Another update from Suzy

I have my "Impressions" series lined up and ready to go, but am waiting to find sufficient time to continue posting them.  No internet--pretty much in the whole country--last week, so I literally made an outline of what I intend to write instead--maybe, and this is my hope, I will actually send you something to read before we return home, but we'll see.  Thankfully, Suzy doesn't suffer from my neurosis--she got around to sending an email update which I will copy and paste here (with only a few of my emendations):

Hello, everyone. We've been without internet for the last 5 days or so. I know Joey is working on a few blog posts, but I just wanted to send a couple of pictures and a short update. 

We're still just loving this adventure, although I was the sickest I've ever been in my life, and am still recovering - blah. I had bronchitis and am now on day 14 of antibiotics--3 drugs that are all written in Spanish, and I'm just going with it! Feeling better, though.

I finally took pictures of the farmers' market (La Feria de Tres Rios) we go to every Saturday which I just love. The kids love it too. 

It's my favorite part of the weekends here, that, and the fact that the kids play with the neighbor kids for hours and hours on the weekend (literally 8 hours this last Sunday!). I get to chat with my friend and neighbor Olga, which I just love. Our neighbors are constantly helping me with my Spanish and I know she speaks slower with me, which I appreciate! Apparently, in my attempt to say, "please correct my Spanish at all times" to Samantha, Olga's daughter, I said something vulgar about sex. Of course, she didn't say anything to me, but Olga told me later, and they had a good laugh behind my back - I love it!

Two weekends ago, our landlord Francisco Jose and his daughter Mariola (the same two on the whale-watching tour) called us and asked if we wanted to go to a festival with them. "Of course!" We piled in his handmade Land Rover and drove about an hour and half to "festival de pejibayes (a vegetable that grows from a kind of palm tree)." We had so much fun with them, you can see the picture of Kiefer on the way home. 

It was in a small town and it was very Costa Rican. You could get all sorts of food made with pejibayes, candy, soup, wine, etc...Great adventure!  (And we even saw bull riding--kind of--actually, it really amounted to some drunken old guy dodging the rush of an even older bull--and probably drunker, falling all over himself while the crowd whistled and chanted his name, "Pepe, Pepe, Pepe.")

Last weekend we went to our first Costa Rican kids birthday party and holy hell am I glad our kids had their birthday first. I'm guessing this party cost a minimum of 2 grand. There were art teachers, a clown, servers for the burritos, nachos, and slushies, each kid got an apron with their name embroidered on it, everything you can imagine with "Frozen" on it - water bottles, pinata (with more candy than you can imagine) balloons, napkins, cakes, plates, etc. I asked another mom if this was a typical Costa Rican birthday and she said yes (once again, so glad we already had our birthday)! Now, I have to tell you this is a classmate of the trips and they pay A LOT of money to send their kids to our school. Needless to say, I hadn't seen a neighborhood like the one where these families live (picture Cherry Hills with a lot more vegetation). All that to say, we had a lot of fun and everyone was great to us, as always here.

We're headed to Bocas Del Toro, Panama tomorrow! It looks awesome. We're going to leave our house at 6am, drive for 3.5 hours through an awesome cloud forest, Braullio Carillo, park our car in Puerto Viejo, take a bus across the border, get on a ferry, and then take a water taxi to another island where we're staying. We have quite the adventure in front of us!

Hope you all are well!
Love,

Suzy (and Joe)