12-14-2004 3:15pm Eleven more shopping days til Christmas. This morning, I woke up to the sound of water gently falling from the sky unto the cool Costa Rican asphalt of San Jose. Considering that today is my day off, I woke up fairly early. Unfortunately, the living room and the kitchen were a bit of a mess from last night’s dinner. Yesterday, I had the bright idea to make a spinach and bacon quiche after a co-worker brought me a piece out of the kindness of her heart. After I shared the piece of quiche from my co-worker with Patricia, we had the sudden craving for more. Of course since I am the only one that knows how to make such a simple dish, it fell on me to make it. Making a quiche is quite simple but the only thing that I hate doing is the crust for it. Dan and I looked all over San Jose for already made pie crust but none could be found(If you live in San Jose and know where I can find them, please shoot me an e-mail and let me know). The crust is always a pain to make. Especially since I don’t have a rolling pin and I have to use a vodka bottle. However, the clean up is the most difficult part. I use shortening(manteca in Spanish) in my crust and as you all know it is difficult to clean without hot water. Most houses in Costa Rica are not equipped with a hot water heater. Thus, you only get cold water out of the faucet. We do get hot water out of the shower but it is with the aid of a somewhat scary contraption dubbed, "The Suicide Shower Machine"!!!!!. Here is what it looks like. I know it;s not a very good pic but give me a break It is basically a roundish plastic box that sits on top of the showerhead. It runs off electricity and it heats the water right before it comes out of the showerhead. I have not heard of any casualties yet but somehow, water and electricity just don't seem to mix in my book. Going back to my story, the kitchen was a mess and I was having a hard time cleaning the shortening. In the end, good old Kotigre ingenuity prevailed in the end for I had the bright idea to heat up some water on the stove and let me tell you. The hot water accompanied by some liquid washing detergetn cut right through that grease leaving my hands soft and lemon fresh. The next step was to clean the living room. After last night's dinner, no one felt like cleaning. Since I was the first one up, I had to clean if I didn't want to keep seeing the mess. What the heck, I'm hungry so first, I thought I would go to the pulperia and get a baguette and some other breakfast stuff. On my way out, I ran into the maid for Sylvia the landlord. She doesn't clean our place but does clean the other rooms downstairs. And so our brave Vietnamese/Canadian/American living in San Jose, Costa Rica decided to brave the light rain in search of breakfast food. AFter wlaking for about 50 meters, the pulperia was in sight!!!! A quiet day at the pupleria. A great day for me in this rain since I did not have to wait in line. I am now back home procrastinating by typing the weblog entry but I don't think that I can procrastinate much longer. Until next time. 12-09-2004 2:23m Looks like it has begun to rain in Costa Rica. Just a light rain but it is raining nevertheless. Not much going on today. Yesterday, I did talk to Irene. Goodness, I never realized how long it had been since I last spoke with her. Definitively nice to hear her voice. I am part of the newgroup for adopted Vietnamese and one e-mail from that group caught my attention titled, "First U.S. flight to Vietnam". Wow, what great news. The little country of Vietnam, my land of origin is slowly progressing since the vietnam War. Last major even I remember was in 1991 when the embargo was lifted. Since then, things have gotten better in Vietnam. More trade more money and even though most of the money usually goes to people that don't already need the money, it does trickle down to the ones that really need it. Anyway, just thought I would share the news since it is a matter of importance to me. Here is the link, http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/12/09/bt.united.vietnam/index.html 12-08-2004 3:29pm Today is a very cloudy day in San Jose. A bit gloomy and depressing but no rain yet. Hopefully, no rain until I get off work. On Monday, I went to work but I got off at 12 and I went home and waited for Dave to call. He was doing some shopping downtown and I had told him that I might join him since I was looking for a Christmas tree. I had wanted to go the Children's Museum that day around 5pm to see the lighting of the Christmas tree but I couldnt find any takers. I have never been to the Children's museum and I always thought it would be interesteing to see. Especially since it is one of those things you should see when you visit San Jose, Costa rica. The Children's museum used to be an old military prison from when they still had an army which in itself is very interesting. Plus, they were gonna have Jazz Christmas caroling that day. Sigh, maybe next time, I can find someone to go and check it out with me. Patricia and I got to the Nashville around 1:00pm and Dave got there about 30 minutes later. I had thought that I would only stay there for one beer and then we would go but it turned out that we ended staying for more then a beer. By the time we were down, I was already a bit baked so we decided that we would each head back to our respective homes and maybe meet at my place for poker night. I take a nap and I get up to eat a little something. Dave come's but his girl can't make it. No problem, 4 of us is fine. I got a bottle of rhum and he's bringing in more beer and alcohol. The buy in for poker is 500 colones and the game is Texas Hold Em. We all lose to Patricia. Darn the luck, here I am, playing that game everyday for work and not only do I lose but I am also the first one out of the game. Overall, it was a good night. I ended up going to bed around 6am. Argh, I wake up with a hang over and I'm suppose to have people over for dinner. I'm cooking a tourtiere and banana bread. No banana bread because the day before, I didnt get a pan for it. Dont want to cook. All I want to do is nurse my hang over. Patricia has to go meet her mom and go to some cross that is suppose to heal you if you go pray in front of it. Could have used that miracle but couldnt make it. Religion is not exactly my cup of tea and I have to cook. I cook the tourtiere and it turns out great. No one shows up but Dan and Patricia loves it. I did have a lot of problems with Patricia that day and really considered not seeing her again. Don't really want to go into details but it ended up being that she never met her mom to go see the cross thing. All I know is that her mom kept calling the house wondering where she was. Obviously, I began to worry about the whole thing. As I was finishing to cook, I get a collect call. It is Patricia and she is crying. Oh great, I hope that she is ok. She says that she got in trouble with some girls she met at a bar and it's a long story. I don't really want to get more into that story but all is fine now. Now, I just need to call my mom to get some recipes for Christmas. 12-04-2004 10:27am Uh oh, December is now and Christmas is right around the corner. Great, that means that 2005 will soon be about which in turn means I'm gonna soon be a year older. Since it takes me longer to recover from a night of debauchery, I wonder what this means for the future. I went out this past Thursday since my roommate's friends were going back to the US the following Friday and let me tell you, the day after, I was nursing my hang over the whole day. Thursday, started out with me and Patricia waiting at home for Dave and Todd to show up so we could meet my roommate, Gibs, and Dave #2 at the Nashville. I din't get off work til 10pm that night. Dave showed up we had a few beers at the house while we waited for Todd to come. He calls and he's gonna meet us at the Nashville. At the Nashville, we get there and Todd is already at the bar drinking a Corona. By the looks of him, it looks like he had either been there for a while or had started early at home. Eventually, the rest of the gang showed up and we ended up and around 12:30pm we got the, "you dont have to go home but you cant stay here" call. No problem, we ended up going to the Loncheria where the bartender would later meet us there as soon as she closed the bar. Once we got to the Loncheria, we began to drop like flies in between singing. Todd was passing out at the table and Dave was zoning in and out. All I remember is that when I went to bed, it was daylight out there. What a life. I am now back at work for a 12 hour shift. Obviously it's not too busy and I'm just making out a making out a Christmas shopping list and trying to come up for a menu for Christmas Eve since we plan on having a get together at my place. Christmas Day will be going to Alba's house. She is one of the bartenders at the Nashville. Hopefully, all will be well.