Musings from Costa Rica

After going to Zumba tonight, I am missing Costa Rica quite a bit. There's nothing quite like learning salsa, merengue and machada in the humid nights of Costa Rica. If you want to read my whole story, it's at http://jetsetannette.blogspot.com. But here are some of my travel experiences.

While there, I lived with a Costa Rican host family. This was a great experience as I got to practice speaking my Spanish in a casual setting. The family was really nice and we always had good food and good conversation. Here's (by my experience) what a typical Costa Rican meal may look like:

Breakfast:
Eggs with chopped hot dogs in them OR
Pancakes (thinner, as if they were made from waffle mix) OR
Sandwich with ham, mayo, ketchup and American cheese
And
Gallo Pinto (an amazingly good rice and beans combo they use for everything)
And
Plantains OR Pineapple OR banana OR apple

Lunch:
This is typically the biggest meal of the day. Their main dishes usually include rice and beans, plantains and some sort of meat main dish. Their food is well seasoned but never spicy.

Dinner:
Rice and beans, perhaps gallo pinto, soup, pasta (hamburger helper or something of the sort) and/or a meat main dish

And guess what? Tomorrow I'm going to post the recipe for gallo pinto! It sounds simple, but the taste is anything but.

Here are some pics from my trip. If you have any questions about life in Costa Rica, feel free to leave a comment. =)

The parrot who said "Lorita" all the time. I had fun trying to train her to speak English. All my roommate and I managed to do was get it to imitate laughter.

Spanish everywhere! I miss speaking and listening to Spanish.

Ziplining!

Biking with friends along the beach

Toucan!