A vacation, a celebration, old friends, in San Jose

2012, January 5. 6:15 AM Hotel in San Jose

Got here by bus at 6PM last night. a friend picked me up at the new bus station for the buses from Quepos. I have no idea where it is. We wound around downtown, streets full of traffic, stop and go, dusk, taillights, walkers hurrying home from work, buses, taxis and impatient commuters, I guess. They are the only ones who honk or cut you off. The buses and taxis seem to have a system of taking turns and letting a guy have a chance that makes a lot of sense to me.

I was nervous about arriving late because my friend has to get up at 4AM tomorrow to make another trip to Quepos and we were going to go out to eat first. And he needs his 7 hours per night to drive safely. His mama called his cellular while we were walking back to my hotel to ask where he was and worry aloud that he needed to get to bed. It was 7:30PM. Tica mamas are a whole different class of mama. Or maybe not.

We had black bean soup with eggs and tortillas and diet Pepsi. Ambient music very very loud and a TV showing a novella provides visuals. A sign above our table said, in Spanish:

“Aqui no se permiten encenas amarosas.” Or something like that, which means “we do not permit love scenes here.” Which was ironic because of the scenes in the TV novella. Totally love scenes. However I have seen some very erotic foreplay go on in restaurants here, so I guess it isn't really ironic. Go ask Bobby about irony. Very good bean soup here, but nothing is spicy enough.

There is a cold front coming down from Mexico and overnight cold is expected. Floods are expected on the Caribbean coast with 5 meter waves—that more than 5 yards. In the night I could hear the wind blowing, tin roofs rattling, objects skittering along the streets, howls of air in the vacant places and a sort of skritchy sound like shovels scraping sidewalks.

I dreamed Leo was going to change his life, go away and be poor, Barb was scraping for a living and someone looked me in the face and I couldn't recognize her and I guessed and guessed and finally said “you are me.”  It was me, not quite the me I see, but a me that I recognized as me.

In waking life, David has asked me several times how I know it is me dreaming the dream in the dream. I immediately thought of this, in the midst of the dream, and reminded myself to tell him about this and ask if it proved it was me dreaming the dream.

In the dream, the house a mess, milk bad, cereal, when removed from my mouth examined, turned out to be a front porch mat. Because of the sounds my subconscious heard while I was asleep I woke expecting everything to be covered with snow like Indiana. The sounds outside, in my half sleep, were snow shovels and salt trucks. I awakened cold and I dreaded getting up, expecting the worst.

Finally the thought of hot coffee, promised from 6AM to 10AM, got me up at 6AM. Bravely, and not surprised I took a cold shower, washed my hair in cold water. I would have skipped the shower, but my hair had been blown with dirty air in the bus yesterday and looked horrible. I wanted to look presentable when I presented myself at immigration requesting residency. At 7AM I went downstairs. Dark. No one around. The owner of the hotel, hearing me come down the stairs, I guess, came out of his room downstairs in a red plaid robe—reminding me of Daddy—Jo Jo.

The owner of the hotel is big bellied, bearded, gruff . He said the girl should be here shortly. The owner of the hotel, as usual, has a new girl. She is supposed to be here by now. She and her daughter and her grandchild are going to move into the concierge's room downstairs next to the kitchen today. One small room.

Back in my cold room I eventually hear activity downstairs. I go down to coffee. The new girl broke the top on the cream pitcher trying to pour milk. The owner of the hotel saved the pieces to glue together.

Saw another roach last night. No big deal, but I would at least like hot water. Last time I was here the water was hot but only ran a trickle and if you turned on any cold it overwhelmed the hot, so really it wasn't better.

I still haven't looked outside. I drink coffee, eat toast, brush my teeth and don the sweater jacket that Manuel insisted upon loaning me last night.

I walk out the front door and am amazed to find balmy weather. Not hot, rather like we met in Orlando when we went to Disney that year. Everyone else is shivering and saying how cold it is. It is windy, but not cold, by any stretch.

I am supposed to be at ARCR by 8:30AM and am running late. I am so relieved about the lack of snow that I decide to take a taxi as a reward for my unnecessary fear and worry.

Error error error.

I tell the taxi driver what ARCR is behind, what is in front of it, which direction it is from Paseo Colon. Still we circle and search, finally stumbling across it. As it turns out I am still there by 8AM., and after seeing the traffic on the streets at this time of day I am relieved I didn't walk. I'd hate to get run down on my way to a new cedula. So I wait. I am so happy to be there and on time washed and ready that I don't even mind that I didn't bring a book.
 http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS74uAzqcnXvcAi7aOM3gLPxCjWOc71ImcFkzyLzgi7qYRfalCt

While I was out the hot water in the hotel mysteriously returned, so I decide to take a shower at 11AM. In the middle of the shower the bathroom light goes out, then the hot water disappears. I finish quickly but at least my hair is clean. Later I discover that the overhead lights are out in the room also.

It develops, after much discussion, that there are lights out all over the hotel. Two cleaning ladies, two receptionists, the daughter who is moving into the concierge's room, her novio and the owner of the hotel wander around trying things and discussing the situation. After an hour or so the everything comes back on. One girl tells me they wiggled some wires. The owner of the hotel has a more convoluted story. This story involves how much he spent to have the hotel rewired, how unreliable the locals are, where the electrical engineer was from and other fascinating details. He is carrying around two electrical breakers, saying they were put in wrong. He has a million stories about how much he has spent on this hotel.

Coulda fooled me. But I like it here. It is right in the center of town, convenient to everything, and has the atmosphere of a Moroccan hotel from Casa Blanca. At least that's what I like to think, never having seen Morocco.

The owner of the hotel is from Kenya originally and is an artist. Several of his paintings hang in the hotel. He says he needs to start painting again, that in the past he sold his paintings for big bucks.

I suspect he is on the lam. I sat and talked with him for a while and it turns out all these girls are bed buddies while they're here. I don't know about the gay guy who was working here when I was here last. He was sick then, sore throat that wouldn't go away. Now The owner of the hotel says he is sicker and has returned to his family somewhere to be sick or die. I don't know if he was with the owner of the hotel too, but I suspect so.

My good friend and former teacher is coming for the night, should arrive after 5PM and we will go out and eat then sit in the room and smoke and drink and tell stories and laugh.

I hope he brings some good pot .Last time he had some organic stuff a friend grows and it was powerful, he said. It felt the same as all the rest to me. Nothing to write home about.

At our dinner in the Hotel Costa Rica, celebrating my new residency, I had a steak. It was cooked as I asked and was good, but after the first bite I remembered that I don't really like beef that much. I realized how much previous conditioning can affect how we think. In the US, steak is the celebratory meal and I unconsciously went with it. Big occasion, celebrate, order steak.

We had a pleasant meal though. Live piano music in the background, Spanish songs that my friend recognized. This elegant hotel is where the rich and elite in Costa Rica stay. It the oldest and most famous here in San Jose and is in the directory of historical places, therefore protected and, I suspect, subsidized by the government. I looked into staying here one time: it seems to be the only place here with a bathtub, which I was longing for at the time. Although not big ticket by US standards, it was way too much to pay for a hot bath, so I passed.

http://www.grandhotelcostarica.com/rooms-and-suites.php#presidential

The meal cost about $80.00. Not my everyday style, but fun for a change. Ambiance and all that jazz.

Back at my hotel we did, indeed, sit up till all hours laughing and talking. A great celebration for a long awaited occasion. My residency in Costa Rica.

We each slept in our separate beds, in our clothes, under piles of blankets. There might not be snow, but it is cold as hell here at night right now and hardly anyone has supplementary heat in this country. After all, it is the tropics.

My friend headed home to Heredia on the bus and I read until another friend called to say he was here to pick me up.

The plan was to shop for a printer at the Office Depot in Escazu (the ritzy part of San Jose) and drive to Quepos with it.

I had chosen a Canon lazer printer after much discussion with the salesman, who recommended this particular printer. This discussion went on for maybe ½ hour. My friend watched silently. At the conclusion, he pointed to a Samsung printer, with all the same features, that cost half as much as the Canon the salesman had recommended. We examined it. The salesman wasn't thrilled about this. In the end I bought the cheaper Samsung and saved close to $200.00, thanks to my friend. He tells me I need to be careful. People are always telling me that. Do I appear naive?

Back to Quepos. Here it is hot, the climate that I enjoy most. At home, glad to be here, glad to be alone. Tomorrow is another day in Paradise and now I am a tica/gringa. Nice. Tomorrow I plan to walk to the beach for the day.