A tale of two cities

 

The last time we went to the Vatican, we did the self-guided tour since the kids were so young. We also went in April when very few people are inside. This year’s guided tour was quite the experience. With our 25 new friends and our earpieces precariously hung from our ear, we set out with our tour guide and her little flag into a sea of people. She was short and fast and has done this tour 10,000 times, so she bolted ahead and rattled off a bunch of facts while also making inside jokes with other tour guides in Italian. We quickly lost her in the crowds and had to walk fast to keep up and try to find her flag again. Unfortunately, other tour guides have the exact same flag and hearing her say “this way everyone” didn’t always help. I looked with envy at the tour groups with the tall, calm guides. Amazingly, no one got lost. 

 

Early on, my earpiece died and she made me hold the flag while she got another one for me. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have given it back.

 

By day four, we had enough of crowded and sweaty tourist sites. We took the train to the coast and toured the ancient Roman site Ostia Antica. A cool breeze and plenty of shade welcomed us (and strangely, so did a cat sitting on a motorcycle). Most importantly, there was hardly anyone else there.

I had a bad feeling about this

This guy and his horse probably got crushed by tourists

If you look up, you see fewer sweaty tourists but your earpiece falls off 

Ostia Antica from above

Take note of the crowd here

Roma drain and well-worn shoes

Perhaps the best place to which no one goes

Deputized tour guide who gave up the flag

Naked arms, naked monks

 

On our last trip to Italy, Florence was by far our favorite stop. We were excited to return and pick up some of the sights that we missed last time on a quick day trip. What we didn’t know is that July is a terrible time to go to Italy in general and Florence in particular.

 

With heat approaching 100 degrees and in the midst of a flood of sweaty tourists, we walked off the train with a bad feeling. The first stop was Uffizi, which young kids had zero interest in seven years ago. When planning this trip six months ago, everyone signed off on the idea and thought it sounded good, this morning it became the worst idea ever. The sweat rivaled a sumo wrestling match as we crammed around corners to catch a glimpse at Renaissance artwork, each one of us smelling like gym socks. The other tourists would get in a hanmi stance, shove and grunt, and sometimes push us right out of the ring. It was not great.

 

We found a museum of illusions again (and clearly didn’t learn our lesson about chilling out on early travel days). It was a fun respite and was mildly air conditioned. Then we attempted the Duomo.

 

Standing in a long, sweaty line in the scorching sun would be bad enough. Add aggressive salesmen pushing shawls, and it was nearly a scene from Do the Right Thing. Apparently Catholic cathedrals in Italy expect women to cover their bare shoulders, presumably because horny monks will give up everything to see some upper arm. These guys outside see skin a mile away and swarm, hawking cheap shawls for €7 (or €5 or €3 as you get closer to the entrance). After saying “no” the thirtieth time, they may also insult your “dirty shoes” and mumble horrible names for you in Italian as they walk away. It all ends when the Duomo staff either hand you a shawl for free or just look the other way as your bare arms glide on in to seduce the monks inside. And all that effort was for a rather disappointing cathedral.

 

At the end of our sweaty day, complete with train delays and a confounding lack of shade or places to sit, we realized there’s a reason we didn’t do these things in Florence last time. We were also reminded that we shouldn’t over-schedule these early days. And we should probably only go to the Southern hemisphere in July from now on, we’re used to being cold.

This looks like trouble

The artwork was as disappointed as we were with aggressive tourists

Marty hanging in Uffizi 

Much more modest with this see-through shawl

Disappointing as far as European cathedrals go

Checking to make sure arms are covered before being painted

Climbing the walls after so many bad experiences

The sleepwalker in me

 

We’ve arrived in Rome after nearly 12 hours of flying. Leaving at 4:00pm on a Saturday night meant that despite our best intentions to sleep, we all were awake for the first leg to Reykjavik. With the time change, we arrived early Sunday morning. Sleeping too much on the next flight to Rome would make it challenging to adjust the first day, not sleeping would make us zombies. It turns out that splitting the difference is horrible too. It’s been awhile since we’ve done this.

 

Dazed and confused, we sleepwalked to our apartment in Rome. We travel light, but Dinah still pointed out that this is more of a paincation than a vacation as she struggled with her backpack and the astonishing heat. It’s worth noting that she packed way too many stuffed animals, similar to the mistake Daniel made last time we were in Italy. 

 

Our host Maurizio met us and we all sweated together as he introduced us to our place. We’re now armed with neighborhood maps and his favorite places, plus our own greatest hits from Rome. And a full night of sleep.

Death march to our paincation

Should be sleeping, but Greenland is too pretty to miss

Zombies asleep on a train

The payoff of Rome in the morning

Chocolate factory

 

There’s a cemetery just down the road from our apartment that we walked by every day, it’s full of above ground graves. Like all places, we needed to wash our hands to enter. I suppose it’s good that Costa Rica is taking public health so seriously, even if it’s much too late for the people we were going to see. They also wanted to inspect our bag afterward. We did not steal any bones. 

Toucan Rescue Ranch is an amazing nonprofit outside of town that works to rehabilitate animals like toucans, parrots and sloths. They also house a pack of rowdy monkeys, very reminiscent of these guys. The tour guide hates the monkeys and the monkeys hate him. One guy on the tour got a little close and could have lost his phone or hat. The monkeys made faces and showed us their butts over and over again. I now hate them too.

The National Museum of Costa Rica filled in some history for us. It’s housed in a former military site, but since they disbanded their military in 1948, it now has a butterfly pavilion and a nocturnal animal exhibit where the jail once was. 

From there, we made chocolates. The Tapir Chocolate Factory hosts small groups to learn how to make chocolate. The history of cacao is fascinating, who knew chocolate comes from a fruit!? Our hosts took us from fruit to finished bar over two hours, walking us step by step through the process. They were patient with our mistakes, which came often, and we each walked out with four personalized bars.

We’ve figured out that Uber is not nearly as illicit as we were led to believe, which is good because we needed to cover more ground. We also needed to get rescued in a torrential downpour. Things ended where they started, with the same Uber driver taking us back to the airport. Like a slightly smoother drug deal, he made us take off our masks and pretend like we’re friends when he dropped us off. This wasn’t hard, he’s our friend in Costa Rica that we’ve known the longest.

Good thing we washed our hands for this crowd

What a jerk

Sloths

Parrot

A museum like a fort

Fruit or an alien heart

Chocolate bars, not monkey poo

Where the streets have no name and the pools have no heat

 

There aren’t any addresses in Costa Rica, everything is in reference to landmarks or other buildings. Things seemed a bit off the last few days, but it didn’t really set in until we were booking our COVID tests to return home. The testing site is on Rohrmoser street just down from Scotiabank. It doesn’t show up on Google maps, but their website says it definitely exists and they’ll send the full address after you schedule and pay. As promised, the email says it’s 150 meters west of Scotiabank on Rohrmoser. At least the street has a name, not all of them do. We saw a long line outside the Post Office, apparently you go there to get mail in a land of no addresses. 

We went to the Jade Museum yesterday, which I would put among the top museums in the world. It was surprisingly wonderful. Key fact: people have been drawing and carving funny faces since at least 1000 BC. 

Today we went to the Children’s Museum. The building used to be a prison, and from the looks of it, former inmates live on the streets all around it. We knew this was not going to be a zip lining resort trip, but the walk in felt borderline unsafe - to the Children’s Museum of all places. 

Since we survived the perp walk, we celebrated with a trip to the pool at the apartment. It’s a really lovely pool if you’re a penguin in Antarctica. 

Fight or flight response?

I know right where to find the guys who walked out these doors

Monkeys look like they want bananas

Kids look like they fall from balconies

Mirrors are fun

Danger zone

It’s been over two years since we’ve traveled internationally as a family, sidelined by the coronavirus. We used to be good at this, but it was quite clear today we’re out of practice. Watching Rick Steves watch Rick Steves episodes on Zoom during lockdown was not as helpful as I thought it would be.

We left for San Jose, Costa Rica last night. This was the replacement trip for what should have been an amazing adventure in Peru in 2020. Since the kids are all older now, we only gave a general list of how to pack and left it to them. Since we didn’t monitor this at all, it was a bit disconcerting when Dinah’s bag was pulled by TSA - we had absolutely no idea what she might have put in there. We were relieved, and the agent was amused, by the mound of stuffed animals that poured out for closer inspection and explosive testing. Dinah clearly followed this pro-tip from her brother on how to pack.

The flight through the night was mostly uneventful. Very little happened, including sleep. But in our grogginess, we thought we had things dialed-in at the airport. Rather than rent a car, we heard the Uber is fast, easy, and now the way to get around in Costa Rica. The airport is clearly not set up for ridesharing apps, but we thought this must be because it’s new. The swarm of police eyeing us while we turned away taxis and stared at our phone made us think maybe something else is going on. Then the taxi driver who yelled “Uber is illegal” in broken English really gave it away. We had heard this, but didn’t quite realize it was that illegal. Meeting our driver ended up looking more like a rookie drug deal from Breaking Bad when he too realized they were on to us. 

From there, naps and walking around San Jose made for a decent first day. The Museum of Costa Rican Art is near our apartment. Formerly the old airport, it now houses a small but wonderful collection. The walk to lunch included a treacherous pedestrian bridge - even with no railings and rebar threatening to impale us, somehow this seemed less dangerous than walk-in across the street.

We’ve been working on our Spanish, but the Spanish comes at you fast here. Our lawbreaking Uber driver, when he wasn’t dangerously blurring the lanes and driving too fast and close, pointed out that we should say we speak “poquito español” rather than “pequeño.” But ours feels right, we speak small Spanish.

Don’t slip

Used to be an elevator for those afraid they might slip

Nothing to say here, I just like this

Art that implies it might rain here

Fluffy flower

The view from our apartment

Island in the sun

 

Since we left you last, Daniel and I have packed in a lot!

On Saturday, we were able to help paint part of the CARD (Casa de Amparo y Respuesta a Desastre) House offices. Having forgotten to pack proper footwear, I protected my plantar fasciitis by wearing shoes, and I protected my shoes by wearing plastic bags over them. Daniel and I worked with our hosts, Ashley and Courtney, to paint doors in the offices. After several sweaty hours, the doors were completed and the office space is one step closer to its final design.

Saturday evening brought a time of fellowship with the Mayagüez congregation, and Daniel and I were able to partake in the weekly bonfire, dinner, and discussion time. Singing songs around the campfire made Daniel homesick for his beloved summer camp, LVR.

On Sunday, we were blessed to be able to participate in worship services at both locations. In the morning, we attended the service in Mayagüez, and quickly discovered that neither Daniel nor I are proficient enough in Spanish to quite keep up with a real service. After that, we traveled to the urban church in Ponce, where Daniel was able to participate in Sunday school (in English!) with the missionary family’s children, and I attended the adult Bible study. After that, we participated in the church service and were pleased that we were better able to keep up in Spanish the second time around. We’re still not pros, but we’re getting closer each time!

After service, the Lehman family (the missionary family living in Ponce) invited us and our hosts to their house for dinner. We were treated to a delicious Puerto Rican meal, and a power outage created some nice ambience for us. After wonderful conversation and plenty of playtime for Daniel, we headed back to our beds to prepare for what would be Daniel’s most eagerly-anticipated day of the trip: Beach Day!

Monday we spent at Playa Buye, a lovely quiet beach with calm waves and perfect shade trees lining the sand. Daniel played for hours in his new favorite location. We applied sunscreen regularly...but may have missed some spots. Coincidentally, his new nickname is Candy Cane.

After the beach, we were again hosted for dinner by another family. Cindy, the extremely talented cook, showed me how to make some ridiculously tasty Puerto Rican comfort foods. Now with full bellies we sit and reflect on the time we’ve spent here.

I suspect that even though we did a little work to help, Daniel and I were truly the ones who will come away the most blessed by this trip. Learning about the mission here, its challenges and blessings, meeting wonderfully open and inviting people, and of course, eating great food and playing on the beach, has been an experience we’ll remember fondly. Here’s hoping we use these experiences to shape the way we look at others in the future, with more empathy, compassion, and invitation than ever before.