TravelStream™ news feed for member edwardsj on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/edwardsj en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:53:38 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1203377400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1203377400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1203377400/tpod.html Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:53:38 -0500 'Is Costa Rica like Rockdale?' An expedition in the name of science.

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Playa Jaco, Costa Rica

Ever inserted a skewer in each of your ears simultaneously? Have you then grabbed the ends of said skewers (now protruding from your lugs) and twisted them at irregular but frequent intervals? Like me you probably haven't but if you had you would have some insight into the sensation I woke up to last Monday night.

At first I thought that I had got too much sea water in my ears and that I just needed to jiggle it out. After about an hour of jiggliing (I have now developed quite a repetoir, including the swinging upside down in hammock chair advanced jiggle) I admited defeat and since it was the middle of the night and I had no access to medical help I decided to tough it out until daybreak like the gutsy little trooper I am. After about twenty minutes of that I decided to get drunk.

Luckily I had my quater bottle of emergency scotch handy and like a eighteenth century anaethestist I took to my work asiduously, slugging neat scotch in between bouts of stabbing head pain. Then it was time to add the temazpan. Ordinarily a quarter bottle of neat scotch and 50mgs of Temazapan renders the patient brain dead for six hours - but my brain was busy being a temple of pain and so ignored these distractions.

Finally I could take it no more and stubbled out into the night to find medical help. Luckily a 24 hour clinic is just 200 meters from my residence (if only I'd known earlier eh?) and so I arrived groggy and desperate but at the front of the none existent queue. I managed to speak fluent drunk spanish to the lovely docotor who promptly told me to pull my pants down and get on the bench. Okay I thought hmm-was my spanish for 'ears' correct?? Apparently so because she jabbed me with some magic potion and hey presto pain gone, booze kicks in, I pass out and can't remember anything else until next morning when I woke back in my bed.

Turns out that I passed out in the examination room and could only be revived 2 hours later whereupon I lurched home, held several semi-lucid conversations before getting in bed.

The ears are still a bit gluey but no longer infected and so I am back surfing after a frustrating week on the sidelines.

I hope can all learn something from this cautionary tale. I have learnt that knowing where the nearest emergency care is is more important than having an emergency bottle of scotch handy (both is good of course) and that some lady doctors have very nice eyes...but that's a different story...
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Playa Jaco, Costa Rica

Okay so week one is over. I don't think I have ever had such a full week ..ever. So many new people new experiences new lessons in Spanish, waves, alcohol tolerance.

Back to the start.

Got here on Sunday at noon a little ball of anticpation and excitement eager to get started. 'Here' is a modern eco- architect designed school/hostel with 10 rooms a large kitchen/dinning area and a backyard pool and hangin' space. As one of the first of the students here, I was free to spend the arvo swinging in the hammock by the pool and watch the others arrive and let first impressions sink in.

My schoolmates are a lovely mixed bunch. David - the oldests is a 50yr old retired professional angler who knows more about Bass fishing than is healthy but is good enough not to share. Jess the youngest is a 16 yr old half Costa Rican from Canada whose mother inexplicably allowed her to come here all on her own.

Most are American - and I am working with that, including three dancing girls (they are acutally in the Rockettes chorus line in Radio City NYC!), but there is also a Dane a couple of Swedish, and a German flight attendent.

Each day we are divided into two groups one of which goes surfing whilst the other does Spanish lessons (not everyone is studying Spanish but most are). In the evening we eat and then head into town to party. Then we get up early and do it all over again. Getting in at 3.30am and then getting up for an 8am Spanish lesson was hard - but someone had to do it!

Surfing here is so much better than in Sydney. The waves this week are not particularly big but they are so consistent that you can catch plenty and really make progress in improving getting up and turning etc. The beach is volcanic black sand so isn't so pretty as a lot of Aussie beaches but the warm water and palm trees and jungle coated mountains more than make up for that. Yesterday we went up to Playa Hermosa 5kms up the road where there are no buildings near the beach. Picture if you will sitting on a surf board gently bobbing in the swell whilst the tropical sun sets over the pacfic which laps a deserted palm tree lined beach....ah its certainly not very Rockdale so far.

My surfing has improved each day and I am top of the class at this point. So naturally I got all excited and bought myself a new board (a foot shorter and a good deal better than my one at home) which I am going to test out tomorrow. I don't have any photos of me surfing but here's one of my classmate Isabella to give you the idea
Now, I imagine you are all wondering whether there is any salacious news of goings on here in the balmy Costa Rican night - well there aren't really, but as you can imagine from seeimg my female buddies here at the school they have no shortage of interest from the locals - but I am concentrating on the waves and not on girls young enough to be my daughters (almost) - ahem.

I am having a quiet Saturday night whilst everyone else has gone to visit a volcano - frankly I just need a rest. Three more weeks of this to go - jeez I'm such a victim...:-) Well I'm off to bed now, and like every night this week I'm sure I will dream of the ocean and the cries of the surfing guide who urges me on even in my sleep "paddle! paddle! paddle!"
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1201970040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1201970040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/edwardsj/1/1201970040/tpod.html Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:02:21 -0500 'Is Costa Rica like Rockdale?' An expedition in the name of science.

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Playa Jaco, Costa Rica

You know how I'm always going on about how much I love planes, and flying and being locked in a tin tube at 37,000 feet squeezed next to the 'being very smelly fat and annoying' regional NSW champion (2nd division) 'n' stuff? Well, this trip was no different, or actually completely different in that it was really quite okay. In fact the flight from Sydney to LA was almost ...wait for it....fun (gasp!). Look, the plane was almost empty I had three seats to myself, I watch Darjeeling Ltd (ha + ahh) and took drugs and booze and slept like a drugged drunk baby for 7 hours - nuff said.

There were two more flights to catch that day, and I won't bore you with the details, no wait, I will.

First can I just say, put on the record if you will, just how big a dislike I have for LAX airport. It is rubbish! Like a very large bus station built in the 1970s with all the charm of ..well.. a bus station. The American customs/security folk were as charming as a migrane and stuff is expensive and - you guessed it - rubbish. That said it is the USA which is kinda cool.

Dallas airport on the other hand is a temple of glass-clad calm that despite my wait for a delayed flight due to high winds soothed my frayed travelling nerves largely via access to the 'Admirals Lounge' which I discovered I could get into as a Qantas frequent flier (the rort that just keeps giving!). As always I felt like a stooge surrounded by the business community of Texas in the leather upholstered class war that is the "Admirals Lounge', but I was a free boozed, free internet, squishy chaired stooge so I coped.

By the time American Airlines flight 2614 to Costa (or Co - star as the Yanks say) Rica took off I had consumed over 50 milligrams of Temzepam and some lovely woit woine. Needless to say I laughed in the face (or was that dribbled) of the warnings of serious turbulence and instead gurled like a baby at the disney movie and drank BUD the KING of beers - ahem.

I arrived at about 12am, waltzed through customs (I don't think I even broke stride it was that lax) and was driven to my hotel by a nice enough kid who spoke no English so I spoke Spanish (i knew it would come in useful one day).

Now I'm here and I'll tell you all about it next time - Hasta luego chicos (see ya later dudes)
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