CR – March 29, 2011 Day 18 (Updated)

Day 18

(Updated)

As we get closer to the end of our time here in Costa Rica, I’m finding less and less to write about that is much different than the last two weeks. Therefore, my remaining posts regarding our trip will be the standard report on the daily happenings but also a little more about our general observations on travel, language acquisition and the whole idea of the “Immersion Experience.”

Today was a good day for me in class. The concepts are starting to click and I’m a lot more confident speaking in spanish than I was before coming to Costa Rica. No verbal snafus to report today. Everyday I’m impressed with how well Ginger can carry on conversations in Spanish. At breakfast today, she said the morning prayer in spanish. Our mama tica taught us this prayer last week. Now the pressure is really on.

We took a Salsa class after school today and then headed over to meet Sadie. Sadie is a manicurist and Ginger had an appointment to get a Pedicure. She invited me to get one too but…. We’ll, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting in touch with my feminine side and all that but this seems a bit too close to the feminine side for my comfort. I know, I know, REAL MEN can get pedicures too but…hey, what can I say.

While Ginger pampered herself, I went back to a local music store to check out and listen to some Tipical Latino music. On the way to the music store, I stopped in at a little sporting shop and bought a cheap backpack. One of the regrets I have on this trip was in not packing a small backpack for daily use here in costa Rica. I did bring a nice shoulder bag with on the trip but it just wasn’t what I needed. By the way, in case you don’t know, I’m a “Bag Man.” I love bags and gadgets. All kinds of bags and all kinds of gadgets. One might say that I love to tinker with gadgets and I seem to be on an endless quest to find the perfect MAN BAG. More about this in another post. This new bag will be given away when I return home. As I said, it’s functional but cheap. At the sports store, I was able to converse with the shop owner and her son in spanish and make my purchase without any problems. This felt really good.

From the sports shop, I headed over to the music shop and bought two CD’s. One of the CD’s is Tipico Latino and the other is Electronico music. While I’m not a fan of Electronico music per se, this genre of music offers me an opportunity to practice my DJ mixing skills. For those of you that don’t know, I have a DJ business and DJ as a hobby in my spare time. Check out my webpage at DanceAbassador-com. I put in (-com) at the end of the address rather than (.com) because WordPress strips out links from my posts. I’m still not sure why this happens. Anyway, I had a great time chatting with the two guys that worked in the store.

I then headed over to pick Ginger up and we walked home in a hurry because it looked like it was going to rain.

We once again, tonight we went dancing at Tipico Latino and had a great time. On the way to the club, the taxi driver drove like he was nuts. Literally, he was driving 60 miles an hour through the city. He went through stop signs and at one point zoomed by a police car. We didn’t say anything because we thought, hey, this must be normal in Costa Rica.

When we told our mama tica about the taxi experience, boy was she upset. She said that this was a serious problem with some taxi drivers in CR and that she was going to lodge a complaint. She told us that if that ever happens to us again, tell the driver to stop immediately then get out of the car and refuse to pay. Okay….

Later that evening as we were leaving the club, we headed outside to catch a taxi home. Parked outside of the club was a plain white car with no taxi lights, taxi numbers or other legit markers on it. “He said you if you need a taxi, I can give you a ride.” I said thanks but no thanks (I was really thinking Uuh..a..I don’t think so). When we declined he looked pretty annoyed. The lady bouncer at the front door tried to convince us it was okay to go with him. Yes that’s right a HUGE lady bouncer. At that point, we just ignored them both and finally flagged down a real RED taxi. We’d been forewarned to only take the red taxi’s in Costa Rica and to never, ever get into an unknown, unmarked car under any circumstance. Were glad we listened.

We made it home safely.

Chow!