Un finde en Cartago y San José / Weekend in Cartago and San José

This past weekend my friends Paulina, Amanda, Andrew and I took off and went to San José for a long weekend.  We had Monday off in celebration of Juan Santamaría Day and Día de la Batalla de Rivas.

We arrived in San José on Saturday morning after taking the 630 bus and walked to our hostel.  Saturday evening Andrew and I went downtown, explored the central market and searched for recuerdos, while the girls went to an Anime convention on the other side of the city.

During the night Andrew and Paulina met a guy named Jason who was also in town for the weekend, because he´s working in Puntarenas.  We invited him along to join us at a football match in Cartago.  We wondered around the city looking for a bus that would take us to Cartago.  After listening to four or five different directions, we finally found the bus station.  We got to Cartago and went to the stadium for the game.

The game was the first of a two-leg series for the national quarterfinals.  Cartago SC went head-to-head against San Carlos, who I had seen get eliminated last season in the semi-finals.  I decided I´d root for Cartago because they were the home team, the underdogs and I didn´t like how San Carlos plays not to loose, rather than to win.  I was surprised to hear the old men near us voice the same complaints about San Carlos.   

40 minutes into the game it was still scoreless.  San Carlos took control of the ball and made one of their handful of attacks in the half.  The Cartaginés goalie slide for the ball and was able to push it away from the attacker and out-of-bounds.  The referee made a horrible call and decided it was a penalty.  (If the goalie hadn´t touched the ball, yes it´d be a penalty, but the ball clearly changed direction, so it had to have been touched).  San Carlos made the most of the opportunity and took a 0-1 lead.  They held their lead until about the 80th minute.   With under 10 minutes to play Cartaginés made yet another attack, as they had been attacking most of the game.  The referee made another boneheaded call, but this time it gave Cartaginés an undeserved penalty kick.  They also scored to tie it at 1-1.  Next weekend the two teams will play in the Ciudad Quesada (Cheesed City) where San Carlos is from.  If they draw again or San Carlos wins, they will win the series and move on to the semi-finals.  Should Cartago win, they will move on to the semi-finals.

After the game, I played tour guide for the others as none of them had been to Cartago.  I showed them the inaccurately named "ruins," the basilica and the Negrita.   For more information on Cartago, you can read my entry http://redfishbobfish.blogspot.com/2011/02/cartago.html  from earlier in the year

That evening, back in San José we all went to check out the new National Stadium.  We were able to walk around the premise, and it appears to be a very fancy stadium.  It was built by the Chinese (PRC) government and opened a few weeks ago.  The hopes are that Costa Rica will now be able to host larger sporting events.  They will start with the 2015 Under-17 Womens´ World Cup of Soccer. Shakira was performing that night, so we were not able to enter and walk around the stadium as you usually can.  We grabbed dinner and called it a night as we all got ready to return to Monteverde Monday morning.

Oh yeah, we also played a lot of monkey in the middle in the reception of the hostel!  It´s always fun to get teachers to act like children.

Amber´s Visit Part I of II

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have my friend Amber come pay me a visit from New York.  It was so nice to have someone from "back home" come visit.  Amber is one of my friends I still visit with every time I go back to New York, but it has still been about three months.

Her visit started off in a very chaotic and stressful way.  Amber took a private shuttle from San José to Monteverde that was supposed to get in around 6pm (about 10 minutes after sun set).  Instead, I think she said the shuttle got in at about 8pm.  My friends and I were planning a BBQ for that evening, but I told them all to go ahead and that Amber and I would catch up later.  I figured she´d get in, we´d get a cab and drive out to my co-worker´s house, because Amber wouldn´t want to walk an hour in the dark through the woods right when she got here.  So I waited around my house by myself.  Around 8 o´clock I started to get really nervous.  She only knew that I lived "50 meters in front of the Hotel Sapo Dorado on the other side of the street in the house in the shape of an A" (The translated version of my official address) and my phone number.  Unfortunately, that morning, our phone broke, so I figured she was trying to call us, but we´d never know.  So at about 8pm I went to our landlords house to borrow his phone.  We called the Hotel Sapo Dorado (again, right across the street and up, supposedly 50m).  They said that no one by her name had arrived, and that if she did, they´d send her to our house.  So, I went home and started to stress some more.  My landlord and I called the shuttle company, but no one answered.  Finally, I sat down and started to watch Law and Order SVU.  I figured whatever happened to Amber couldn´t be as bad as what happened to the victims on the show.

Around 11pm, my roommates came home and were worried that Amber was not yet here.  So at about 12-midnight my time, 2am Eastern Time, I called her parents house, to see if she in fact got on her plane earlier in the day.  I turned on skype and went to the restaurant across the street that has wireless.  I figured I´d have a great connection at that hour.  Well, I talked to her dad and I said "Hi Stan, it´s Bob Bartlett," and the internet cut out.  I tried calling a few times after that without any luck.  So I went to bed, far later than I ever had before in Costa Rica.

As usual I woke up at about 5am.  I went next door to use the internet, and there was a message from Amber saying that she had arrived and tried to find my house, but eventually gave up and stayed at the Hotel Sapo Dorado.  So I went around 6am and found her as she was about to get breakfast.  She was safe and in one piece, but we were both very relieved and tired.