children Isaac and Nasaret. They maintain the campus, Donald is a carpenter and Erika is a cleaner. We made the Tamales with them, and Erika's Mama, on the campus grounds.
First of all you take a load of banana leaves and heat them up on a fire until they are soft and malleable. Then you cut them into squares, and clean them so their ready to put the food in. You put maiz dough in first, then put meat and various vegetables on top. Then you wrap it all up and tie it with a piece of string. They're bolied for about an hour then their ready to eat. Que Rico! (how tasty). We were making them for the Christmas party that we had the following day. We'd like to think we could produce such food back in England, but feel there is a slight lack of Bannana leaves lying around.

Our town and Market day (9/12/2006)

Costa Rica is coming to the end of it's winter (invierno) and going into it's summer (verano). There are basically 2 seasons here, the wet and dry season (winter/summer). At the moment it makes for some unsettled weather so rainbows are common place. It's still quite warm here although it's alot hotter the further down the valley you go. San Isidro is higher up so it tends to stay cooler. This is a photo of the centre of the town, most have Catholic Churches and a grass area.







We stayed with a lady called Lori on Friday night and helped decorate her house for Christmas which was nice. We now feel a little more 'Christmas-like' although the closest we've come to a mince pie is a Chicken pasty. We woke up early on Saturday to go to a special Market called a 'Feria'. Most towns seem to have them, we went to a particularly big one. It basically sells every type of fruit and veg we've ever seen and is good fun going around. It's also good fun trying out our Spanish as they seemed to speak a completly different language there. We're told they speak alot of slang, so our elegantly polished responses we're quite amusing. For instance we asked how much a 'un medio kilo de zanahorias' were (half kilo of carrots) and the reply was a very swift 'un rojo' which means 'a red'. We found that thats the colour of one of the notes here. Suppose it's like the markets back in England though.

Hola from Costa Rica (28/11/06 - 7/12/06)

Hola! from Costa Rica. Eventually we've got this blog up and running and hopefully we can keep it updated. We are staying on the campus of International Teams just outside the capital of San Jose. 'San' by the way means 'Saint', practically all the towns in Latin America seem to start with this. San Jose is Saint Joseph, nearby is San Pablo (St.Paul) and we're staying in 'San Isidro'. At a wild stab we're thinking this probably means Saint Ian (although we can't be sure).
As you can see we're surrounded by beautiful mountains. For nearly our whole time here, there are clouds that cover the mountain tops which look amazing.






The campus grounds are really nice with loads of different plants, trees and wildlife. We have al ot of fruit trees like lemon, orange, lime and bannana trees,which we can pick off and eat or cook with. The grounds also has a cheeky little football pitch, a volley ball net and swimming pool, although no one seems to go in it because it's so cold. There are also a load of dogs which roam around, mainly for security, which follow you when you go places which we've got used to now. We've stayed in various places since being here and are all good.

Our Spanish teacher Ana is fantastico. She doesn't speak English much which actually really helps us to learn quicker. She is very motherly and funny. We are doing 3 hrs a day with her and then studying for another 3 - 4 in the afternoon. She is very keen to give us Cultural experience aswell as language so we've already made Costa Ricas typical dish known as 'Gallo Pinto' which is bascially rice, beans, vegtables with a fried omlette (a breakfast favourite apparently). She wants to take us to the musuem this week and has invited us to a big fiesta (party) next weekend in San Jose. She's also asked if we want to spend Christmas with her family. The main celebration is Christmas eve here. We try to speak as much Spanish as we can around the campus, but because most of the people here are American it tends to end up in English.