well, let's start with you.

more schools I attended

St. Francis College, Moravia, San Jose, Costa Rica

Pease Elementary
picture

the cathedral in the town square of san isidro. I remember going to a wedding of some friends of ours here. many long and boring days were spent waiting for a bus to take us to san jose at this very bus station in san isidro. the cinema in san isidro played mostly asian kung fu movies. this was one of the few movies i actually recall going to see with my friends. with spanish subtitles...i still love it!
carts such of these passed our house at regular intervals a very dangerous snake from costa rica, the bushmaster. one of the two seasons.
may not look like much here but i remember the easter parade being quite the spectacular event in san isidro (this is a different one in cartago). i first had arroz con leche on easter day. in costa rica the leche part is often coconut milk. this image is actually from guatemala, but i recall a shed like this behind our house where all our clothes were washed. there was a long bar of blue and white soap solely for this purpose and they were scrubbed against a metal washboard.
pulperias such as this dotted the mountain roads. imagine a costa rican 7-eleven. the family that ran the one next to us were good friends. there are two doors because the counter inside is divided. the right side is general groceries and the left side is a bar. the national pasttime of costa ricans (and the rest of the world) was/is futbol. but at the pulperia buenos aires it was foosball! my friend eric's big brother was a master foosball player. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm mangos
a road from san isidro. looks similar to san pedro where we lived. san pedro was more of a winding road though. san pedro was a mountain road with many even taller mountains all around us. Most of these were dormant volcanoes, many others were active. The best known active volcano in the area was Irazu. A map of Costa Rica shows a chain of volcanoes from the northwest coner to the southeast corner. We also had earthquake tremors sometimes for this reason. the traje tipico was something like this. can't find a better picture. :/
this gold jewellery is rather typical. my dad took me to museum filled with these green jade figures the local dairy. american co-opers will notice the two pines logo. *click it*
serious grocery shopping took place here at the market in san jose. there was a shop where my mother bought roasted coffee beans for the non stop supply of coffee my family drank. the same shop sold these roasted peanuts also. i can still remember the smell. for those other times, there is the mas y menos. i just love the name. *click it*
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at saint francis our uniforms were grey shirts with navy shorts. the girls wore skirts and had these shoes with psychedelic orange swirls on them. the uniforms had to be made by the tailor in san isidro i am not certain what this building was, but i remember eating lunch with my mother here. i think there was a library or bookstore nearby. When my grandparents came to visit, we went here, the opera house in san jose. it was quite an impressive building, even for me. honestly, where else in the western hemisphere will you see any place like this?
la refresca nacional de costa rica another cultural obsession, el tiburon. this one found by fishermen had been marked in costa rica. arroz con pollo is the most famous dish.
my dad's favourite dish... gallo pinto. the secret he says is the red paste to colour the rice. i was too young to drink any of this. i still am... :P but my dad and uncle shared many stories of costa rican guarro. this would be the national flower of costa rica, as they grew everywhere.
speaking of sugar products... sugar cane such as this grew around our house. there is nothing like pure cane sugar. on the other hand, the bats also thought so. for some reason much of costa rican tv was imported from japan. though we did not have a tv at home i saw enough espectroman to make it memorable. i can still hear him shouting si senor to some disembodied voice... think a japanese shazam in spanish... other shows i remember were ultraman, godzilla, tezuka cartoons like kimba the white lion, and mexican comedies like el chapulin colorado Chamaecrista nictitans: one of the first things we were shown upon arriving in Costa Rica was this amazing little fern. A man we befriended there by the name of Victor pointed it out. It is super sensitive to the touch and will close up its leaves and reopen only after awhile. like a vegetable version of a pill bug. It is apparently used for various folk remedies.
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yes, much the general worry of my parents we drank cans and cans of this stuff. straight out of the can. it was the fav snack drink of costa rica. are you amazed that i have any teeth left? we used to drink cherry syrup as well...