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.