an easy reader a day keeps illiteracy away

today while routing in some books, i became re-energized in my plan to read one spanish easy reader a day. certainly, if i read a book a day in spanish it will help me to understand spanish better. no? but instead of an easy reader i couldn't help but read "if you give a pig a pancake" in spanish. what will happen if le das una panqueque a una cerdita? yo no se!

why must i improve my spanish, you ask? where might i be off to next, you ponder? well, my dear beloved poor forsaken blog readers i cannot tell you that just yet. but i will say this: when bolshevics wine and dine you on your one year anniversary, asking you in all earnestness if you will please do them the honor of running away with them ... the answer is always yes. si? si!

of course, i shall miss mi amor el bolshevik as he has just informed me that he will be going to panama for the holidays. ay dios mio!

i'm leaving on a jet plane

it's been so long since i've complained about my general maladies. hasn't it? i know you all are dying to hear about some maladies. well here goes ...

first off, with the rigorous summer reading schedule i really wore myself out. all those programs, and then us being down a manager ... it was tough. and for the past two months i've been getting sick fortnightly (i love the word "fortnight") ... so at first i tried to rest in my down time and take it easy. this of course was very boring and i missed out on lots of fun summer activities. and wouldn't you know it? it didn't even work anyway. and it was so boring.

so last weekend i decided i would ride in the nyc 20th century bike tour, even though i was recovering from illness. of course, i decided that since i was not in tip top shape the best thing for me to do would be to sleep late. so my friends began the ride at 7 am up in central park at 110th street, while i slept all cozy cuddly with the bolshevik. then at around 9:30 i got a phone call from miss fifi who had made it to prospect park already, and was politely asking me where the hell i was. oh miss fifi! so i finally emerged from bed, bid the bolshevik adieu, and got on my bike. by the time i got to propect park the riders were long gone, but then i booked it to coney island in record time and was able to reunite with miss fifi at marine park! i am SO good. and then we had a lovely time riding off into the sunset together. all in all, i rode 40 miles of the 55 mile ride (fifi rode even longer since she had riden about 10 miles just to get to the start line!)

but then dear blog readers, as i was tasting the sweet taste of success, i began to feel this strange pain in my knee. oh the pain! i've never been injured before due to sporty sporty-ness. ouch. even my free finish-line massage didn't help. so i've kinda been hobbling around ever since, applying the tiger balm and keeping it elevated and all that.

so then this week, my stupid sore throat came back AND i was hobbling around and it was all very sad. but the show must go on!

so yesterday we did something quite fab, despite my maladies ... at boy's club i decided to have a paper plane competition. i printed up a bunch of different paper plane templates from the internets, and set them up at various parts of the room. i gave the boys about 30 minutes to make as many planes as they wanted, telling them they would be judged on flight distance as well as plane style. so they had a fine time making the planes and coloring them with markers yada yada yada. i noticed a lot of them had some trouble following the basic directions, the trouble being that they refused to read them. so i think we will do more things where they have to read and follow directions. then we had the flight competitions where they threw their planes onto the "runway" and i placed little masking tape pieces where each plane landed. it was very exctiting and our top winners all received prizes. afterwards one of the boys came up to me and said he had so much fun and he didn't even mind that he didn't win a prize. ah, super sweet.

oh, and on the subject of planes i will be going on a TWO WEEK vacation very soon to argentina, accompanied by my beloved bolshevik. ay ay ay!

fall is here ... thank god

that's right ... today is the first day of school. yay! the children are no longer here 8 hours a day. yay! oh sweet relief. guess what? it's quiet in here! like a library or something.

let's see my poor forsaken blog readers ... what has been going on?

i went to honduras to visit my beloved bolshevik for a few days. that was lovely. i will not summarize it for you, but i will instead quote the bolshevik .... "that image of the man at pico bonito hotel, walking up to us as we arrived and offering us rum drinks in coconuts ... that will stay with me until the day i die." indeed, bolshevik. indeed.

also, the manager of happy new shiny library has sadly retired. we all loved her so. and now we are awaiting the arrival of a new manager. this is a little frightening since we do not know who said manager will be. shhhhhh. it's a surprise! i typically love surprises. but not this one.

anyhoo, now that it is fall we get to go back to our regularly scheduled programs, which means anywhere between 1 to 3 programs a day instead of the intense summer schedule of 3 to 5 programs a day. phew!

our highlight this month is the girls club & boys club. do not let the name fool you. it is not "boys and girls club." the boys and the girls will not be mingling. instead we do girly activities with the girls and boy stuff with the boys. we are imposing strict gender roles! but it's so fun. the kids really get into excluding each other. is that wrong?

anyway, yesterday at girls club we made these fab bracelets out of toilet paper tubes. we had some fun fabrics that we got from Materials from the Arts and we used them to cover the toilet paper tubes (you can see how this was accomplished with the bracelet on the right). then we glued on all sorts of bling. oh how i love bling! we used glitter foam shapes, beads, rhinestones, feathers, sequins ... anything that could be glued down. i must say that i had insisted on purchasing a bunch of glue guns with our grant money, and it was one of my most useful acquisitions.

and that's the story for now.

que pasa

oh dear blog readers, i am lucky if there are any of you left out there. it is quite the shame how i have forsaken you. so what's been going on?

we've had a crazy busy summer here at happy shiny new library. there are no less than a gajillion children here and it is quite overwhelming. we have weekly theme parties where we typically have attendance of about 100. i am quite looking forward to our "rock star" party next week where we will play playstation karaoke. yay! we've made some awesome crafts, had a videogame day, had an author visit. good stuff.

you may or may not know that the bolshevik has absconded to honduras as bolsheviks often do. he is studying the spanish and i am quite jealous because
1. i would like to live in honduras for a month and have hondurans do my laundry.
2. i really need to improve my spanish speaking abilities so that i can better communicate with the patrons of happy new shiny library.

so today i am cataloging some of the spanish easy reader books. for those of you who are unfamiliar, easy readers are books meant for K-2nd grade kids and typically only have a few easy words per page, often accompanied by big pictures. so now i am reading the spanish easy readers in hopes to improve my spanish. i have learned about the life cycle of a bear, or an oso as it is called en espanol. i have learned how to get ready for school. soy listo para ir a la escuela! but my favorite is this book about telling the truth (shown above). now i wish i could get a picture of this first page ... there are about 5 kids, all on scooters, and they have their arms crossed and are making very angry faces. they're like a little gang out 7 year olds. very intimidating. and in big block letters next to them it says DECIMOS LA VERDAD! that's right. this gang only tells the truth and all you liars out there better watch our of you will feel their scooter wrath.

and that's my day here at la biblioteca.

belize adventures days 4 and 5 summary

how late is this post? SO late.

here's the gist ... day 4 was my birthday and we spent the morning at mayan ruins. nothing says "turning 31" like mayan ruins. we wound up buying a full day tour so after the ruins we return to the hotel for lunch and then our driver returns to take us cave tubing. i use the term driver loosely. don't be too impressed. it was just some dude in a beat-up van.

we are taken to these caves that have rivers running through them and we sit in tubes while we leisurely bob along inside a huge cave. it was pretty cool. and we had little headlights like miners.

then on the way back we have our THIRD transportational break down. our little van just up and died on the highway. so then it's me and the bolshevik and our driver standing around on the side of the road. we're at least 45 minutes from the hotel so there's no hope of being rescued quickly. so we're making small talk with our driver and then i see a little shack down the road that seems to be selling refreshments. so i get some chips and sodas (and a water for our driver) and the bolshevik takes some pictures and in the end we're having a fine time on the side of the road.

then our driver flags down a pick-up truck coming from the opposite direction of our hotel and tells us to get in. he says he'll wait for a tow. so we get in this pickup truck and there's an older man driving, then his wife in the passenger seat holding a baby, then an even older woman who didn't talk much, and two more kids (about 7 years old or so) in the back. so we squeeze in and all the kids are piled up on top of various adults, and they're showing us their various toys and balloons. turns out they're coming from a carnival. needless to say, this was a bit awkward. the bolshevik and i exchange glances trying to say "who the hell are these people?"

we make small talk telling the gentleman about what sights we've seen and how much we like belize, etc etc. about 20 minutes into the conversation i ask them if they live in san ignacio, which is the town we were staying in. "we live in the hotel!" the man says, "it's my hotel!" if you didn't pick up on this plot twist, we had been picked up by the owners of the hotel while they were having a day with their grandkids. so then we tell them how nice the hotel is and what a lovely time we're having despite our ride breaking down. we ask them for a restaurant recommendation, and the bolshevik adds "it's miss dewey decimal's birthday. we wanted to go somewhere nice." and then there were many ooohs and ahhs about it being my birthday and they asked if we wanted to stop for ice cream. as much as the bolshevik and i love ice cream we kind of wanted to get back at this point. so they gave us several names of places, even offering to call several establishments for us to make sure they were open that evening. they were super nice.

so we get back and have a little lie down in the hammock and take showers and all that. then we go to the lobby and our driver is back and he offers to drive us to dinner. isn't that sweet? so we have a lovely dinner in this little local place. then we go to a nearby bar and chat with some locals. when they find out it's my birthday they make me a long island iced tea, since i had told them i'm from long island. the bolshevik has something called a "panty ripper" which is supposed to alleviate women from the burden of panties. we make a quick stop at the casino where my man wins about $15 and then we head back to the hotel for late night drunken pool antics. all in all, it was an excellent birthday.

the next day, the final day of our trip, we go to caves branch river for the "black hole drop tour." we drive into the jungle and pull up to this beautiful lodge in the middle of all sorts of lush wildllife. we are rushed onto a tour bus (we were a bit late) and are taken on a hiking trek into the jungle. we do a pretty intense hike for an hour and then we get to the top of a mountain that has a huge sinkhole in the center.

now, i knew we'd be "dropping" into a "black hole" but i really had no idea what that entailed. tuns out we are harnessed up, and we are supposed to lower ourselves off the mountain and down the 350 foot drop to the bottom of the gorge. i am a gal who likes adventure but i will not lie to you dear blog readers. i was terrified. it had been raining so the rocks were all muddy and slick. the bolshevik goes first, slipping a bit on the rocks and scaring me even more. he makes it to the bottom (or so i am told because there's no way to actually see what's going on off the side of the cliff) ... and then it is my turn.

i am strapped in and i start slowly backing up off the side of the cliff. i get to the very very edge of the ledge and then i am paralyzed with fear. my feet are slipping off the rocks and i have no where to go now. it's just open air. i look up the young belizean man who is lowering me down and i say, "no! i've changed my mind! i don't want to do this!"
"it's okay," he says. "just calm down. take a minute to relax. you can do it."
"NO! PULL ME UP! RIGHT NOW! I AM SERIOUS!"
"just stay there for a moment. you're almost there. this is the worst part. take your time."
"NO! I WILL NOT! PULL ME UP! NOW! I WON'T GO!"
and then he began to pull me up and i clung for dear life onto the mountain, scrambling back up to safety.
i might want to mention that there was another couple with us and they had to witness this fiasco. i looked at them and said, "good luck!"
the two of them went, and when the girl was halfway down she shouted up to me "it's not that bad once you get off the mountain!"
so i decide to try again, realizing that i would not be able to live with myself if i don't do this, and that i cannot make these nice men hike back down for hours when i can get to the bottom in a matter of minutes.

so i go it again ... and again i make it to the very very end of the ledge and i am paralyzed and i look up to the nice belizean man and i tell him i don't know what to do and he explains to me i just have to step off the mountain now. oh, that's it? just step off the side of a mountain. no biggie.

so i step back off of the mountain ... of course the harness grabs me and then i am sitting in the harness like it's a little hanging seat and then it really was kind of nice. so i slowly lowered myself down the mountain passing by tree tops and flowering vines and it was all quite lovely. i make it to the bottom and i am beaming with pride that i was able to face my fear and do this. i run over to the bolshevik shouting "i did it! i did it!" and he looks at me and says, "yeah ... good thing you did or you wouldn't have been representin' brooklyn." ahhh the bolshevik, always looking at the bigger picture.

we hiked for several more hours. by the end we were exhausted and covered with dirt and bug bites. it looked like we had been through a war. we got back to the hotel and rinsed off and then lounged by the pool drinking tequila sunrises.

dinner was served buffet style and everyone at the hotel ate together. we wound up sitting with a few older couples. one guy introduces himself as ian and i remember that i saw a sign that the hotel was owned by a man named ian. someone at the table asks "are you the ian anderson?" and i realize that we are dining with the hotel owner and his wife. now, suddenly the conversation goes towards jethro tull and i put two and two together that ian anderson is a member of jethro tull. how cool to be in a rock band and then build a hotel in the jungle. we chat about nyc and ian tells us how much he loves katz deli and a lovely time is had by all.

when we arrive back in nyc i tell everyone how we met ian from jethro tull. "was he the flutist?" people ask. and i tell them i have no idea. eventually, i retell this story in the presence of the bolshevik and he interrupts me. "he wasn't in jethro tull," he says, "he just had the same name as the flutist from jethro tull." so it turns out i had been spreading all sorts of lies about staying in a hotel owned by a member of jethro tull.

and that was our vacation to belize. repeat ... we did not meet any of the members of jethro tull.

the end.

finally.

what you've all been waiting for

oh yes, it is howler monkey video time.

(in the beginning of this video you can hear our knowledgeable guide, robert, "rile up" the alpha male by making monkey sounds)

belize adventures day 3: monkeying around OR don't pee on a leaf and tell me it's raining

we take our final boat ride to the mainland, which makes me very happy since the whole suffering- from-various-forms-of-motion-sickness thing is getting quite old.

it had been our intention to do to something called Taste of Belize, which was supposed to be a festival/competition celebrating the various foods of belize. however, due to the nausea issues we had been having, we thought maybe tasting a whole bunch of exotic food wasn't the best idea for the time being. so instead we picked up our rental car and headed off to the community baboon sanctuary. (we pass a library shown below. figured i'd mention it since i'm a librarian and all.)

the baboon sanctuary is actually a sanctuary for howler monkeys, which people in belize refer to as baboons. go figure. so we're walking in the woods and our guide is explaining different cures that can be found from various plants and trees in belize. apparently, belizean wildlife is extremely useful. this plant cures collick and this tree's bark cures rashes from the poisonwood tree and this ant's body can be used to sew clothes (no joke, we saw it in action and everything). then he shows us this little plant and he tells us that moms make their teenage daughters pee on the leaves of this plant and if the leaf changes color then the girl is pregnant. well i now i've heard everything. that is so much more effective than killing a rabbit.

the bolshevik and i exchange knowing glances at this point, as we had both kind of been wondering if maybe my nausea was not motion-sickness-related (spoiler alert: it was in fact motion sickness combined with dehydration and being too god damned hot). so i rip off a leaf and save it for later.

finally we see a monkey family and our guide explains that instead of fighting for territory male howler monkeys will actually just have a sort of "howl-off" and whichever monkey can howl the loudest wins, and the loser will be banished from monkey society. how progressive and non-violent! i'm waiting for the video from the bolshevik where you can hear our guide pretending to be a howler monkey and getting the actual monkey quite worked up. man he was loud. so alpha male.

we drive to our next stop, san ignacio, making a quick stop over at the belize zoo for ice cream. the bolshevik is almost scratched by a puma, but luckily very shoddy fencing protects him.

we get to our hotel and it is high on a hill overlooking the town of san ignacio. we have our own little hut with a thatched roof and a screened in porch (with hammock. oh how i heart hammocks so!).

we begin to get ready for dinner, and then i promptly take out my leaf and pee on it. i look at the leaf and wonder, how long must i hold this pee-soaked leaf? will results happen instantly? i should have asked our guide for more information. after about 30 seconds i decide the leaf looks exactly the same, except wet. so i flush it, confident that i am not knocked up.

then we have dinner and cocktails at our hotel restuarant which is beside a lovely pool. after dinner we swim in the pool and act silly. thus concludes the third day of our vacation.

belize adventures - day one: i fell in love with san pedro

did you even know i went to belize for my birthday? well, i did.

we arrive at the airport for our 6 am flight and at the check-in kiosk we are alerted that we can upgrade to first class for only $100 a person. now i love a deal, especially if it is offered to me by a computer. so i promptly upgrade us to first class, despite the bolshevik's grumblings that i am a "class traitor," as he puts it. really. am i not in a class of my own?

once through security we sit at our gate and watch the news on tv. the big story is that there was an earthquake in honduras, which is near belize. near it. sort of. and i tell you, no sooner than we watch it on the news at 5 am, i get an email from my grandmother warning me of the dangers of going to belize post-earthquake. she advises me to speak to an airport official about potential safety hazards, as if airline personnel are now seismology experts.

in first class the boshevik is completely unimpressed with large seats and omlettes. communists. go figure. i take a nice xanax induced nap.

sadly, by the time we get to belize i am feeling a bit queasy. i blame this on the second leg of our flight when we flew economy. once we are through customs i ever so daintily throw up in the ladies room. classy!

then we take a cab to the water taxi that will take us to san pedro. this is where we experience our first of many transportational breakdowns. we're on this little ferry with about 20 other people crammed in, it's 95 degrees out or something, and every five minutes the boat dies in the middle of the ocean, rocking back and forth and back and forth. needless to say i am not happy.

then we notice this odd couple: a strapping australian man in his late 30s and a more dowdy american woman in her mid to late 50s. the australian man is a self-proclaimed boating expert, and has all sorts of advice for how to get the motors to run. the bolshevik and i debate about what kind of gold digger he might be. but i digress. this stopping and starting, rocking and swaying goes on for about an hour until we finally make it to san pedro.

we walk about a block or two down the main cobblestone street and find our hotel. the bolshevik stands on the balcony looking out at the beach as i curl up in the bathroom tossing my cookies for the second time in one morning (no i am not pregnant).

after a bottle of water and a short nap i am ready to face san pedro. turns out, it's beautiful there. it's all colorful buildings and cute bars and restaurants and bikes and golf carts in the street. the whole thing is about 4 blocks long, so within a few minutes we have quickly explored the whole thing.

strolling around eating ice cream (chocolate banana, with actual banana chunks!), we discuss potential activities. oh, and did i mention that it is seriously %&@#ing hot in belize? ridiculously hot. like, constantly drenched in sweat hot.

so we pass this pavillion of sorts and there are these guys selling tours, and i stop and chat with them and i'm all "we're from new york, oh yes belize is lovely ..." and the bolshevik just keeps walking. "what's wrong with your boyfriend?" the tour guy asks me. "we won't bite."
"oh," i explain, "he's from brooklyn. he doesn't trust friendly people." and then i book us a night-time snorkeling tour.

so we take this boat with a few other people to a marine reserve. now, when i hear that we're taking a boat somewhere, i assume we are actually going to a place. but instead the boat just stops in the middle of the ocean. at night. and i turn to the bolshevik and say "don't leave me!" did anyone see the movie Open Water? terrifying. anyway, we're given little waterproof flashlights and we swim around in the middle of the ocean and we see eels and sting rays and little tropical fish. it's pretty cool. and soon it's really dark and i'm swimming around and i notice that where i'm swimming it's really really dark without my flashlight, and then all of a sudden i see a motor and i realize i'm swimming into the bottom of the boat. oops.

we make it back to shore and have dinner at a cute little restaurant on the beach. and thus ends our first day in belize.

costa rica adventures: we end with a trip in a miniscule plane

since we lost an entire day due to my passport woes, the bolshevik and i tried to think of ways to make up time. on our last day we had planned to drive our SUV back to san jose for our afternoon flight back home. after having learned how deceitful the road maps are, i use our navigation system to deduce that this will actually take about 4 hours. at best. so the bolshevik comes up with the clever idea of dropping off our rental car at nearby tamarindo beach, and taking a plane from tamarindo to san jose, which is only a 45 minute flight. he is so very clever that bolshevik.

so on our last day we wake up around 7 am and spend our last hours of vacation at the beach. the bolshevik hides in the shade of a coconut tree, while i do yoga in the sand. then i have a quick swim in the ocean, and we return to our hotel for our last casados ever. so sad.

after dropping off our trusty SUV, we are driven to the "airport" which is really just a big awning with a couple of benches and small stand selling gum and water. don't let the picture fool you, there was no indoor space at the airport. there was also no security, no x-rays, no metal detectors, no luggage carousel. nothing. so we sit on a bench and wait. there are about 6 other people sitting around waiting as well and i start to worry that this is going to be a seriously small plane we are flying in. i hate planes. especially small planes. it is aroud this time that i decide to take some xanax, and concentrate on feeling anxious.

then our plane lands, and i watch as the one aiport worker loads our luggage up. we board the plane and i believe i count 12 seats. this is definitely the smallest plane i have ever been in. not only can i see the cockpit from our seats, but there is no divider or anything between us and the pilots. i could have easily chatted with the pilots, given them some constructive criticism on flying, pointed out areas of note from the air, etc etc. you know, had i not been paralyzed with fear, i could have been quite social. other plane passengers seemed to be having a fine time, making jokes and patting each other on the back. fools. all of them.

i spend the first half of the trip clutching onto my backpack for dear life, while also digging my nails into the bolshevik's arm. he is such a good sport. after a while i calm down slightly and the bolshevik tries to distract me with more car games.

we eventually make it to san jose alive, and we have just enough time to stop by the duty free shop before boarding our plane. i pick up some chocolate covered pineapple, as i am determined to find good snack food.

the plane ride home is uneventful. and since i had just had that terrifying small plane experience, i was SO well behaved on the real plane. i should have gotten one of those pins with the plane wings on them that they give to kids. or extra pretzels.

there was no one in the third seat in our row, so the bolshevik and i are able to spread out a bit. we spend most of the trip watching flight of the conchords episodes on my laptop, while eating chocolate covered pineapple (SO good).

and thus concludes our costa rican adventures.

the end.

costa rican adventures: canopy tours, low quality snacks & leatherback turtles

we wake up at 5:30 am, thinking it is 6:30, because i forgot that the bolshevik hadn't set the clock on his cell phone to costa rica time. we don't realize this until we arrive at the main cabin for breakfast and there is no one there.

after breakfast the bolshevik tries to take some video with his fancy pants camera, but within about two minutes his camera shuts down due to overexposure to moistness. rainforests ... seriously rainy. take heed.

we arrive at selvatura park and we are quickly outfitted in harnesses and caribeeners and yellow hard hats, then herded into a bus which, after a long wait, drives us about 500 feet from where we started. then we are given an informative demonstration on how canopy-ing works. here's how it works:

you're in a harness.

they attach you to a long cable via pulleys and caribeeners.

then you zip through the rainforest on said long cable.

there was more to it than that, but i am summarizing for the sake of entertainment. so we are zipping through the rainforest on cables and it is pretty damned cool. the bolshevik suggests that i "look down," to which i reply, "hell no i won't look down!" but then on the next cable we zip through the trees and then suddenly we are over a huge valley and i look down to see all the treetops below me, and the mountains around me, and it was all very awesome. and i think to myself, i really hope i don't slow down and get stuck on this cable, leaving me hanging several hundred feet above the rainforest. that would be bad. but luckily that didn't happen.

then we did the "tarzan swing." pretty much, instead of zipping across via cable, the nice workers at selvatura attach a rope to your harness and then they lift you by the ass and toss you gently off a very high platform. then you swing like a pendulum off of a cliff. this was slightly terrifying, but once you swing back and slow down a bit it's pretty fun. they let you swing back and forth, until they eventually slow you down enough to rope you in with a device the bolshevik cleverly named "the tourist catcher." the tourist catcher is an oversized padded elastic band which they sort of lasso around you in order to get you down off the tarzan rope.

there is some debate about whether or not canopy tours are harmful to the forest. and although i'm sure the forest would be better off without canopy tours. it was really cool, and i think the damage to the trees was minimal. i mean, i didn't even slam into one tree. not even once.

i would like to add a little note here about costa rica ... when i called to reschedule our tour, there was no "oh it's non-transferrable" or "there's no rain dates" or "didn't you read the fine print" or "of course a non-expired passport is invalid." they don't have red tape. you just ask them to do something reasonable and they work with you. i heart costa rica.

so after our canopy fun we set off for playa grande. yay, warmth and beachiness! after an hour or so we finally move from "unpaved road" to an actual real road! with asphalt and everything! even though this maked the driving easier, it's not as fun or scenic. we make such good time that we decide to skip lunch and just buy costa rican snacks at the gas station instead.

now, i have noticed that when you leave the US they have much better snack food. at least in europe and australia. but i have to warn you that snack food is NOT something costa ricans are excelling at. i know, you are disillusioned by this information. shocked even. those of you contemplating travelling to costa rica, thinking that it is a magical land full of amazing processed snacks will be very disappointed. here's what we ate:

pinapple samosas - crusty samosa type snacks with pinapple filling. these were ok, but rather dry.
caramel cupcakes - little cupcakes supposedly filled with caramel. these downright sucked. it was like a little flavorless muffin with some dried up stuff in the center prentending to be caramel.

twinkie shaped pastry - turns out these are the exact same thing as the caramel cupcakes except that they're shaped like twinkies

vanilla sticks - these were long straw-like tubes that at first bite taste like vanilla flavored tree bark and have the consistency of chewing a thin layer of rubber. however, after you eat about 4 or 5 of them they are surprisingly good. addictive even. these were our favorite, by far.

photographic evidence of these snacks will later be provided by the bolshevik.

finally we arrive at hotel las tortugas. and despite the bolshevik's aversion to sunlight, he accompanies me to the beach where we frolic in the ocean until the sun sets and all the surfers have gone.
let me just take a minute to tell you about playa grande: the owners of our hotel fought to have playa grande turned into a reserve for sea turtles, so it is located smack in the middle of a pristine 3 km strip of untouched beach. after sunset you aren't allowed on the beach because they don't want people interferring with the turtles nesting season. but you are allowed to go on the beach with a guided "turtle tour," given by the Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas. so that is what we did.
our reservation is for 12:30 at night (we had to nap after dinner so that we were prepared for such late night activity, since i had accidentally started our day at 5:30 am). we walk over to the ranger station and wait with a large group of people. after a while we are ushered into a room where we watch a very poorly made power point presentation about leatherback sea turtles. but then we watch an informative video about how that park was made and it showed a little baby sea turtle trying to make it's way to the ocean after it had just hatched. it was SO cute.
after the video we are told we have to wait at the ranger station until a turtle is spotted on the beach. they warn us that this could take hours, if at all. now this is my favorite part (aside from actually seeing a sea turtle) ... they tell us we don't have to pay unless we see a turtle. so unlike those whale watching scams and other tourist rip-offs you have in the states, we only have to pay if we receive the service we signed up for. i heart costa rica: land of reasonableness.
after about 45 minutes of waiting, we are told a sea turtle has been spotted and we all caravan to the beach. we walk through the sand for a while until we approach a huge sea turtle. we circle around the sea turtle (which i'd say is about as large as a medium sized coffee table), and there are all these scientists and volunteers helping her dig her hole and holding flashlights and patting sand. it's all very exciting. and we are standing mere feet from this. mere feet! we're watching her flippers clear away sand, and then we actually watch her lay eggs! (they were larger than chicken eggs, and more round). and then we watch her cover up the eggs with sand. so cool.
my one beef with the turtle tour is that i would have liked to watch her completely cover her eggs and then return to the ocean. i overheard someone say that it actually takes over an hour for her to cover the eggs up and that she even gets twigs and stuff to hide the nest. that would have been fascinating! i want to see a giant turtle lay sticks down! how would she even grab a stick? we didn't get back to our hotel until after 3 am, so maybe they felt that another hour would be too long, but i would have liked the option of just sitting on the beach and waiting for her to return to the sea all triumphant. but it was pretty interesting nonetheless so i shouldn't complain.
and thus conludes yet another action packed day in central america.

costa rican adventures: volcanoes and karaoke

we wake up at 6:30 am to the sound of a monsoon pouring down on our cabin, the wind whipping through trees. it is truly a cloudy rainy cloud forest. at breakfast we eat casados which is our new favorite thing, and i sample some costa rican coffee. tastes like regular coffee. then we accomplish 4 things (besides eating)

1. we re-schedule our canopy tour for the following day (thereby pushing back our arrival time at the beach)
2. we get the lovely staff at the hotel to dry our clothes from the night before, since laying them out to dry overnight did absolutely nothing
3. we "rent" ponchos from the front desk, but when i ask cuanto cuestan? i am told they cost nothing. the clerk says this as though it is obvious that renting ponchos would be a free service. i heart costa rica.

4. we decide that since it is raining, we should drive around the lake to the volcano in la fortuna so that we can go in the hot springs. we have been so cold and damp, we need a little hot springs.

now, on the map the volcano looks as though it's right around the corner. in actuality it is 3.5 hours drive. damned these crazy costa rican roads. but even though the driving is difficult, it is kind of fun, so we play our car games (turns out the bolshevik knows way more political leaders than i do) and we look at the scenery and have a fine old time.

then we see this crazy creature in the road. it kind of looks like a cross between a monkey and a raccoon. it is SO cute, so we get out of the car to take pictures. suddenly there are like 15 of them surrounding us, but luckily they are friendly enough not to attack us.

we eventually make it to la fortuna and we see the volcano, but alas due to fog we are unable to see the top of the volcano. but it was pretty obvious that it was a volcano. i swear.

then we try to find eco termales, which is the name of the hot springs place we found in our trusty guidebook. our handy navigation system tells us that we have arrived at our destination but there is no entrance or sign or anything except for two large wooden doors with a little call box. now, approaching a call box and big ominous doors is intimidating enough without the added pressure of having to speak in spanish. but i muddle through my spanish and they open the doors for us.

inside it's a tropical hot spring wonderland. there are pools filled with water heated by the volcano. there's a little bar and lounge chairs and waterfalls and rock formations. it's divine. so we get ourselves some cocktails and spend several hours splashing around in the warm water while we are gently misted with rain (it never quite stops raining in the cloud forest)

on our drive home we stop at a local bar on the side of the road, in hopes of getting some casados for dinner. the bar is an open air structure with a dirt floor and an assortment of farm equipment and logs and hay for decoration. i am a little worried for our safety when we approach. we had heard a lot of stories about robberies and violence towards tourists. but when we get inside we see there are about 5 guys there (including employees) and they are singing karaoke in spanish. after we order our food, they all come up to us and ask us where we're from and if we're going to sing and do we like to dance, etc etc. so friendly. so of course i ask if they have any musica en ingles, and i am given a short and random list of american songs. i decide to sing I Will Survive. who doesn't love donna summer? i ask you. the crowd (ie the 5 people in the bar) went wild. ok, actually they just applauded with a moderate amount of enthusiasm, but whatevs. it's good to see that cultural divides can be overcome through the power of karaoke.

when we arrive back to our hotel the lights are still on, so we are able to light our one candle, and i proceed yet again to make my pathetic attempts at building a fire. and thus ends another day of fabulous costa rican adventures.

... to be continued ...

costa rica adventures: things get brighter, then seriously foggy

we wake up on friday morning in a much better frame of mind. i am still hivey, but less so. and the bolshevik and i are just thrilled that we finally made it out of the tri-state area.

we sit on this lovely patio dining area, and have what the costa ricans refer to as casados which means "typical meal." their typical meal includes rice & beans, eggs (scrambled or fried), a couple slices of cheese, a few slices of tomato, a selection of fresh fruits, coffee or tea, and fresh squeezed fruit juices (we had the option of orange juice, watermelon juice or "mixed fruits"). pretty sweet. dare i say that the boshelvik and i first bonded way back when over our mutual love of brunch (although it may still be a point of contention that he prefers pancakes to waffles). anyhoo, you can imagine that we were very pleased with this spread.

after breakfast we waited for our car and took a short stroll aroung the grounds of our hotel. even though the hotel wasn't in an area known for natural beauty (ie next to the airport), it really was very pretty. there were paths and trees and little benches and exotic flowers. very nice place to wait for your rental car people to pick you up.

by 9 or so we get in our trusty SUV (with GPS) aaaaand ... we're off!

aaaaaaand ... we're lost! turns out that costa ricans don't believe in road signs. anywhere. no road signs. why label your roads? i guess if you don't already know how to get where you're going you probably don't want it enough and therefore are not worthy of being shown the way. but after driving in circles for a little while our handy little GPS system finally kicked in and got us onto the panamerican highway. it was about this time that the bolshevik remarked that once we got on the "real highway" we would probably make excellent time. and then i informed him that this small two-lane highway was actually the biggest road in costa rica. and that is when the GPS system chimed in with it's lovely automaton faux british accent, "in .2 ... miles ... turn ... onto ... unpaved road." turns out almost every road in costa rica is named "unpaved road."

so we are having a fine time getting jostled up and down as we drive over huge potholes on our unpaved rocky muddy costa rica road. we pass beautiful sights and hop out of the car to take pictures now and again. it's kind of like driving some adventure video game, where you have to keep both hands gripped tightly to the wheel while you get bounced around. after a while we get the hang out of it, and start playing a car game that our friends the Confined Nomads taught us. so we're having a fine time, no? it's a costa rica driving adventure, right?

suddenly, with no warning from our GPS system we approach a small bridge that is very obviously "out," and i don't mean that it's gay. it has two huge piles of rubble blocking the entrance, and it is quite apparent that we are not supposed to drive on it. then off to the side is a steep gravel ramp of sorts that leads to a small river. it is at this point that the bolshevik remembers reading something about how in costa rica sometimes you have to drive through rivers. and lo and behold as we are wondering whether or not to drive through this river, a little subaru outback comes zipping past us, through the river and onto the other side of the road. so we decide to go for it, thanking our lucky stars that we upgraded from our compact car.

as we are bravely traversing a river in our SUV, we notice that those big metal things that hold up bridges (columns? i-beams?) are no longer attached to the bridge beside us. they're just hanging out in the water, leaning against some rocks, while the bridge above it is supported by nothing. glad we didn't try to cross that one.

it takes us several hours but we finally make it to santa elena. during our car trip i tried to think of some phrases i could use on a pharmacist so that he or she might take pity on me and give me some cortisone. since i have no idea how to say "hivey" in spanish, i settle on soy allergica a los todos el mundo. necessita prednisone.

anyhoo, we walk around santa elena a bit, get some helado, and that is when the bolshvik spots a pharmacy. so i go in and try to give it my best shot. there's a young woman sitting behind the counter sucking on a lollipop while reading a magazine. i quickly realize that this will be easier than i thought. i don't even give my sad sad allergic story. instead, i merely say necessita prednisone. then, get this, she stands up and grabs a box with the words "prednisone 5 mg" and says "esto?" and my dear blog readers, without a prescription and without any explanation of my medical woes, i am sold 50 mg of prednisone for the bargain price of $3. i heart costa rica.

as it is too late in the day to start any true adventures, we make a reservation for a canopy tour (more info on that later) for the following day. then we go to the ranario, frog pond, where we see all these cool tropical frogs. turns out the boslshevik loves frogs. who knew? then we get back into our SUV for the oncoming adventure of finding our hotel.

the navigation system gets us a bit turned around and we wind up leaving and returning to santa elena several times. i believe it was the third time that i helpfully pointed out, "there's the ranario again," (much in the style of clark griswald in european vacation when he keeps saying "look kids, big ben!" fyi: there is no traffic circle by big ben). and that dear blog readers is when the bolshevik and i got into our first fight. but we got over it fairly quickly.

on the drive further up the mountain to our hotel we are suddenly enshrouded in mist. turns out the monteverde cloud forest is not just a clever name. it is seriously cloudy up there. we drive down a long private road, boucing around for several miles, and when we are truly in the middle of nowhere we see a cluster of green cabins on a hillside. we assume that they are overlooking a beautiful view of mountains and valleys. but due to massive fog we can't actually see past the cabins.

so we are given our very own huge cabin (this thing could easily sleep 4-5 people), with a wood burning stove and candles for "lights out." turns out this place is run on generated electricty, and the power is shut off every night at 10 pm.

we grab a quite bite to eat in the main cabin, which kind of looks like a tropical ski lodge, and then head back down the mountain for our night time rainforest tour. when we get to our SUV, a small monsoon has begun and the fog is so thick we can barely see 5 feet in front of us. oh but my courageous bolshevik drove us down the mountain safely.

after our tour (in which we got rained on a lot and we saw a tarantula), i drive us back up the mountain through the fog and rain to our hotel. they don't call it the rain forest for nothing. and apparently it rains outside the forest as well. when we get there it is completely dark, even the little light posts on the pathways between the cabins have been turned off. since we don't have a flashlight, we wind up using our navigation system as a light source, trying to shine it on the pathway. the bolshevik and i run up and down several different pathways getting soaked in the rain trying to find our cabin.

after running up to numberous cabins, we finally correctly identify and enter our cabin. we putter around in the dark for a while, lighting candles and attempting to start a fire. why didn't i pay more attention when the men in my family were making fires all through my childhood? drenched to the bone, the bolshevik and i cuddle in front of the pathetic fire i build ... thus ending another day of costa rican adventures.

to be continued ...

costa rica adventures: day one in which shit hits the fan

ok blog readers, let's begin at the beginning. day one. our flight was scheduled to leave at 8 am, and as a punctual person i tow the line and always follow the rule regarding arriving at the airport 2 hours early for international flights. the bolshevik does not believe in this rule. he thinks it's bullshit. but as i was the one booking our cab to newark, i was the one who got to call the shots. the shots being that we arrived at the airport at 5:30 am. okay, so that's a little too early, but better early than late! anyway, my beloved bolshevik was very good humored about the whole thing and proceeded to lightheartedly poke fun at me as we waited in line to check in. of course, that was before we made it to the counter and i was told i was not allowed on the plane.

say what?!

that's right. the woman at the continental airlines counter told me i was not allowed on the plane. you are probably asking yourselves, "but why, miss dewey decimal? surely you are an upstanding citizen who should be allowed on commercial aircrafts?" well, i would tend to agree with you (except for the time i shouted out "we're all going to die" in a particularly scary bit of turbulence. but in my defense it really was some scary turbulence. and that was years ago. pre-9/11).

anyway, the reason i was not allowed on the plane is because my passport is expiring soon. now of course i checked my passport expiration date before i left, and it doesn't expire until the end of the month. so i deduced that since it wasn't expired at the time that i was leaving, nor would it be expired by the time i returned, then i was okay. but apparently, having your passport be close to expiring is just as good as having it actually be expired. this leads me to wonder what the point is of even having an expiration date at all if your passport can be considered "invalid" before it has actually expired. and according to the lovely staff at continental airlines this is information i should have looked up on my own. i should have wondered if travelling with a passport that wasn't actually expired would be a problem. oh yeah, that seems so likely.

so the arguments went something like this:
continental airlines staff: well, it is up to the traveler to make sure all their documents are valid.
me: but it is valid! it doesn't expire until the end of the month!

continental airlines staff: it is the traveler's responsibility to make sure that their documents are valid in regards to the country they are travelling to.

me: but why would i even think that my non-expired passport may be a problem?

continental airlines staff: it's the traveler's responsibility ....

and so on and so on.

so then the continental woman started printing out the bolshevik a boarding pass! like the bolshevik would just go to costa rica without me! i believe i shouted something like, "he's not going to costa rica without me!" to which the bolshevik nodded in agreement, and then she put the bolshevik on a standby flight for 5 pm that day. but she refused to put me on a stand-by flight, saying that she couldn't because my passport is "expired." then we proceeded to get into the above-mentioned argument all over again.

fast forward to 7:00 am when the bolshevik and i took a cab from newark airport to the passport agency in downtown manhattan. i got some passport pictures taken at a bodega next door (seriously, is there anything you can't get at a bodega?) then the woman at the passport agency told me that i cannot get an "emergency passport" unless i have proof of my intent to travel (and my ticket for a plane that left newark 5 minutes prior to this conversation was not proof enough). so we went through the back and forth of how i can't get on a flight roster without a passport, and i can't get a passport until i'm on a flight roster. grrrrrr.

but finally after a call to continental, i got some very helpful person to officially put me and the bolshevik on the standby flight and she promised to email me the flight info asap. back to the bodega where, for a small fee, i was able to check my email and then print out my travel itinerary. seriously, i heart bodegas.

i was told i could return at noon for my shiny new passport, so the bolshevik and i tried to kill some time in the big bad city. did i mention it was cold and rainy that day? did i mention that we were dressed like two people who were only lightly layered because they assumed they'd be on a plane to costa rica? anyway, the bolshevik and i had a very nice breakfast, then did some shopping at macys. of course everywhere we went people assumed that we were tourists, as we had our luggage in tow. "oh, are you visiting new york? where are you from?" they'd ask. "no," we'd answer sadly, "we're from brooklyn ... it's a long story."

by 1 pm i had my passport in hand, but we still had several hours to kill before our flight. running out of things to do, we decided to catch a movie. it was while we were in the movie theater that i realized my ankle was getting really hivey. now, i had been hive free for a few weeks, but i think the stress of the morning's ordeal had brought them back out again. by the time we got to the airport my whole ankle was swollen. and it was around this time that i realized i only had enough cortisone for the length of my trip. no extra cortisone for this kind of emergency. what was i thinking? i mean, growing up my mom had a whole pharmacy of prescription drugs in her purse at all times. why hadn't i been more prepared?

we made our 5 pm flight, and by the time we landed in costa rica it was about 11 pm and we were completely exhausted. i hobbled behind the bolshevik with my swollen hivey ankle, and as we made our way to the car rental counter, i cursed myself silently for having ruined our vacation. we lost a day because of me, and it looked as though i'd be all hivey and annoying. why would someone as awesome as the bolshevik want to hang around with me? obviously, i am nothing but problems.

the car rental guys explained to us that the area we were going to, santa elena, was several hours drive and that the roads there are really bad and there was a bridge out and pretty much we would be crazy to attempt going there that night. they also told us that it would be completely impossible for us to drive to santa elena in the compact car that we reserved. to sum up, if we wanted to make it to santa elena alive we'd need an SUV and we'd need to drive said SUV the following morning. so we agree that we would upgrade to an SUV, and we even decided to pay an extra $8/day for a GPS.

then (this is the awesome part) they offered to drive us to a hotel nearby and offered to pick us up after breakfast, and rent us the SUV then (thus saving us one whole day of car rental fees). how nice is that? so they drive us (for free) to a cheap but clean hotel nearby, telling us they will pick us up at 8 am (for free) after we've had our complimentary breakfast.

so we're driven down all these windy rocky streets with small one-level houses with roofs made of corrugated metal, and we approach these big doors that look like they hide the operational headquarters of a drug cartel behind them. but when they opened up and we were let inside, we saw a lovely tropical garden and a small brightly colored hotel.

once in our room i soaked my hivey ankle in cold water (just an aside: the showers in costa rica are like 4 times the size of showers in the US. several people could have soaked their hivey ankles in this shower and had plenty of room), and i decided to take my entire stash of cortisone in hopes of ridding myself of hives through a drastic pharmaceutical counter attack.

and finally, after about 19 hours of travel mishaps, we fell asleep in our first cost rican hotel room.

... to be continued ...

it's hard work being so awesome

poor bolshevik wanted to surprise me so badly, but it really is stressful planning an entire trip without any help. so last night over dinner i was handed an envelope signed and sealed (quite literally) which would reveal the destination of our secret trip. i could've held onto it and never opened it, but really who has that kind of self-control. lo and behold we are going to costa rica! yay! i want to see volcanoes and rain forests and play with monkeys and go on a zip line through the jungle and go sailing and see butterflies and eat ceviche and stay in a treehouse and smell tropical flowers and ....

what have i learned?

1. i have learned never to trust 4th grade teachers. i've been stood up twice now. TWICE! and i easily pulled a couple hundred non-fiction books which i will most likely have to put away myself *gasp* because we no longer have a page.

2. i have learned that we are not going anywhere with large touristy resorts. what constitutes a large touristy resort you ask? i'll tell you:
a. the presence of a waterslide and/or water rides
b. faux regional cuisine intended to give you the illusion you are in a foreign place
c. oversized alcoholic beverages with silly names
d. obnoxious american tourists complaining when something isn't exactly like it is "back home" (then why did you leave your precious home to go on vacation!)

3. i have learned that the capital city in our destination country has a population of less than 6 million. what does that mean? that means we are either going to costa rica, el salvador or guatamala. all places i would be thrilled to go to. yay!

i hope i didn't ruin the game

i couldn't help it ... i had to ask a more hard-hitting question, even though part of me doesn't want to know the destination of the secret trip. today i learned that the trip will not be to a country which resides in the eastern standard time zone. which means that the only canidates left are mexico, guatemala, el salvador, costa rica, argentina, and possibly the eastern half of venezuela.

places i am not going

i found out this morning that we will not be in danger of being kidnapped. so rule out colombia. which leaves:
mexico
guatemala
el salvador
costa rica
panama
venezuela
ecuador
peru
chile
argentina
and maybe bolivia, but i don't think so.

rule out paraguay

it is not mountainous. and although the bolshevik and i disagree on what is a place that will make people go "ooooh, i've always wanted to go there," i think we can safely rule out nicaragua. i'm keeping panama in the running because of their canal.

go vote!

mas preguntas

no vamos a una isla, y no vamos a espana.

the answer to question #35

we will be going somewhere that is more than a 4 hour flight. curious. very curious. i must look at a map figure out what falls outside of a 4 hour radius.