Breakfast Sandwiches, Pierogies, Cabbage Rolls and Library Books

Yesterday - Saturday - we decided to drive to Atenas for breakfast. We went to El Fogon because we have had their breakfasts and lunches in the past and they were always good.

We both ordered breakfast sandwiches and fresh fruit drinks made with mora, a type of blackberry. We have a mora bush in our yard.

As you can see, the orders came with a side of fresh mixed fruit. The sandwiches were loaded - egg, ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, a sauce - have I missed anything?

We had two additional reasons to drive to Atenas - stop at Pequeña Polonia Café and Restaurante to order two meals to go and to take advantage of their free lending library. Pequeña Polonia was formerly known as Kay’s Postres when we arrived in Costa Rica in 2011.

We met the then owners, Kay and Tom Costello, who always welcomed new arrivals. Time moves on and so did they. The present owners are Ania and Tom, who are from Poland by way of Canada. Their menu includes Polish items so you know that they are authentic. By the way, they no longer serve breakfast but are open for lunch and dinner.

We ordered two classic Polish dishes -  pierogies with sauerkraut and mushrooms, bacon on the top, and cabbage rolls with tomato sauce and mashed potatoes. Also included were a cucumber salad and a carrot salad. Don’t you wish you were eating these tonight?

The cabbage rolls, mashed potatoes and two of the pierogies have been devoured. The rest of the pierogies are for dinner tonight, along with a coleslaw that I made.

While waiting for our meals to be prepared, we selected a number of paperback books to take home. There has always been a free lending library at this restaurant. It’s based on the honour system. So we are set for the next few months with reading material. Nothing is better then being in a hammock with a good mystery/detective/murder story book.

We also met one of our former neighbours when we lived in Vista Atenas. It was so great to see Leticia again and get caught up on the local news. Atenas is a small town which is one of its advantages - you get to know your neighbours and townsfolk.

Click on images to enlarge.

Saturday Shopping - Grecia, Costa Rica - July 23, 2022

A couple of days ago we made a dashcam video of a little driving trip we took to go shopping and run errands in and around Grecia.

We left home and drove Hwy. 107 to Grecia then on to Masxmenos (a supermarket chain owned by Walmart) for some groceries. Back to Grecia to the DHL office to pick up a courier envelope, then to the Banco Nacional utility payment location to pay our asada (water bill). This is located on Av. Centra Leon Cortes Castro, across from the bank itself.

Last stop was Super Rosvil - Liceo for more groceries and then home.

Some people may find it interesting to see what Grecia looks like on a weekend with all the vehicles on the streets and people going about their weekly shopping. Wondering why we pass the church and park so many times? It’s because of all the one way streets!

Here’s our route to Masxmenos from our home and back again:

Here is my YouTube video:

The date and time on the video is incorrect - we have not yet set up those parameters on the camera.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - July 2022 / Covid-19 Update

During July, visits to this blog were received from the following 10 countries and Hong Kong:

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 134. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc.

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The following is a summary of weather for July in the area where we live:

At the beginning of July, tropical storm warnings from the Caribbean had been issued for much of Costa Rica. However, while it ended up tracking across northern Costa Rica and southern Nicaragua to the Pacific, the only effect on us was a dreary 24 hours or so of drizzling rain with minimal winds.

There was at least some rain almost every day in July. However, on many of these days the amount was rather trivial. Most days were marked by sunny or partly sunny mornings - then some rain - then lingering cloud. On 6 days there were downpours contributing to over 60% of the total rainfall for the month.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates information which appeared in my blog entry posted on July 6, 2022:

The column headed "Death Rate Trend" is new. For each country, it will indicate whether the Covid situation appears to be improving (death rate "Falling"), getting worse (death rate "Rising") or is unchanged ("No Change") since the last time a report was made on this blog. Thankfully, the death rate has fallen in all three countries since my last post on the topic. More specifically, it fell by 0.08% in Costa Rica, 0.01% in Canada, and 0.02% in the United States. So, survivability is improving.

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to Costa Rica, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

**This time around, the foregoing is not completely accurate for the United States. At least between August 1 and August 8 Worldometer was inexplicably not reporting on its Covid web page the numbers for U.S. population, cases per million, or deaths per million. But it did report total cases (93,910,150) and total deaths (1,058,738). Also, on a web page unrelated to Covid, it reported the U.S. population as of August 8 (335,122,642). With these numbers in hand, it was trivial to calculate cases per million and deaths per million for purposes of the above table.

Click on images to enlarge.