Sleep Spent

I recognized the yellow brick arches of the Gloucester Road tube station immediately. This is a really cool art installation, and is much cooler than what was there before (ads).

Leaving Quepos. First to San Jose (CR) then to Panama City then to LA. Tomorrow morning I fly to San Jose (CA).

Anybody want to pick me up and give me a ride to work? Give my cell phone a call and leave a message. Thanks!

We got up on Tuesday in Juntas and had a soak in the hot tub. (The shower wasn’t heated, but the hot spring was very nice!) After that we went looking for a place to get some cash. Turns out the Banco Nacional doesn’t like my card, but a different bank accepted it just fine. We got out about $90.

We were walking back to the hostel when Gregg noticed a variety shop and stopped to have a look. He wanted to get some T-shirts and some snacky-snacks. The shop had tons of clothes, for very inexpensive prices. Gregg ended up buying 10 pairs of girls’ panties for $.40 each. These he plans to use at Burning Man this year as part of a “reverse panty raid.” At first we thought for sure the woman would be sketched out by our interest in girls’ panties, but she seemed to get over that rather quickly when it became clear that Gregg was serious. She assumed that he was buying them for his daughter. It was curious that he didn’t seem to care what size they were, though, and he told me later that she commented on this point. In response, he said, “she’ll grow.”

All pantied up, we went to the next store and bought some snacks for the road. We got a bunch of stuff and the nice man behind the counter added in some caramel mixed with coconut for free. That proved to be the best of the lot, IMHO.

We went back to the hotel, settled our tab and got on the road for the peninsula. I was driving again. We crossed the Taiwanese “Bridge of Friendship” and we were on the Nicoya Peninsula. It was much dryer than the landscape we had left, and we immediately saw several iguanas run across the road. I managed not to hit them, and continued on my way. We drove for several hours on some paved roads and some non-roads. We stopped at a little town to get lunch. Gregg had some eggs cooked with vegetables and several tortillas. I had a hotpocket-like thing and what Gregg had. (I was hungry.) Gregg talked with the people who ran the soda a bit. Their little 4-year-old was particularly talkative. We took off once we had finished and spent another couple hours driving. We got gas and stamps in Cóbano and then took the dirt road down to Montezuma.

We loved Montezuma! It was paradise, though a bit touristy. All the banks and auto shops and everything was up the hill, which left the hotels, restaurants, shops and the beach. We found a place for $20/night (the most expensive so far) and dropped our stuff off. The room was right on the beach. Right away, we took off for a waterfall that Lonely Planet said was a little ways out of town. I was in board shorts and sandals, which was probably a stupid move since we had to basically walk up a creek to get to the falls. But we both made it with no injuries and with plenty of sunlight to spare. This pool was the perfect temperature, unlike the other one which was quite cold. This was refreshing and we both took a short swim in the pool and under the falls.

On the way back from the falls the sun was setting, so we I got some awesome pictures. There were waves and rocks and a boat several hundred meters off shore, bobbing in the waves.

We got back to the hotel and discovered that there was something which appeared to be leaking from our car. We were frightened for a bit, until we realized that it was really dripping down from the inside of the wheel wells on all four tires. We looked back and noticed that several locals were spreading something on the road. Gregg asked and confirmed that it was molasses. We asked our hotellier what that was about, and he said it was a local product (meaning it was cheap and available) and they used it to keep the dust down on the roads.

After this, Gregg and I went to have dinner at a place called Colors. The food was the best we’d eaten so far: I had a chicken curry with raisins and almonds and Gregg had a vegetable melange in a congac sauce. This was a particularly satisfying meal for Gregg, after days of huevos and papas fritas. We went back to the hotel and then I went to go blog. When I got back, Gregg and I went just outside our door for some fruit drinks and I noticed a guy playing guitar. I hadn’t played in days, so I was really excited about the possibility to play a bit. Fortunately, when I got back from food I got in line and was able to play a bit. The girl whose guitar it was showed up and I taught her the main riff from “Blackbird.” The hotel owner came by just after 10 and asked us to quiet down for the night, so I stopped playing. Two very cute Italian/Swiss guys showed up so we talked with them for a bit. Then we were asked to stop talking again, and they needed to get up early to go fishing, so we parted company and went to bed.

We arrived in Costa Rica on Saturday night. Once we got through customs, we went to the desk to pick up our rental car. This I put in my name, something which I might not have been able to do in the US seeing as I don’t turn 25 until Sunday the 26th. But after going through all the rigamarole, we had our car. Turns out, it’s a stickshift.

We had arrived pretty late, but we still wanted to get some way toward La Fortuna before Sunday. So we drove up to San Ramón. (Gregg drove, since I had never driven stick before.) This was tough, because it was dark and there were very few lights on the road. We almost drove off the road once, and ended up stopping in this triangular area separating an exit from the continuing road. It came up out of nowhere! But we got to San Ramón all right. We found a hotel which was supposed to be $4/night but which ended up costing us nearly double that. We also had to lock our car up, which we ended up getting for $3.

This town was hopping. We weren’t quite sure why, but there were tons of college-aged kids around drinking at the bars on this one street, and just generally milling around. There was a nice vibe. We ate in this restaurant were Gregg got some pasta with a savory sauce. They were playing U2 and Led Zeppelin videos while we were there, but when we walked past later they had switched back to something more befitting a little out-of-the-way Costa Rican restaurant. Perhaps the music was for our benefit.

We went back to the Hotel Gran and pretty much went right to bed, though it was after 12 by this time.

The next day we woke up at 12:30, which was mostly my fault: I had mis-set my little travel alarm clock. We got on our way after figuring out how to use the shower with the scary-looking electric wiring hanging out in the tiled area. (Turns out it was heated at the shower head, and it took some fiddling.) We went and got our car, which was fine. Gregg asked me if I wanted to drive. I was a little apprehensive, since, as I said before, apart from driving around a parking lot with my sister once a few years ago, I have never driven stick. I said OK, I’d give it a try, and we set off. Yes, there were some start-stop-start moments, but I did all right. :-)

We headed up to La Fortuna, stopping for lunch in the little town of Zarcero. There was a neat garden area in the center of the town (in front of the church) where there were tons of sculptures made out of some sort of juniper-like plant. Helicopters and dancing people and whatnot. It was neat. We had lunch and continued on, stopping once to buy some cheese from a roadside vendor.

When we got to Ciudad Quesada, we took a right and went in search of the Tucanito, a public park/hot springs area. We got there after closing time, but they let us in and didn’t even charge us. At first we couldn’t find the hot springs, but then we realized they must be down by the river, a nearly 1km walk. We started down the trail but changed our mind when we realized we’d likely be down by some standing water (meaning mosquitos), and it was getting late. We thanked the proprietors and left, being at first misdirected. But we eventually found our way. Gregg did the night driving.

We arrived in La Fortuna late, after the sun had set, and set about finding a place to stay. Gringo Pete’s was full up, which was too bad. They were the cheapest in town. Instead we opted for Cabinas Jerry. The guy offered it to us for $6 each, but through some graft on his part and some bad math on ours, he charged us $7 each. :-( After we got situated, we went off to see the town and had a nice meal. La Fortuna was way more touristy than San Ramón was, so there were nicer restaurants all over the place, as well as outfitters. We went back to the cabina and hit the hay.

(*UPDATE:* I forgot one of the most important things that happened to us all trip! We took the car out to Arenal, the active volcano in the Arenal National Park right next to Fortuna and watched as magma trickled out of it. This was at about 11 pm; apparently there was a great big eruption roundabout 3:10, but we were long asleep by that time. There were a couple big explosions while we were watching it, but perhaps we were on the wrong side of the mountain: we only heard these, and didn’t see much in the way of lava being tossed into the sky. Still, a fantastic experience.)

The next morning we got up at the much more reasonable time of 10:00. We left our loding and took the car up to a waterfall that Lonely Planet (our bible) recommended. We picked up two Argintinian women who were clearly walking the 7km up to the falls. I don’t recall their names (they were tough...), but they were very nice and were thankful for the ride. We saw the falls (very impressive) and posed for some silly pictures, which I will post later. We skipped swimming in the pond below the falls, as it appeared to be VERY cold. The Argintines were underwhelmed with the waterfall, since apparently they have tons of much more spectacular ones in their country. The falls were shorter than Yosemite Falls, but still pretty impressive. And it’s the end of the dry season here, so it would probably be much better come August.

We brought the girls back to town with us and dropped them off. Then it was off to Juntas. We first rounded a man-made lake. There were some bad roads, some stunning views and several coatis which begged us for food when we stopped to take a picture of them. We stopped for a juice drink at a convenient soda and talked about Juntas. It was originally a mining town set up by Minor Keith, the head of the United Fruit Company. We drove a good long way to get there, showing up in Juntas after dark. We wandered around looking for food and internet, finding a little of both. We also found an arena football competition between at least four local grade school teams. That was cheap, and good fun. Gregg bought and drank some Coca-Cola in a bag. We were the only gringos in town and certainly the only ones at the game. We got stared at quite a bit, especially by the kids under 5 who didn’t know better.

We got a pretty good deal on the place we stayed that night. There was a hot tub and a pool, both of which had the perfect temperature. We soaked that evening (hot, cold, hot) and went back to the room. We had a very fine discussion about finances and the wonders of owning property and then decided what we would do the next day (Tuesday).

I’m once again out of time, so I’m going to stop now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some time to write again tomorrow so I can be caught up!

I left San Francisco bright and early on Friday the 17th. I boarded an Amtrak bus to SLO (to pick up D. Gregg) and then on to Santa Barbara. Well, we didn’t make it to Santa Barbara in time because of ¨this¨:http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2006/03/18/news/local/news01.txt. So we took 154 around Goltea and into Santa Barbara, but so did hundreds of other cars. We were stuck in traffic for nearly three hours, and we missed our train in Santa Barbara. There was another one at 7, which we hopped on.

This put a wrench in our LA plans (train station pick up and dinner with some of Gregg’s friends), so we called them up, cancelled, and then called another of his friends and had her pick us up at a different train station. That went to plan, we went down the 405 and ended up at LAX right when we needed to and boarded our 7 hour flight to Panama.

In Panama we got off the plane and had a 9 hour layover. We avoided all the taxi drivers at the airport who wanted to charge us $25 for the ride into the center of Panama City and walked out to the bus stop. There we caught a bus for the 45 minute (supposedly...) ride. Panama has the most amazing buses I’ve ever had the privelege of riding in. They’re all converted school buses and they’re painted all sorts of garish colors on the outside and have the most piercing horns. The best part, though, is the speakers mounted inside that blare whatever music the driver wants to play, usually some utterly danceable Reggaeton. There was one song in particular we heard which was hilarious, where a guy repeated ¨Gringo, gringo, gringo¨ a lot. Good times. Gregg and I made it to the center of Panama City, bought some stuff ($2 board shorts for me and 6/$1 socks for Gregg), and then headed off to see the Canal via another bus. The Canal was big, and there was a great exhibit in the visitor’s center about its construction. Then we hopped back on a bus (which took some waiting) and transferred to our fourth bus in the city center, near Plaza 5 De Mayo. The last bus to the airport broke down several times, and we had to wait for the driver to put in gas once. And there was a traffic jam. But fortunately, we made it to the airport in time and made our 1:15 flight to San Jose Costa Rica.

And now I’m out of time, and I have to sign off. Will write more later.

The train ride through Canada was spectacular, and really fun. I’ll post a more complete rundown later.

For now, though, I’m in Seattle enjoying Thanksgiving with my Dad’s side of the family.

Happy Holidays!

On Thursday night, Brian, Ruth and I played speed Scrabble. We all three really enjoyed the game, and we only got stuck (where no one could use all their pieces) once.

On Friday Brian took me to the Eden Project. It’s in southern Cornwall. You can see from the website, but it’s like Kew except with more of a Disneyland-meets-the-hippies feel. There was a great focus on environmental impact and responsibility, which was refreshing. And the food was really, really good; Brian and I had Caribbean Chicken Curry for £7 each. Yum!

In the evening, we attended a village party. Lots of people were there, and almost every one of them had a connection to California. The host and hostess had stayed there for 18 months a few years ago, and Brian’s neighbors had a son living there right now, and a second son on his way to visit the first. We all had a good laugh about that, and about the differences in definition of the word flapjack. The hosts provided vegetarian fare, and it was scrumptious. The last half of the party took place around a bonfire which I was charged with keeping alight. I wore my shorts, and flip-flops, but around the fire it didn’t matter.

On Saturday, we went to Exeter and shopped. I bought books... it’s a weakness I have. I picked up one that’s full of Sudoku puzzles. I’ve done several since, and I even woke up on Sunday thinking about them. Which was quite scary. :-)

Brian had told me about Arrested Development, which he’d just gotten on DVD, and he really wanted to show me some episodes. I was game, and so we watched three of them. It was hysterical! I’d heard it was funny from a couple people, but this show didn’t receive nearly as much buzz as it should have in my little part of the universe. Must... watch... more... episodes! Scrabble again this night.

Sunday, Brian and I went hiking on Dartmoor. He was looking for a particular path which he never was able to find, but we got plenty of time in tramping around in the woods. And my goodness, the scenery was beautiful! Got some splendid pictures. On the way back, we stopped to take some pictures of a prison that was built on the moor in Napoleonic times and is still running. It’s extremely foreboding. Then we stopped for Devonshire Cream Tea. Mmmmmmmm!!!!!

Back at the ranch, I Sudokued for a bit and then we went to the Mare & Foal, the pub literally out the Ridgers’ front door. My steak was great, and I had it with English mustard. (The poor waitress gave me a blank look when I asked her for steak sauce.)

A couple more episodes of Arrested Development in the evening, and then bed. Brian dropped me off at Exeter St Davids in time for the 1002 this morning.

I’ve spent the rest of the day wandering around bookshops. Brian pointed me towards a four story Waterstone’s that really is magnificent. I think it’s actually bigger than the Picadilly Circus one, in terms of floor space. It’s certainly easier to get lost in the one on Bloomsbury. And the big bookshop paid off: I found the dictionary of nautical terms I’ve been looking for! And a couple other books besides, of course. :-)

Now I’m on my way to Mary Poppins the musical, which is supposed to be great. We’ll see. I leave at 1000 tomorrow.

See you all very soon.

On Wednesday, I got up at a reasonable time and checked out. Headed over to Paddington (the station, not the bear) to buy my ticket and stow my backpack for the day. That done, I took the tube down to Picadilly Circus and wandered around Soho looking for some lunch. After the Indian buffet (not terribly good, but not awful), I decided on my matinee. Today it was Death of a Salesman, and the performance was outstanding. I mean, it was really, really good. I cried twice. I had never seen the play, never read it. I only knew it was supposed to be the epitome of drama. Well, this performance delivered. The set kept moving around, while the actors were onstage. They’d actually walk along against the circular movement of one of the pieces, for example, and you would see them approach the kitchen of the house, for example, but they wouldn’t actually be moving from their location on stage. And the acting was just excellent. Brian Dennehey played Willy Loman. I really could see him essentially going crazy, being caught up in his past and not seeing a way out of the terrible situation he was in.

When I got out of the play, I felt somewhat adrift, emotionally drained. I stopped and got a smoothie to try to come down a bit. Headed back over to Picadilly Circus and over to the 6-story Waterstone’s they have there. (A giant bookshop.) And then I went made my way to Paddington and caught the 19:35 to Plymouth. There was a terribly annoying girl who got on at the first stop. She was either listening to Eminem on her headphones loud enough that everyone in her half of the car could hear the beats, or else she was jabbering on her cellphone about the texts she exchanged with some chav. Eventually I got fed up with it and put on the new Dredg album. (Brilliant, by the way. I’ll put a track up on SOW once I get home.)

For the past few days I’ve been reading Master and Commander, the book the movie was (half) based on. It was written in the 20th Century, but you wouldn’t know it to read the speech patterns of the characters, or to see the depth of knowledge the author has of naval terms. He was pretty free with them in the first two chapters, and didn’t bother to explain was a ratline or a top or a topgallantyard or a shroud was. But all that was covered in chapter three, in a rather ingenous way, so I’m quite well versed by now.

Arrived in Exeter at 10:15. Brian was waiting for me, which was very kind of him. We drove to his house and I ate a little soup. We talked for a bit, but I was quite tired, so we went to sleep pretty soon after. I thought I was going to get up aroudn 9, but it ended up being 11:20. Brian and I went driving in the afternoon. Went round to Ruth’s work to drop off some lunch first, then drove up to the border of Dartmoor and went biking for a bit. (I shouldn’t have worn boxers [d’oh!], but it wasn’t a tragedy.) The scenery was beautiful. The very definition of bucolic on one side, and wonderfully desolate on the other. Saw a few tors on the moorland.

Now we’re back home, after stopping at Waitrose (a Whole Foods-type supermarket) to pick up food for the next few days. And now Brian and Ruth are waiting for me in the next room; dinner will be on shortly.

I’ll blog some more later.

Went to a shorts screening in the morning. Several really good ones, but Blake’s Junction 7 stands head and shoulders above the rest. Find info about it here. There’s even a trailer, though I don’t know if it works.

After that, I had lunch at a very nice vegan restaurant I found in Soho. Had a nectarine I bought off a street merchant for dessert. Wandered around a bit, caught another shorts screening. Again, some crap, a few gems.

Got a haircut!! It’s good times. Will post a picture if I can. The stylist was named Nino, and he was from Macau (spelling??) which he said is the “Asian Las Vegas.” It’s near Hong Kong. He was Portugese, though. And he had a lip piercing.

Took in The Producers to wind up the day. It was all right. I felt sort of like I felt at Reduced Shakespeare: lots of cheap jokes. I was annoyed. The singing was great, the music was fine. It was overall an OK show, I guess. But not up to my standards, sadly. I’m not sure what I’ll catch the matinee of today, but I’ll let you know tomorrow.

After that tonight I’m heading to Exeter. Must go now, my time’s expired.

In the morning, got up rather late. Missed breakfast. :-( But it’s because of that that I got the chance to meet one of my roommates, and Aussie named Martin. Great guy, very friendly, very liberal. :-) We had a good 45 minute, wide-ranging discussion about politics and culture.

After that, I tracked down Mr. John Makey. We then had lunch (fish and chips! How I do love tartar sauce...) and he recommended a couple theatre productions to me. It was good to spend time with him again. We even discussed my OED book, briefly. Apparently Mr. Winchester has written other books related to the topic, and John had read one of them. Very little (American) politics in this discussion, but he did let me in on the whole fox hunting debate. Not that I had strong leanings one way or the other, but I think he succeeded in changing my half-made mind. (He’s against the ban, by the way.)

Then I headed over to the Tate Britain. I really enjoyed myself there; I hadn’t been to it before today. I don’t much like Turner, but I did find a few pieces by him today that were stunning. And there was plenty else, besides. It was an great mixture of the old with the new. I tend to like my paintings in the 1650-1900 time frame, and that was very well represented.

After the Tate, I took the Tube up to check out something that had been advertized in Time Out as a free photo exhibit. Turns out, it was a gallery with works by this guy for sale. And it was very small. And there was just one man in there, the man who would be selling these prints to me, presumably. I decided not to check that out. I had lunch instead, a passable tuna fish sandwich. Then I went to an internet cafe and found out where Abbey Road was. (Just one stop north on the Jubilee line, as it turned out.)

Met a quarto of South Korean girls there, who had me take their picture. That done, they took mine. And then they asked a passer-by, who took a photo of all five of us. One of them said she liked my smile. But then, I have that effect on women. :-P

That done, I went one further stop on the Jubilee line to Swiss Cottage, where the Hampstead theatre is. Bought my ticket to one of the shows John had recommended to me, What the Butler Saw. Walked around for a bit afterwards, found a Hungarian pastry shop that sold me a fantastic chocolate bearclaw-like thing. Then I went back to the theatre, hung out, and watched the performance. It was really, really good. Very funny, in an excoriating way, and there were extended scenes with a blue-and-black-briefs-clad 20-something who played the bellhop. Geoff something-or-other. Would you believe it, he even managed to be undressed through all the bowing at the end?

But I’ve gotten distracted. YES, the play was great. It was about a psychiatrist who tries to seduce a young woman who has come to apply for a job. She is very naïve, and he is about to get it on with her when his wife comes in. Of course, he lies about it. And then he has to keep lying as a series of other characters come in to complicate the story. It was outrageous, unbelievable, cynical, and just generally great. Quite well-acted, too. Bravo!

To bed with me, now. I’ve got to be up early tomorrow to see some of the shorts at the shorts festival. (And yes, that’s film shorts, you sick bastard.)