Monday, July 20, 2009

Dia Sesenta y Uno hasta Sesenta y Tres – The Last Weekend

July 17-19, 2009

This weekend was my last full weekend in Costa Rica. This time next week, I will be in the United States, in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia.


This weekend I successfully completed a challenge, I hung out with my tico family’s family, and I analyzed the content of my milkshake.


Just before Benjamin left a few weeks ago, he (out of either the goodness or maliciousness of his heart...I can’t tell which ;-) ) gave me free money. Only this money wasn’t exactly the kind of money you’d want. All the small change that he had aggregated and didn’t want to carry with him to Monteverde he graciously bestowed upon me. Dozens of coins worth anywhere from 4/5 of a penny to a whole 3 cents! Wonderful. Just what I needed.


Well, I am happy to say that I have successfully spent and used all those small coins. It took me three weeks, but the job is done. No more do I have a bulging coin purse filled with 5 colon coins. No more do I pay for everything in exact change. I am free, and I successfully completed this daunting challenge. I am also very proud of the humility I am showing here ;-)


On Satuday, my family went to visit the brother of my mama tica. It was like a mini-family reunion with about three or four whole families there. We ate some absolutely delicious “ChicharrĂ³n de chancho.” (Pork...from what I think is the hoof/around the leg, not sure). I played hide-and-seek with Sofia, Ricardo, and Alan (the grandson of the brother of my mama tica...or the first cousin once removed of the kids in my family. Confused yet? :-) ). We also played tag and ninja fighting. I didn’t beat them up too much. ;-)


On Sunday, I went to the Fresas resturaunt for a milkshake. Fresas has an amazing milkshake and I wanted to have one before I left. As I was enjoying my milkshake, I started to wonder what about it made it so good. As I thought about this, I had a few thoughts on ice cream in general.


Now, as a disclaimer, I am not an ice cream afficianado, I have never studied or read books on ice cream but I am an lover of ice cream who enjoys eating it a lot. That said, you know how certain ice cream flavors have different consistencies and textures? I guess that is super obvious, but you know how mint chocolate chip ice cream melts faster than simply vanilla chocolate chip? You know how fruit based ice creams tend to scoop out in half-balls and you never quite can get that full rounded affect from the ice cream scooper as easily? You know how chocolate, after its been in the freezer for a couple days, is not quite as hard to scoop as vanilla if neither one of them don’t have other ingredients (like peanuts/cookie dough/etc.)? Well, anyway, as I am sure you know, there are those little subtle differences in ice cream that make each flavor unique in a way other than the taste. So anyway, I was trying to analyze exactly what ice cream was in the milkshake. It obviously (por supuesto) had ice cream, chocolate syrup (it was chococlate), and milk. But the milk to ice cream ratio was a bit odd. It was a type of soft vanilla ice cream that was mixed with with syrup to make it chocolate. The vanilla flavor wasn’t strong but it was definitely there. The chocolate syrup masked it mostly, but it was a definite factor. In the end, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something in the ice cream that was abnormal that made the milkshake both different and scrumptious. I failed, however, to divine exactly what it was. :-/


This was my final full weekend in Costa Rica. Twas fun :-)


(P.S. I just realized that facebook was not automatically updating from my blogspot blog. :-P Sorry about that.)

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