Costa Rica - Day 2

Ahh.. There's nothing like something going on to make me want to blog...

Today started as a typical business trip day would begin. I woke up and didn't want to. I got ready for the day and met the other guys down in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I had eggs, cheese, and some cold-cuts. Nothing terribly exiting going on with that.
We drove to Palmares, a small (emphasis on small) town about an hour west of San Jose. This was really my first opportunity to see Costa Rica, and I was amazed. Everything is green and bursting with vegitation. It was gorgeous passing through the steep valleys and cliffs on the drive to the town. On the drive there, we passed the Costa Rica Temple. It is a very beautiful structure. One of my favorites. The white of the exterior was exceedingly white. The contrast of white and green was very pretty.
One of the first things I noticed about Costa Rica is that ALL of the houses have fences around them. They have very small yards with 6-8 foot vertical metal post fences. Every single house. With out fail. It was bizarre to see. Later in the day, I asked one of the guys from the company I was visiting why they had fences. He said that they were for security, but they ususally didn't deter thieves from striking. He spent 6 years in New Jersey and mentioned to me that when he first got to the US, his first thought was why DIDN'T the houses in the US have fences?
After we arrived in Palmares, we looked up the "address" of the business. Instead of addresses, Costa Ricans generally rely on vague directions. The directions we were given was something like, "drive to the corner of x road and the Catholic Church. A few blocks after the church, turn east. We're on the left side of the road." It took us a few minutes to get lost and we made a phone call and were walked through how to get there. The funny thing is that when we were "lost," we turned around on the road exactly in front of the house where the business is located. We just weren't aware that we were looking for a house.
When we got to the gated house, they let us in and we went inside to start talking. That house is AMAZING! It's not amazingly huge or anything, but it was very nice. Custom tile floors throughout the entire house, including the stairs and a 150 square foot covered patio outside. I would love to live in that house. Simply beautiful. The back yard was quite large and had a garden. You can see the mountains just over the thick jungle that marks the end of their backyard. Banana and other fruit trees could be found everywhere.
We sat down and talked for a little bit in an office they had set up. After a few minutes, 3 of us migrated to another room to begin the training. We sat at the kitchen table and got everything set up. It was quite distracting to be looking out the window at the rain forest.
After getting everything set up I sat down at the table and ripped a 6 inch hole into the crotch of my pants. I tried to play it cool like nothing happened, and the other guys never said anything, but I honestly don't know how they couldn't have heard it. For the rest of the day I was either sitting at a table, walking with my theighs held together, or sitting with my necktie between my legs. How embarrasing.
Training went well. We got heavy into the training, and the guys (even with English as their second language) are doing very well. At about 12:30 we decided to break for lunch.
We went to a nearby open-air restaurant. We sat under a covered patio. It was awesome. The menu was in Spanish with "literal" english translations, so not everything made sense. Everyone suggested that I try the Cerviches for lunch. Everyone ordered it, so I thought I'd give it a try. Cerviches is raw fish and shrimp that is marinated in lime juice for a day which "cooks" the fish. I guess it's the acidity, but it didn't seem raw to me at all. You top it with lime Mayo and tobasco. It was very good!
Again, everyone ordered in Spanish (sans me) and the menu was vague in English. When the waiter asked if I wanted a half or whole side of the Cerviches, I ordered a whole side. 10 minutes later, the waiter brought out the food. Everyone had ordered it, but I was the only one that ordered a large side (embarrasing!). The dish wasn't very big, so I didn't feel that bad. Nearing the end of us eating our Cerviches, I was starting to feel full, so even though it was a relatively small dish, I thought I would be satisfied. I was confused as to how everyone else at the table would be filled up on such a small portion, and thought that perhaps that's why central americans are more healthy and less obese. Then the waiter came back out and people started ordering what I thought were another round of drinks. A couple guys were drinking cervesa, while I had a Coke light. Then I heard someone say "pollo" which is chicken. I was pretty sure that there weren't any chicken drinks or desserts, so I looked over to Steve, one of the English speakers that I work with and asked them what was going on. He said that everyone was ordering lunch. With a puzzled look on my face, I said "you mean that wasn't it?" referring to the Cerviches. Everyone at the table had a good laugh at my expense. The cerviches is an appitizer, and I had no idea. I was wondering why everyone ordered the half side of cerviches.
Anyway, I ordered a beef and cheese meal with refried beans. It was REALLY good. There was about 75% cheese and 25% meat. And the cheese was fried in a pan, so it carmelized and was chewy. Yum!
While we were waiting for our food to be delivered, it started raining. Winter in Costa Rica is when the rainy season is. Like clockwork, 1 PM to 6 PM it rains. We had an AWESOME thunderstorm that passed right over us. Lightning struck a tree about 50 meters away from us. it was LOUD! I love the rain though, so it was relaxing to be sitting there enjoying food and listening to the rain.
After lunch, we sat at the table for another hour and talked. About 1% of ther conversation was in English. I'm proud of myself'; of the entire conversation, I understood about 1.5%!
We went back to the house and continued training until about 5 PM. There were several short power outages in the afternoon due to the thunderstorm(s) that was(were) passing over. The power went out at one point for about 30 minutes. We were able to do some, but the darkness and lack of the ability to show them our system made things difficult.
We finally hit the road at about 5:30 and made it back to the Hotel around 6:30. Fernando was leaving to meet up with some friends and family, which left me and Steve to go to Dinner. Let me start by saying that Steve is awesome. He understands that I don't know spanish, and things like that make it uncomfortable and difficult, so he's done a great job making me feel welcome and everything. We went to dinner at a place that exclusively serves chicken dishes. I was peer pressured (I SWEAR that he had to physically twist my arm until it nearly broke under the pressure and I was crying out in pain ;) ) into breaking my diet to try a couple things local to Costa Rica. The first is a flavored, whipped milk drink. It's similar to a shake. I had a pineapple one. I also had to try the fried plantanes and fresh guacamole. That was very yummy. The entire menu was in Spanish with no English translation. Steve had to tell me what everything was. Because there wasn't much on the menu that didn't have rice, beans, tortillas, etc. on it, I decided to get some chicken crepes. They were decent. The crepe portion was the best part. Steve again peer pressured me into splitting a tres leches for dessert. Oh my goodness. AMAZING!
When we left the restaurant, there was a guy wearing a reflective vest that was walking around the parking lot. Steve told me that he just stands in parking lots to "keep an eye" on your car while you're eating (even though the restaurant was another open-air kind and we could see our car from our table.). The guy doesn't even work at the restaurant. He just stands out there on his own accord and gets tips for watching the cars. We tipped him for watching our car so closely. I just found that it was strange that people do that. Very different from the US. I love experiencing local culture!
After dinner I came back to the hotel. I'm going to try and get my PC DVD player working so I can watch The Incredible Hulk before bed.
Buenos Noches beeyawtches.