Week 69: Costa Rica

I was hoping that my sister took better notes about what we did in Costa Rica, so that when I decided to write it up, it would be all blanks.  Maybe its a good thing that we didn't.  Probably means that the blog entry will be shorter.  I'm one vacation behind, so I'll write down what I remember, from the photos we took.

So we arrived in Costa Rica, San Jose Airport, which is a little ways away from our actual hotel.  We were travelling to La Fortuna, a town with a big volcano near it.  The drive was a pretty brutal 2 hours, but we had good company.  We just so happened to be on the same bus ride up as our flight crew that brought us over on the plane.  They were definitely a rowdy bunch, and were there for only a few days, so we had some fun chatting, and trying not to get too carsick.  The ride itself was bumpy, but the fog and the blind curves definitely made it scary.

We stopped at the grocery store first, and bought the necessities, junk food, chips beer and rum.  Once we got to the hotel, the room wasn't ready, so we went for a little hike, and got our bearings of where we were.

 We saw some leaf cutter ants, and it started raining, so we went back to the lobby, but the rooms still wasn't ready.  We then we to the hot springs for the one of many times to relax.  

So eventually we got a room, we changed, and then headed out again to get dinner.  The pilot folks gave us the name of a cool restaurant, we had some good food, quesadillas, amazing ceviche, and then headed out to the local shady bar.  We had just arrived, and all we saw was a bleeding guy, and all the pilot folk around.  We were five minutes late to a guy getting sucker punched.  Well, weird, didn't think too much of it.  We had some more drinks, I guess margaritas aren't common there, or the bartender didn't know how to make one.  My sister said it was gross.  She got a pina colada instead.

We saw the cute bartender get hit on sequential by all the people at the bar.  She was 25 with 3 kids or something like that.  Normal.

 Next day was white water rafting.  Breakfast was included in all meals, and it was rice and beans with all meals, fresh fruits, omelettes and something pork.  I was quite happy. I was also glad because of the special sauce that people poured on everything, "Salsa Lizano."  It was a slightly sweet, and spicy.  Strong flavor of cumin.  An did not like it one bit.  I absolutely had to have it on my rice and beans.

White water rafting was just a completely fun experience.  It was a bit of a drive still, but at this point, we all recognized to take a dramamine wherever you go, just in case.  The rapids were almost all from easy to medium, but still provided just enough challenge to make sure that you were paying attention.  The hardest part was when you're riding the front, just to make sure you have a fair pace that people behind you can follow, as well as not being frantic about falling out of the raft.  I did not do that very well.  I fell out.  The guide said that he got bored, and got me out on purpose, but I'm not so certain.  In either case it was fun, and the water wasn't too cold.  We should have gotten the photos though, a shame now that I think about it. 

Something like that.  But not that.  

We were supposed to do some rappelling down a waterfall at the halfway point, but it just so happens that the guy who got sucker punched the other day was the rappel guy, and of course he called in sick that day.  Small world!  It's ok, the pineapple was delicious.  Fresh of course.  Plus no real trash, you just threw the leftover into the woods, and mother nature would take care of it.  Probably within the same day.  It's a very fertile environment.  Lunch was served at an organic farm, cooked by the folks who ran it.  Fresh, and tasty.  No doubt about it, everything came from there, including the fish, and of course the vegetables, and even the coffee.  We then went through a tour of the farm, they went over how manure and a biodigester works, and the methane that is created from it, which powers certain things on the farm.  Pretty neat.  We also learned about how pineapples grow.  Only one per pod.  Then you dig it out, and plant another.  That's just nuts, think about that next time you eat a pineapple.  That took years to produce.  Especially if its organic.  The tour ended on a how to make moonshine out of cane sugar.  they use a manual press to get all the juices out, the women got the first pass, and the men had to press the second and third pass.  Kinda hard.  Pretty funny.  And spicy.  And barely cut.  Maybe 100 proof?  It was funny watching all the people make terrible faces.  I of course didn't :-).  

We were all exhausted for the night, we met up with our white water rafting guide from the morning for dinner, he was the trainer for the Women's Olympic team, which is pretty impressive, really nice guy.  

The next day was zip-lining Costa Rica style.  The standard friction blocks that do all the work for you weren't all there.  You had to brake yourself using a leather glove that was provided.  But it's tricky.  Too much braking too early and you're stuck in the middle of the line, and you have to crawl back to the other side by yourself.  Brake too late, and well, you'll hit a tree.  No pressure . It was fast.  Very fast.  Faster than any other zipline I did, and I was glad we did it.  

We each had our own person behind us to help us "superman."  That's not me behind my sister, I assure you.  

The zipline area was right next to a hot spring that we would visit afterwards.  Within the hot spring was a really neat flower garden, with a butterfly pavillion.  We only had a couple hours before we went on the "short tour" of the volcano.  

The short tour was a bit later in the afternoon, so we were afraid of possible rain, or something that would eat us.  Not really though, the weather held, it was cool enough that the hike was quite easy, and we got to see a few animals, and some amazing views of the volcano.  The problem that we kept on running into with the volcano was that the clouds in the sky would constantly cover the top, so you wouldn't see the steam coming out of the volcano.  We were lucky enough to see that.  Oh, and an ant eater too.  Pretty neat!

Our feet of course were sore after all the walking, and our guide wasn't allowed in the "fancy hot spring," so he showed us the hot spring river that the hotels collect from.  It was a big tunnel that you can just play around it.  Water is very fast though, so we had to be careful.  Otherwise, it was pretty neat.  

It was nice that we got to go to the actual nice hot springs to relax and heat away anything that was sore.  It was more of a pool than a spring, with a hot water source.  Also, and slide.  Very fun.  There were also hot springs if you wanted to lounge around, some cold water spots, so you could get shock your system if you were so bold.   A very busy day.  

The next day was another hiking day to "Rio Celeste," which is known for it's striking baby blue water.  Sulfur + limestone = Baby blue water.  We saw one of the oldest / largest trees, and I got to see a poison dart frog!  

 It was a 3 hour hike, and it rained a little bit, and oh boy was it muddy.  I really should have brought the right shoes, and swim trunks.  In reality I just packed very poorly for this hike.  But it was gorgeous.  You could totally smell the sulfur, but beautiful. 

On the way back, our guide knew of a not so poisonous hot spring/river spot that you could actually hang out in.  He then proceeded to give us all mud facials.  Yup.  My face did feel softer I suppose. 

So we then forgot that all the booze that we had purchase had not been drank.  Thus, the critical point of the night was to get more time in the hot tub, and to ensure that all the drinks that needed to be drunk, were drunken?  Mission complete.  We almost solved world peace too, but not quite.  

The next morning was not pretty

This was the last day of the trip, before we had to leave, and we had a trip to one of the many caves in Costa Rica for some introduction to spelunking.  It was wet, wild, slimy, and terrible if you're even remotely claustrophobic.  There were a couple of climbs and holes that I didn't think we'd be able to make, but surely enough, with a little bit of hope, some grip, and prayer, we were able to get through the whole cave.  Oh, and bats, and gross bugs.  Not for the squeamish, but awesome anyway.    

Aww crap. 

We came back, bought souvenirs, had more ceviche, my sister got a very expensive fish, and hit the hot springs one more time.  Our drive was pretty late, and we really didn't sleep during the night.  My sister got a little carsick, and I left my sunglasses in the van.  Anti-climactic for sure.  But overall, a great country, unbelievably kind people, very eco-conscious, and a great place to go see.  

Week 67: Germany and Amsterdam

Man, that was definitely a dry spell.  I wish I could say that it was due to my laziness, and lack of motivation of writing down my thoughts on a blog.  That's only half true.  I had not been able to take my leaves until this May.  And so I made it a point to make it a good one.  I think I did.  This was a 3 week run, with a week in Germany/Amsterdam, a week in Costa Rica, and a few days here and there for Houston and Denver.

Germany/Amsterdam

One of the gentlemen that I work with happens to be Welsh, but live in Germany.  Al, for this exercise.  So I'm lucky that he speaks English quite well, and knows all the cool places to hang out in Germany, and he just so happened to be there at the same time I was flying it.  Score!  Let's plan a trip.  Itinerary goes something like this:

Day 1:  Make our way to Bad Nauheim, where Inconso, the company that works for us is located, have a nice meeting and lunch, and spend the night in Al's home town of Giessen, which happens to be pretty close.

Day 2:  Spend a half day in Giessen, and head out towards Cologne, to party for the weekend.

Day 3:  Full day in Cologne, and maybe some close towns, such as Dusseldorf, and make our way towards Amsterdam.

Day 4-6 Party in Amsterdam, and make way back to Frankfurt, and fly back to Houston.

Here we go:

Day 1:  Bad Nauheim

Another guy I work with, we'll go with Omar, went with me by chance and acompanied me through Europe. It is always quite nice to go with someone, easier to take pictures, and vice versa.  We arrived in Frankfurt around 6:00 AM, and headed directly towards Bad Nauheim, or at least close enough for tourists.  There is quite an extensive train station, and we took one of the local trains out of Frankfurt to meet Al.  Omar, was actually travelling for about a month, and decided to pack a month's worth of clothing.  In a very heavy suitcase.  In a country in which elevators are available, but usually out of the way.  This led to poor Omar carrying his 50 pound suitcase all around the train station, up and down stairs.  Good exercise, for him.  I watched.  Al picked us up and drove us directly to the meeting.

He would have to carry this monster all round everywhere.  

The phrase Bad, as I'm been told is the opposite of what you would think, it's a natural spring, Google says it means bath.  Which for most people is good.  This was more of a business meeting, so I didn't get to do too much exploring, but I did get to have my Schnitzel, pork of course, with some white Asparagus.  Apparently quite famous in the area, I didn't know it existed actually.  Very tasty.  No pictures though.  Here's a similar facsimile.

No beer though, business meeting.  

The meeting was fairly productive, the highlight being the conference room, which was fully stocked with candy and drinks.  After eating about a pound of gummy bears and soda water, we left, and started heading towards Giessen.  Giessen is a pretty small college town.  It's got a small shopping street, a few night clubs, and part of the wall used back in the day to keep all the barbarians out.  Remember who the Romans were fighting in the movie Gladiator?  Yeah like that, only it's a wall instead of Russel Crowe.  Pretty neat though.  We stayed in the one place in town that makes their own beer.  The flight was amazing, and not just because their flight was (5) 8 ounce beers all starting at 8% and moving up.

If you're looking at the soda, shame on you!

The mall was quite crowded, and closed promptly at 8 pm.  Nightlife was not hanging out at the mall.  No problem though, we got to see enough of what we needed to see, it really reminded me of the 16th street mall in Denver.  Shops of all sizes, big and small, lots of food, a few hobo's, some street peddling, and some fun statues.

I'm sucking in my gut.  

We went to a nightclub somewhere in town that night.  It was high school night.  Yup.  It was like high school  dances all over again, only I was the chaperone.  I felt like telling some kids to maintain the 18" rule, but I didn't know how to say that in German.  It wasn't all high schoolers though, I got to do the cupid shuffle with some lesbians.  It was funny, it was all techno/house music when we came in.  The second Omar and I hit the floor, it turned into all rap.  How racist.

Day 2:

We went to the wall mentioned above.  Specifically, the Welterbe Limes.  It was quite nice, I realized very quickly history museums are not nearly as enthralling when you can't read the descriptions within the museum.  But we still had a good time.  There was a field trip for some students when we were there.  They had some pretty exciting exercises, bow and arrow, sword fighting, and spear throwing.  I wish we had that in middle school.  I think we went to the Art Museum instead.

After the wall, we made the drive to Cologne.  Al spent a good hour making sure the rest of our trip from Germany to Amsterdam went well, everyone spoke English, but I think he was trying to use his German charm to get us a discount.  Not sure if it worked, but it sounded good. Al and his girlfriend went to go take a nap, so Omar and I went around to scope out the Pier, and see what makes Cologne so great.

Cologne has a feel which is quite different than any other city I've been fortunate enough to visit.  It's quiet, but crowded at the same time.  A great match in my opinion.  The restaurant and bar scene is definitely alive, but the bars and the seating areas are huge.  Each restaurant could probably seat a good 100 people outside each.  Everyone who's not at a restaurant is sitting on the pier, or near the boardwalk, having a beer.  I bought a beer that everyone was drinking.  And then I remembered that this was a college town.  They were drinking the cheap beer.  And it was exactly like you'd think.  Refreshing!  After Al and company woke up, we had some Italian food, I had a couple beers, and we called it a night.

Day 3:

Time for sightseeing!  We had a full day ahead of us, time to go up the the top of the chapel, check out the gold vault, tomb of the three kings.  We started off pretty early, around 10:00 or so, had a nice breakfast (there was pork bacon, I was happy) and headed out.  We took the long way, through the shopping district, which is always nice.  You get a good feel for the city, and you get a chance to see where everyone is hanging out, and going to.

 Although we had breakfast, I couldn't help having a "berliner."  I had to see what the big deal was with JFK.  Definitely is a close second to the doughnut.  As we made our way through the town square, it was absolutely crowded.  Apparently the stag parties and bachelorette parties are a little bit different in Germany, and they were full out ready to party!  It's a pretty nice idea.  The person getting married has to sell a service, or goods in order to pay for their drinks that night.  Much more fair, than bringing in a bunch of friends who just pay for shots until someone pukes.  You work during the day to play hard at night.  You also had your stereotypical peddlers and copper wizards.

You shall not pass... without giving me a Euro...

The cathedral itself appeared huge in the background, looked even bigger up close, and was gigantic on the inside.  The ceilings just kept on going up and up.  The church was just built with no details spared, or expense left off.  It's a testament to the strength of the church during construction, especially when you see the treasure vaults.

Kinda makes you wonder a little bit about the whole feeding the poor, and living within your means that the church teaches.  But hey, it's already built, and it's a beautiful building.  Everyone that I saw in there was either awestruck, or happy.  You can't put a price on that.  Or maybe you can.

We took lunch at a nearby beerhaus, I had my share of beer and pork, and said goodbye to our gracious hosts.  They had to be back home by the night, so Omar and I were left to climb the 509 stairs to the top of the Kölner Dom ourselves.  It was tiring, it was sweaty, and very very tight.  If people were going down or up, one of you had to stop, or you would have a problem and bump into someone.  Basically people were much smaller back in the day.  Also I'm fat, and wide.

But the view was amazing.  The bells were absolutely complex, and impressive for how long they have been in service.  We didn't see them ring of course.  There were signs that I think said "For Special Visitors" that we went to.  The one person official person wasn't too particularly interested in a bunch of tourists, so we go to walk around the bell tower portion.

From the top to the bottom, I had a little cramp in my legs, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.  Poor Omar didn't know what was coming.  I think his feet were pretty sore.  One of the things that makes sense when you think about it, but you don't think is the amount of reconstruction that is required for a building of this size.







There is so much history caked on the outside of the building.  Cologne was bombed during WWII, the church was one of the few buildings left.  The only reason being that it gave Allied pilots a point of reference.  So much of the stone is very black from the smoke.  The industrial revolution also helped with the color, the soot, and eventually acid rain that keeps the church in constant repair.  You can really see the difference in some of the photos.  All in all, it is a MASSIVE church, I mean, it is the biggest Gothic church in the world.  That's got to mean something right?

So to continue our crazy busy day, we decided to make a trip to Dusseldorf after all that walking.  It was only the next town over, and I had heard rumors of it having one of the worlds longest bars.  Easy enough to persuade me!

We had decided to dress for hot weather, knowing that it would be hot climbing up the the cathedral, so Omar and I were wearing fairly light clothing, not thinking it would get too cold at night.  Wrong.  We savored as much sun as we could and got to see some very interesting buildings, and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the view.

The most standout building in Dusseldorf was the Rheinturm telecommunications tower that just looms above everything in the city.  It's a good point in case you get lost in the city.  Which we did later on.

The coolest thing I remember there was the walk around the Media Harbor.  Here, there was a giant green, where people were just sitting, watching the Rhine go by, looking at clouds, or if you walk to the end, the Neuer Zollhof unique architecture buildings.
  

The buildings were done by Frank Gehry, a well known Architect, one of his most famous buildings being the Guggenheim Museum.  I can see why he's famous.  They're pretty awesome buildings.

So we walked around the harbor, went past a very long set of bars on the boardwalk, and actually thawed out in one of these bars, as the sun started setting, and the cold weather kicked in.  But we hadn't see the world's longest bar yet!  We set off on a mission to go find it.  But Omar was hungry.  So we walked around, and actually just ran into the bars street that we were looking for.  We just followed our noses!  Omar however is a creature of habit, and his nose was able to find the one swarma place in Dusseldorf.  We had been walking all day, Omar deserved whatever he felt like eating.  I didn't want to disappoint his stomach.  We had a swarma, walked around the bars, it was exactly like being on 6th street in Austin.  A huge number of smaller bars, and an ridiculous number of people on the street.  Many in costume, and in bachelorette party attire.  There may have been bachelors too, but I was too focused on the bachelorettes.  We had a train to catch, to bring us back to the hotel in Cologne, and we definitely fell asleep the second we got back.  We had another train to catch.  To Amsterdam...

Day 4

Amsterdam is a an incredibly unique town.  The concept of a city of canals sounds simple enough to understand, and doesn't sound like a big deal until you actually go see it in person.  Building sizes are fixed, weights are fixed, and streets must be narrow.  Of course this problem is reduced the further you get away from the harbor, but we decided to stay in the middle of all the action, the old part of Amsterdam.

We stayed at the Hotel Estherea, which was basically in the middle of Amsterdam, you could go to the old area of the city within 10 minutes, and to the newer parts in 20.  The hotel itself was a cozy place, just big enough for 2 people, and not much else.  You get spoiled when you live in "big hotel" places your entire life.  Texas, of course, everything's bigger, and in the middle east, there's really no issues with big rooms, there's always more room to expand, and there's no retro-fitting.  So our room was probably the size of one of the standard bedrooms in the places we usually stay at over in Bahrain, only twice the price.  Very nice for a boutique hotel.

We arrived in the late afternoon that night, and the light was starting to fade, but we did at least familarize ourselves with the inner circle of Amsterdam.  Lots of places selling tulip bulbs, a hint of marijuana pretty much everywhere, lots of bars, and of course restaurants.

Well at least it was "pis"  I mean Mayonnaise joke right there. 

We walked around in a big circle, the town is similar to a onion split in half.  It's a large semicircle with different layers.  You can shortcut through the layers on a straight path, or in a big semi-circle.  We didn't quite get that, so we did both.  Ended up walki g a big circle, and ended up back where we were.  But it was perfectly fine, the day was great, right at 25 degrees C, the sun was shining, and Omar got to see his first swan.

We also just happened to walk into a free live concert.  Dutch Rock.  Not too bad, very catchy.  Very fun to watch, but be careful, the locals (especially the ones holding beers) will make it a point to ensure that you sing along.  But hey, how can you complain about freedom fries.  Even the Dutch don't like the French.  :-)

Poor Omar, with all the "cold" weather (i.e. the 25 mentioend above) he caught a cold, and was feeling quite exhausted after the walk.  So we went back to the hotel, and I let him take a nap for a little while.  Around 10 or 11 we had to go do something for the night, so I found a pretty cool looking bar in one of the magazine, and dragged him over there.  I had a few nice drinks, of course pink and fruity (by coincidence only) and he had some hot tea.  It was pretty dark, and it was a weekday, so it wasn't as busy as we had hoped, but it was a very nicely setup bar, plus I got a very good vintage shot of Omar.  Like a boss.

Day 5

So this was the busy day.  We had one museum to go to, but from all accounts, it was a HUGE museum. We were heading to the Rijksmuseum.

Omar got distracted by a little girl blowing bubbles.

















Before we got to the museum, the "iamsterdam" sign that many a person has been on top of, was full of people.  We had to oblige and take the photo.

heheheh, Terd...

So yeah, it's a history Museum.  I'm not a huge history buff, but I do have a very short attention span.  The collection of stuff at this museum is over one million.  Of course not all on display, but there's just so much stuff in this museum.  You name it and the century, and it's somewhere on display.  Most of the work is paintings, but there is quite a few ornamental pieces, some very famous pieces, and a lot of old guns.  We rushed through it, but still spent probably 3 hours in the museum.  We rushed through the last half hour as well.  

Gun-sword anyone?  

How about some opium instead?

No, we didn't try any of the opium

My next purchase for the house

Like a boss...morbidly obese boss

The Night Watch.  (With Creepy hand on right)

They kicked everyone out of the museum around 5:00PM, and we had the "long" walk back home.  But no reason to go straight to the hotel, it was still quite bright outside.  So we walked to the Vondelpark.  It was a huge park, lots of people, dogs, joggers, tulips, and a nice place to relax and give our feet a rest from walking.  Once again, a perfect day, couldn't ask for better weather.  We sat next to the tulips.  A guy sat down, turned on some rap music, and rolled a joint next to us.  I'm pretty sure he had glaucoma.

It was a long day, and we were tired.  We had a small dinner, and unfortunately, got ready for the next day, which was a transit day.  Omar went on his way to Prague, and I took my flight back to the US via Germany.  It was a slow last day.  I got some reading in, had a traditional sandwich,

Heineken Beer from Holland is SO much better.  

and saw a dredger pulling bikes out of the canal.

Next stop was the US for a few days, and then Costa Rica.