Day 30 February 27, 2009 (Fri)

After a 10 hour long bus ride, we finally made it into San Jose, Costa Rica thursday evening. On Friday morning, we got up really early and began a long day of trips around the city. We stayed in a university called UNELA. It was pretty nice and they had dorms even though usually only visitors stay in the rooms. On Friday morning, we met with a couple people representing Defensoria de los Habitantes de Costa Rica which is basically a human rights office for all inhabitants of Costa Rica. They say that for those who come legally or illegally, they at least deserve the basic human rights so they work to protect those. It was a government office and very different from anything I've seen in Nicaragua. Actually most things I saw in San Jose were extremely different from Nicaragua.

For starters, it is much more of a tourist city so many more people spoke English. They have taller buildings and just a lot more official businesses. There are not many street vendors but a few. They have a lot of shoe stores and clothing stores with name brands like you'd find in the states. There are not people in your face everywhere you go which I really liked. It was a lot less forceful in my opinion. People wanted you to come into the store but we never had anybody screaming out what they were selling or harrassing us (yeah that's a good word-harrass). It's much more advanced than Nicaragua and reminded me a bit of Miami, not exactly but there were plenty of similarities. It has more of a downtown business people feel to it. Everybody's moving and going somewhere, unlike Managua where tons of people often sit around all day doing absolutely nothing. People stood in line at bus stops and when the bus came only the amount that could fit were allowed on so there are never overcrowded buses I'd imagine. Unlike this morning (Monday March 2) when I rode a bus with standing room only and at every stop we just kept picking people up so by the time I needed to get off, I had to climb over like 6 grown men. Very awkward and I was at the front standing by the door. So there was tons that I liked about Nicaragua just from observations. It is also a much more diverse culture. I saw people from all over the world mixed in on the streets. I really enjoyed that part. One thing I didn't care for was the currency difference. Costa Rica uses colones and it's like 560 colones to 1 US dollar unlike Nicaragua 20 Cordobas to 1 US dollar so prices come out to be more like the states in San Jose which is the capital city I stayed in by the way.

Okay now back to the schedule of my day. After going to that government office, we went to a Costa Rican History Museum. It was pretty cool just showing different items collected from pre-colonian times to recent. There was also a butterfly garden which seems random but was pretty cool. We ate lunch at some restuarant that was a lot like going to Friday's or something. For the five of us to each, our bill came to almost $70. In Managua, all five of us could have had a full meal for about $20 total. After lunch, we went to a Gold Museum and I took some pictures that are all on Facebook of course. This was most of what went on Friday.