You can NEVER park here on Tuesdays

We slept in. Kind of. The maid came, so we needed to get out of the house. The original plan was to visit Cristina’s cousins, Eugenia and Irene. But Maritza needed to go to a funeral, and she had two tickets to the National Theater we could use. During the summer, the National Theater has a different arts event each Tuesday at noon.

I drove Maritza to meet Fabian and Carmen at the rotunda, near the autopista (big highway). Carmen gave me a bag of kids’ DVDs to borrow. I made a slight error in my attempt to get back home and wound up getting on the autopista by mistake. So I had to go quite a distance before I could get off. I made my way back on surface streets and eventually got back to the rotunda. A slight detour, but it was a nice warm-up for driving into downtown San Jose to get to the National Theater.

I picked up Cristina and Sofia and we headed downtown. Maritza said we could park right beside the National Theater, and luckily a space opened up just as we approached. The parking guy said it would cost 2000 colones, which seemed a little steep, but we didn’t argue.

Cristina and Sofia headed in to the theater and I walked through the plaza with the other two, who marveled at all the pigeons. Bella wanted to buy a bag of corn to feed them, but I said to wait until the girls were out of their concert, which was only 45 minutes long. It was a choir from the University of Costa Rica, by the way.

The view from their seats

We went below the plaza and picked up some maps of San Jose and the whole country. Then I got some cash from an ATM. I had brought my laptop with me in hopes of finding free wi-fi somewhere to work on my blog. We walked down the central avenue and asked at a few promising-looking cafes, but got nothing. Burger King had a playground, so I decided to let the kids play while I typed up some journals (sans internet).

Of course, we needed to buy something to be able to use the playground with a clear conscience. The kids were hungry, so I got them kids’ meals. I asked the lady for a café con leche. She said a bunch of stuff in Spanish that I didn’t catch. I asked her to repeat, and she rattled it off just as fast. I thought I heard the word manzana, which means apple. I didn’t know what that had to do with coffee, so I just nodded stupidly and said sí. I paid and then looked at my receipt. Then I got it. She had been suggestive selling, asking me if I wanted a hot apple pie to go with my coffee. Oh, well. It wasn’t a bad idea. The coffee was rather small, but I’m just used to how oversized things are in the States. This coffee was maybe 10 ounces, max.

The playground was pretty cool. Instead of the typical fast food playground (big plastic, modular climbing structure) it was one of those inflatable jumping things, like a bounce castle or whatever they’re called. And we had the whole upstairs dining/playground area to ourselves. The only drawback was the loud motor that kept the bounce thing inflated. After a while, it got kind of deafening. And it was hot. Between the heat of the afternoon and sipping my 10-ounce coffee, I got pretty sweaty.

We met the girls at 1 and checked with a police officer near the parking area if we were okay there for a little while longer. He said no, we weren’t actually supposed to park there at all. But he said if we moved right now, he wouldn’t give us a ticket. So we went to our car. As the kids got in, another cop drove up and asked for my license and passport. He seemed a little cranky. Thankfully, I had made copies of my passport. The first cop came over and said he had warned us, so luckily we didn’t get a ticket. But we did get a stern talking to. Basically, despite what the parking guy said, you can never park on the main road during the week. Maybe on the weekend, and at night, but never during the day. We got fully educated about the parking rules and the proper places to park, and then we were free to go. The parking guy wasn’t exactly up to date on the rules. We only gave him 1000 colones and he didn’t balk. He knew better. The cop was still nearby.

The road going into the city, Paseo Colon, is kind of nice. It has that cosmopolitan, European kind of feel to it. It’s the kind of road you see on travel shows when they talk about visiting the capital. Thriving, clean, old architecture dotted with modern businesses. School kids in uniform, white-collar workers going to lunch. It feels safe and alive. But Paseo Colon is a one-way street. You can’t drive that road to get out of the city. And the parallel road that takes you back out is a completely different world. Some might say that this is the true San Jose. Cramped. Dirty. Dangerous. It’s no big deal when you’re driving, but you wouldn’t want to walk it. Especially at night. Fuhgettaboutit. I remember when we first visited in 1994, Wito (in my journals he was called Papi then…before I became a papi) told us if we walked up Paseo Colon in the evening, to not walk on that other road when it got dark.

As we sat at a red light, Cristina spotted some mamonchinos for sale at a produce stand. Mamonchinos are the local nickname for the rambutan fruit. They’re reddish in color, about the size of small eggs, and covered with soft hair-like spikes. You bite off the thick skin and inside, the meat covering the seed is sweet and sour. They’re yummy. I called “Señor!” to the vendor, but he had his radio playing loudly. I called again. Nothing. I called louder, several more times. Nothing. The kids were laughing and the light turned green, so I had to move on.

A bit further down the road, we stopped at another red light. A fruit stand was on Cristina’s side, but no mamonchinos were in sight. She called to the guy and asked if he had any. He said no, but the guy in the next booth did. The light turned green, and he was scrambling to get some together for us. Horns blew. Cris handed him money. More horns as he made change. Then we were on our way. 500 colones per kilo, and we got two kilos.

On the road near the central park, a guy was juggling at the intersection. But the light turned and we weren’t able to really see him do his thing. But at another red light near the Plaza Rohrmoser, another guy started juggling right in front of our car. He timed it perfectly, finishing up just before the light turned green. We tossed a few coins into his hat as we passed him.

We stopped at Plaza Rohrmoser to eat some lunch. Cristina had heard that the food court had free wi-fi, so we thought we’d give it a try. First we checked out the pet store, where they had a kitten Bella fell in love with. At the food court, it turned out that their router had gone bad, so no wi-fi. We ate lunch at a place called Casa 2.

Just as we finished eating, Maritza and Carmen (and kids) unexpectedly arrived. So we hung out while they ate lunch too. I wrote some journals on the laptop.

At home, the kids played and the adults chatted. Later, we fed the kids rice and beans and Maritza made chile dulce relleno for the grown-ups, sweet peppers stuffed with seasoned ground beef. Delicious.

Bubbles via los manos