I was woken up at 9am with a knock on the door of my room. The family were off to church in an hour and were seeing if I would be coming too. I decided that I wouldn't today, that I would get up, have breakfast and try to catch up on some of my blog posts. That sort of happened, the breakfast part definitely did, that's for sure.
While I was doing my blogs, I had Christmas songs playing out loud to try and make me get into the Christmas spirit.
The family arrived home at about 11:30, and as soon as they did, we were off. I sort of got told where we were going, but really I had no idea whatsoever. All I knew was that the grandparents were coming too, and we were leaving right away.
We set off, and within 15 minutes, what do you know, we saw a car accident that was being cleared up, just 5 cars were involved, not too big... yeah, right.
Turns out we were heading to Alajuela first, which I soon found out is a few degrees hotter than Heredia. Soon enough I was sweating enough to stop a drought and not even having the windows down could help, as, of course, we were stuck in traffic in the centre of Alajuela.
Jose and I jumped out of the car to take some tourist pictures and walk to the central square of Alajuela where there was a band playing cool music, old buildings and, yes, you guessed it, a church.
All the while the others were slowly moving along in the traffic. We finished our little quick tour of the centre of Alajuela before jumping back into the heat sink of the car and heading off.
One thing I will never understand, and this happens in all countries, is people who do exercise in the middle of the day when the heat is at it's worst. Like I know I feel the heat a lot more than some others, but I mean really?
We parked the car outside to me what would seem like not a very good restaurant, and went to have lunch. Man, was I wrong. The place was huge, there were about 120 tables, all were numbered, and the food came out incredibly fast, it even beat the drinks to the table. I had a 'Casado con pollo' which is pretty much rice, beans, tomato, potato, cooked banana and little tortillas. Along with this I had a drink which Guisella loves called horchata, it is a peanut drink, it is very very strong.
After lunch we headed down the road to a little zoo called 'Zoo Ave' ('Ave' is bird in Spanish). The place had mostly birds, evidently, but also a lot of other animals too. Just Jose and I went in.
My favourite animal there, and now my new favourite animal overall, was the toucan. I remember when I was little, I think, we had this book that had a toucan on the front of it, and now to finally see one in real life, it was just amazing. They are so active, always bouncing around and singing their hollow sounding tunes. I found the sound they make is sort of comparable to when you stroke a branch along a picket fence.
One thing about the zoo I disliked a lot, was how many spiders there were. They weren't captive spiders in cages or boxes, no, but huge spiders that had spun webs between the trees above the walkways. Most of the time I was staying crouched so as to avoid accidentally walking into a web.
They were disgusting...
We left the zoo, and headed back to Heredia.
Tonight was the final of the football between Heredia and Alajuela. The first match was a bore ending in a 0-0 draw. We were hoping for a better result this time round.
I was told that if Heredia won, we would all be going out post match to celebrate.
Jorge and Guisella went off to a friends house at 6:00pm, an hour before the game, to watch the game. Jose and I stayed at home and made our own dinners. Then a little bit before the game, some of Jose's friends arrived to watch the game. I stayed away, hidden in the little study room, just hearing the commentary of the game and going to look every so often.
At half time the score was 0-0. At full time the score was 0-0. After 15 minutes each way of extra time it was still 0-0. How disappointing that it was going down to penalty shoot outs.
Unfortunately, one of the Heredianos missed, and the Alajuelans got all 5 in. We had lost the championship game :(
And since the game was in Heredia, there was a few fights between opposing supporters post match. From inside the house we could hear the horns of cars blaring outside as Alajuelans rejoiced and Heredians let out their anger and frustration.
Jorge and Guisella arrived shortly afterwards and went pretty much straight to bed, along with Jose too.
Now, I swear that the cockroaches here know just how much I don't like them, because when I am awake alone at night, that's when they pounce.
Tonight I was sitting quietly at one of the desks when out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the huge beasts. If you think cockroaches in New Zealand are big, imagine the biggest one you've seen in New Zealand, and increase its size threefold, these ones here are massive, and they can fly.
I got up from my desk, and wielded the first thing I could find, a highlighter... great.
I ran behind the door where I couldn't see it, so I decided to move into the kitchen, where I could see if it was going to come and attack me, but I would be far enough away to have time to react.
After about 15 minutes, it ran across my line of sight. I got up, this time wielding something a bit better, a big text book, and followed it down the hallway. When I got close though, it ran into the study. I hadn't killed it, but at least it was out of sight out of mind. I just wouldn't be going in that room for a few days, that was all.
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