I'm Back!

Well, I haven't actually been away anywhere but the keyboard on my iBook G4 has gradually been falling apart since we arrived in Costa Rica so it has been difficult to blog. I lost the "e" key first, followed by the "y", "h" and some numbers. Why couldn't it have been the "z"....

Anyway, today we bought a mini keyboard from an Atenas computer shop for $12 Cdn and it works just fine. It plugs into a port on the side of my laptop and it's small enough to sit on top of the non-working computer keyboard (with a piece of cardboard under it). Plus, it's a wonderful shade of red!  Here's a photo of my new arrangement ..

Friday, we took a taxi into Atenas and went to the Friday farmers' market. It was amazing - lots of venders with every kind of fruit and vegetable you could want. I managed to buy radishes (and they are really spicy), spinach, sausage, tamales, farmer's cheese and more. I'm starting to understand a teeny bit of the language ... sort of. At least I was able to buy food for us. Lance says I have to order the taxi next trip. I've figured out the paper bills, but the coins still confound me.

There is an elderly fellow who goes around Atenas selling home made flour tortillas stuffed with cheese. Apparently he's being doing this for years .... and often he has different things for sale in his basket. He was at the market on Saturday so I bought three packages of his still hot tortillas. We had some left over today so I made "Canuck Costa Rica Pizza", layering mustard, ham slices, spinach and cheese on each tortilla and then heating in the microwave for 2 minutes so the cheese would melt. Served with the last of Jose's mangos, it was a pretty good meal.

Here is a local cheese tortilla before going into the microwave: