Friday, June 18, 2010

Another day in San Jose

We went to bed last night with plans to catch a 10am bus this morning for the Caribbean coast.  As we were getting dressed, I watched Rob smell a shirt to see if it was clean enough to wear and he gagged from the smell.  For about 5 days, I've been saying that we need to have laundry done.  I hate having it done because it is crazy expensive and I've noticed that we have been going longer and longer between loads.  We try to do mercy loads in the sink but it would have been tough to dry stuff in the damp rain forest. We made a decision to stay here one more night so that we can have some laundry done before moving on.
This hostel that we are at is really weird but I'm ok to stay here one more night. The hostel is called Pangea and it is by far the hugest hostel we have seen.  It is very self contained with a bar and restaurant.  It has a nice view of San Jose which is so far, the only welcoming capital city that we have been in.  San Jose is the main hub in Costa Rica so there are lots of travelers here, mostly just arriving in the country or getting ready to leave.  Rob normally hates hostels but I think that sometimes its nice to be surrounded by travelers and people who we can talk to easily.  Sports seems to be the main activity and everyone speaks English.
Last night it was all about the basketball game which was a sad situation when Boston lost since everyone was rooting for them.  This morning, its all about football (or soccer for you Americans).  Sadly the US is losing, although all the Brits and Australians at the bar must be rooting for us because we just scored and everyone cheered.  I can tell how much this trip has affected us because we are actually interested in the World Cup and even find ourselves calling it football.
The strangest part of this place is the bathroom.  Its right in the middle of the building.  It took us ages to find our room because we have to walk through the bathroom to get to it which seemed counter-intuitive.  Then to get to the bar, we walk past the bathroom again.  My favorite part is the urinals that are right next to the stairs.  I assume that they are only used late at night after a few drinks because there is zero privacy.  I keep seeing guys walk up to the urinal and then realize that they are in the middle of the hallway and move to a stall.

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