Life goes on

 Hey everyone.  Miss me?  Sure you do.  I have all sorts of random thoughts for you today.

What do you get when you combine beer, Worstershire  sauce, lime juice, and salt?  If that sounds like a drink for a frat party hazing, join the club.  Except here they call it a “michilada” and enjoy them.

A while back I went to a nicely developed shopping/living area that has a few restaurants.  It also has art out on a lawn, including an exotically-decorated ceramic horse – think about the thematically-painted cows in Houston or Dallas done as fund-raisers.  It was dark, and a lady was walking a bulldog.  When it came upon the dimly-lit horse it froze in a poised stance, thought for a moment, and then started aggressively barking to warn off the ceramic horse from making a wrong move.  While the barking at an inanimate object was funny enough, it was the noticeable moment of confusion for the dog that really made it hilarious for me and the couple walking the dog.  At the same time, the fact that the dog could recognize the outline as something that was supposed to be alive, but also realize that something was “off” enough to make it question whether it really was alive, is pretty amazing.

If you see any TV here, you will invariably see some ads with a black bar across the bottom essentially saying that the ad is written for a particular country, since the same networks broadcast across Central America (and I think, from the ads, the Andean region).  I’m not sure if the messages are truly meant to convey that they are only valid in a certain country, or if they are meant to get around laws (e.g. it may be illegal to make a direct comparison to competition in country X, but if I say the ad is written for country Y then I put it on the pan-national broadcast and shrug at accusations).

Did I mention that Costa Rica is beautiful?

Braces are pretty common here.  What is more surprising, perhaps, is that I normally see braces on adults, not kids – people anywhere from 25-40 or so, and I work with one guy who is >40 with braces.  It seems like it would be easier to do these earlier, of course, so I’m not sure if that is just a money issue (don’t have the money when you are 18, do have it when you are 35) or if people really think they shouldn’t get braces until then.

I mentioned previously that I went to hear some jazz music. Well, in the process I got my first big dose of “Tico time.”  The band was supposed to start at 9.  Knowing that musicians are never on time, and knowing this is Latin America, I decided to hedge and show up at 9 and expect the band to start playing at 9:30 or so.  Well, when I showed up at 9 I was the only person in the whole place.  The next person arrived at 9:30, and the band played at 10:15pm.  Lesson learned.

I have hit the beach a couple of times, and they certainly are nice beaches.  There are also certainly some posh resorts on those nice beaches.  One I drove past was called “Nativa.”  The thing that made it stand out, however, was the very pretty landscaping out front, where they had hacked down the dense growth that grew all around it, and replaced it with a nice lawn and some strategically-placed flowers. 

I also saw some cows happily grazing on a soccer field.  I guess it doesn’t get enough use to keep the grass short otherwise.