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.
5 comments:
Hi guys great photos, big files which is great for us but must take some time to upload. Amazing white church is it white stone or painted? Why are carrots called zanahorias? - seems a posh name for a carrot. I see people wearing shorts and tops - msut be warm. We've has the warmest year on record (more than 300 years). no Christmas decorations here yet, but they're down from the attic so won't be long.
Continue to have a great time!
Love
Dad (Steve)
abstranHi Helen and Tim,
The church looks quite stunning, are most of the people catholics or are there many religions?
I see Tim stuffing his face with what looks like a huge bun, there seems to be lots of people around are they holiday makers, or do they always go around in shorts?
Still fairly windy, and dull. I don`t know where they got their records from, but we haven`t seen too much sun of late, could do with a bit now and then.
Love the photo of you Helen with the rainbow, would like to paint it but I don`t think I`ve enough talent as yet.
I`m not putting any decorations up this year, just my little tree and the cards.We are all going to Sheila`s anyway so no one would be here to see them.
Have passed your blog on to Val, will pass it on to Sheila tonight, though she won`t be in `til late, both Sheila and Graham have taken up ballroom dance classes which they go to on Thursday evenings and they Love It !
That`s all for now, will keep an eye on all your welcome news, pleased that you`re having a great time
Love from Granny xxxx
timothy and helen, my spanish onions,
interesting.
very very interesting.
i had been told before now that all money in costa rica was multicoloured, zig-zagged, and every note was identically coloured, which prevented any of this 'local slang'.
i heard it off a guy that used to float goats off the harbour down in queens - he was telling me that when he was younger, about your age, he completely sold up and went to costa rica with his life savings, intending to live there until he died, but on the fourth day he was there he went to buy some zanahorias, much like you have done, and the spanish stall owner said "that'll be un multirojo" (a multicoloured). so this guy looked down at his money and it all looked the same so he handed over one of them, and to cut a long story short he had to come home a week later. turned out that rather than hand them a note worth, say, a fiver, he'd actually handed over a note worth five hundred thousand pounds. all his money. so that was that.
how gutted would you be?
so anyway, you say they've got rojo's. interesting.
and are you sure there's only two seasons?
really?
not 47?
tch.... that guy man.
it's good to hear from you anyway but i must go now because i'm at work, we'll speak soon for sure,
hope everything continues to go so well,
lovemx
Hi Helen and Tim,
Nice to see what you're up to. I'll write more when I have more time.
lots of love,
Hazel xxx
Hi Helen and Tim,
Just to let you know that I am thinking of you, and hope all is still going well. Looking forward to Friday when I`ll be getting a visit from Steve, and tomorrow Wednesday when I`ll be seeing Val Adam and Steph, and of course next Monday Xmas Day when we will all be meeting at Sheila`s for Xmas dinner/tea.
Be in touch again soon, Lots of love from Granny xxxxxxxxx
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