cuatro de julio :)

This weekend we stayed in San Jose and decided that it was time we roamed around and saw the city and all it has to offer!  There were so many people out and about; it was so incredible! We wandered the streets of San Jose and found an indoor main market that had the most interesting souvenirs, fruit and animal parts (yes, the weird pieces of the animal were just sitting in the glass containers).  We then wandered and found an art market, which was full of souvenirs and any Costa Rican item you could imagine! So naturally, we did a little shopping.  After we went to the art market we went to lunch at a restaurant that was right along the pedestrian walkway and watched the World Cup.  We figured it was a good day to see an afternoon movie because all the movies play in English with Spanish subtitles but the line was so incredibly long.  I have never seen a line so long to see a movie, it wrapped around the entire floor of the mall!  I’m assuming it was so busy because soon after we left it started pouring rain.

Happy 4th of July!  We attended The Fourth of July Picnic sponsored by Aerocasillas and the American colony at the Imperial Brewery.  We woke up bright and early to catch the bus to the nearby city called Alajuela, where the event was held.  We have never taken this bus before so when we got on we sat toward the front and told the bus driver where we needed to be dropped off.  The bus driver arrives close to our destination and tells us to get off here and so we get off the bus to see that we are stranded in the middle of the freeway!!!  Haha honestly all we could do was laugh and make the trek towards the nearest exit while buses and cars were zooming past us, I felt completely safe at this moment...not.  We finally arrived at the picnic!  

The picnic was for Americans and each American was allowed to bring two "Ticos"; overall there were about 5,000 people in attendance.  I had to work for the first hour in the morning at the Aerocasillas booth where we handed out free magazines and catalogs with information about our company.  People go crazy over magazines!  The difference between Americans and Ticos- Americans will take 2 or 3 magazines and Ticos will load up an entire bag full of at least 15 magazines and come back for more 10 minutes later.  Ticos also think that blonde hair and blue-eyed girls are really dumb; so of course they took advantage of the free magazines and came back multiple times or sent their children back thinking we wouldn't notice.  

After working I was then was able to spend the rest of the day celebrating!  At the picnic they had games, tons of food and drinks, live music and various performances going on throughout the day.  My boss put on a Magic Show!  Oh my, I laughed so hard because he was by far the worst magician I have ever seen; at least he was entertaining! His worst tricks were the card tricks because he got them wrong every time and in his words "the younger the crowd, the easier it is because they do not pick up on my mistakes".  I definitely had my fair share of all-American food.  After sampling everything we decided it was time to ride the mechanical bull.  I have never rode a mechanical bull before so it was definitely an experience.  Surprisingly I lasted a long time and so many people crowd around to watch the participant get flung off the mechanical bull! Today I have a few bruises from the wild ride, but it was worth it!  We listened to the concert for a while and then the picnic ended around 1 pm.

Getting back to San Jose we were dropped off downtown where we stumbled into another art market.  Of course today was "25% off for you today only! Such a deal!"  Two blonde girls are dead targets for souvenirs and we were bombarded by all of the vendors.  Apparently Costa Ricans bother the Americans with souvenirs and the Chinese with fruit and vegetables.  Wandering around the art market we found a vendor who had the "typical Costa Rican dress" and of course I insisted on trying it on.  The outfit consists of a full skirt, apron and blouse.  I tried on a few skirts but of course none of them were long enough for me.  He did find one that was long enough but it was meant for a 350-pound tica woman and he told me that I could sew it to be smaller if I wanted to.  Do I look like I know how to sew?  Absolutely not.   I felt bad because I was leading this vendor on and he assumed that I was going to buy one of the outfits, unfortunately I do not have an extra 85 dollars for a tica skirt. It was fun and we have pictures to prove it, he thought we were absolutely ridiculous!  After an eventful day we headed home to end our fabulous weekend.