Feliz Navidad

After that looong day, I ended up staying up late with Carlos for his last night in the country berfore he´s off to Peru. We watched TV (movies and sit coms) until 3 in the morning and we had a few cervezas until I couldn´t keep my eyes open. The two big Costa Rican cervezas are Imperial and Pilsen. I prefer Imperial, but they´re both decent.
For Christmas eve, I spent another day in Alajuela mostly sleeping and teaching myself Spanish. I wandered the busy city and even though my Spanish is pathetic, I managed to get a chicken lunch combo for a couple bucks. Gabriel had to work the 6pm to 6am shift, and he was pretty bummed about that so I stayed up late with him to keep him company, playing cards, listening to music and drilling some Spanish into my head. I ordered 3 pizzas for 4900 colones (about 10 bucks), had one for dinner then put the other two in the fridge for lunch and dinner the next day. It wasn´t too exciting of a day, but there were a couple of fireworks shows, being December 24th.
Christmas day! Because I´ve been at the Pension Alajuela for 5 days now, I managed to get a discount for my last night here, and they said I can have free beer. I went for a longer stroll around the quiet city today in the hot sun, but came back when I saw the dark rain clouds heading this way. Again, nothing too exciting—I can´t wait to get out of here and get to the beach!
Duncan, my buddy from Scotland, is coming up to San Jose tomorrow, so I will meet up with him and his friend, Rich, at the Hostel Pangea, before we bus it to Jaco on the 27th. There we´ll do some surfing and I´ll go check out IPAI, the Spanish school. I looked into it on the internet, and the price is super reasonable considering it includes 10 hours of Spanish lessons per week, 3 meals a day, surfing lessons and my books. We get weekends off to do either group tours or travel on our own. I hope to stay with a family, but I don´t count on it. I think I will take lessons for at least a couple of weeks so I can have some basic survival Spanish and travel around with more ease. After 5 days here, my Spanish has improved immensely. Un porquito kada dia (which I think means “A little each day”). Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!
Take care,
-Mitchell-