Most Costa Ricans go to the beach for New Year’s to watch the fireworks. But Cristian and I decided to go to his hometown: the capital of Costa Rica, San José.
We had to take the 6.30 am bus after only 4,5 hours of sleep and arrived in San José early enough to do some shopping. Cristian couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t buy everything in the first store we went to. But women look around, compare prices, quality, and then decide what to take.
When we were finally on our way to Cristian’s home, he realized that he had forgotten the keys in Guanacaste and that we can’t get inside because his family members were either working or at the beach. So, we went to visit his friend: the boys smoked some pot and I tried to ignore that Cristian’s best friend couldn’t stop staring at my butt. (By now I’m actually used to guys staring and flirting at me whenever they can. It became normal and it doesn’t ever annoy me anymore.)
By 3.30 pm I was so tired, I was ready to sleep on the street in front of the house. However, luckily Cristian’s brother came home. But instead of having some sleep, we took a ride with Cristian’s scooter to check if everything was working right, so that we can take it with us to Guanacaste. On an empty street outside of San José, Cristian made me drive the scooter. And although I had told him that I have never driven any kind of motorcycle before, he made me drive it alone without much explanation. Of course, a few meters down the road I crashed it into a little hill: I simply wasn’t prepared that it was that heavy while steering. Fortunately, the scooter didn’t even get scratched and I only ended up having a lot of bruises on both of my legs. That was it with my scooter-driving career! Well, I’m not allowed to drive them anyway; with my licence I can only drive cars.
By the way, Cristian lives in Moravia, a part of San José which is located in the north. Moravia is not very poor or very rich. But if you come from Germany, it makes you feel like in a Hollywood movie about street gangs and violence. Of course, we didn’t actually see any fights, but it simply does not make a very safe impression.
When we were finally ready to sleep by 5 pm, it turned out that neither Cristian nor I could fall asleep. So, by 8 pm we were even more tired while we were searching the house for things to steal (or borrow?) to take to our house in Guanacaste.
By 10 pm we realized that we should get ready to go to his mother’s house. So, we had a hot shower (my first one after 1,5 months: neither in Puerto Viejo we had nor in Guanacaste we have hot water). By 11.30 pm we were finally on the scooter to go to his mother’s place. BUT Cristian still wanted to get some Tequila to bring to the party. However, OF COURSE, all the stores were already closed and we ended up going back to his house after 20 minutes on the scooter to steal the Tequila from his sister. We made it to his mother’s place exactly 2 minutes before 12 pm. After setting off my fireworks in the narrow streets with over-head cables of San José (It’s unbelievable that they don’t prohibit it there it would be so easy to burn down a whole street.), we had some food and two drinks. By that time, we weren’t drunk at all, but so tired that my brain seemed to be in clouds and I couldn’t get together one proper Spanish sentence.
We went home and while Cristian and his brother had their first joint for the new year I decided to scare them a bit. Their father wasn’t home yet and of course, he doesn’t allow the boys to smoke pot. So, I silently went to the door that leads to the backyard and suddenly opened. Both nearly died of a heart attack because they thought I was their father! :-P
Since Cristian had to work at 9 pm on 1 January, we had to get up at 4.45 am after only 2 hours of sleep to let us drive to Guanacaste by Cristian’s father. (It’s an 3 hour ride.) After having had to work for 12 hours that day, Cristian was sick because of lack of sleep when he came home. Poor guy! Which cruel boss makes people come to work at 9 am in the morning after New Year’s Eve?
Cristian: my little San Josè street gangster
You can see how cold it gets in San José by the way he is dressed. It is surrounded by mountains and whereas it seems to be a thousand degrees in Guanacaste, in San José it’s windy, mostly cloudy and fairly cold. While setting up the fireworks, my fingers got cold and I hadn’t had any cold fingers since I came to Central America. And especially the houses in San José get quite cool. During the night, we had 3 blankets, I wore Cristian’s sweater and still felt the need to be cuddling with him all night.
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