The Day of Museums

Esta dia...okay that's enough spanish, so today we went to a couple of museums. We actually got to sleep in at little bit! We woke up at 8 and headed down to breakfast at the hotel around 830. This was our first breakfast at the hotel, and it was pretty impressive. They had a wide assortment of fruits and pastries, along with cook to order omelets and pancakes. I got pancakes! We left around 930 and headed to El Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. It was only a short walk from our hotel. I was thinking about fluffing up this entry since apparently I have a small audience now, but whatever, it's my blog, I'm not gonna lie. The museums were kind of boring. I don't know, maybe I'm just not a museum kind of person. The Lourve didn't impress me all that much. But there were some things I saw and learned that were pretty interesting. 

We saw a lot of metates, which the Indigenous people used to grind corn. The ones we saw were made from basalt, which is a volcanic rock. Unfortunately, a large part of the museum was closed for renovation, and that particular part had most of the information that Sandy wanted to lecture on. But we did get to see a small exhibit on gold and jade in Costa Rica, and also an exhibit about preserving the mosaic floors in the city. We also got to see part of the museum all about the history of Costa Rica, which I did enjoy since I didn't read the travel books as much as I should have before I came here. One interesting term I learned, the golden bean, which is obviously coffee! Did I mention the coffee in the hotel is amazing! I think all coffee here is going to be amazing. But I secretly want to track down a starbucks just so I can compare. 

The best part of the museum was actually a part that only Ashley, Erin, Allison, Amar and I got to see. It was called El Jardin Secreto, The Secret Garden. We walked went a saw it while the rest of the group was finishing the other part of the museum. It was an outdoor exhibit that had a Mariposa Jardin, or Butterfly Garden. It was beautiful! There were several different types of butterflies scattered throughout the garden. It almost reminded me of parts of the botanical gardens in Atlanta, but with butterflies. At one point I walked by some plants and saw a few butterflies sitting on the leaves, but when I looked again there were tons that I didn't even notice. The entire plant was covered!

After the first museum we walked to another a few blocks away. This was the Monetary Museum of Costa Rica. It had different forms of currency all throughout there history. It also contained a section on the indigenous people of Costa Rica and some parts about gold and jade. Honestly, it was very similar to the first museum and therefore a little repetitive. 

After the second museum we walked to a nearby restaurant. This was the strangest restaurant I have ever been to in my life! They had three televisions, one was playing Happy Gilmore, the other was playing popular music videos including the likes of Lil Wayne and Rihanna, and the other one was playing all really awesomely bad 80s videos. The one with the 80s videos had the volume up on it, so we not only got to watch the videos but sing along as well. We got to see Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, James Brown's I feel good, The song with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, a lot of Olivia Newton Jon. It was sooo weird, it was almost hypnotizing, we could not stop staring at it. 

For lunch almost all of us ordered Arroz Con Pollo. It was...alright. Not bad, but not great. It also came with french fries and a bright pink cold salad which Allison determined to be potato salad. Allison and I also ordered black bean soup. For some reason, when I saw it on the menu, I immediately thought of the black bean soup at The Last Resort. Let me tell ya, it was nothing like that. It was actually pretty good, but it was very scary looking. It was basically black bean broth with several poached eggs in it. But initially we couldn't tell they were poached eggs. It was a very interesting and entertaining lunch that lasted and hour and a half! 

After lunch we headed back to the hotel and just hung out before dinner. We went to Cafe Mundo again for dinner. This time we got to sit outside and were free to order anything off the menu as long as it was more than 8,000 Colones. I was tempted to get the roasted veggies and grilled chicken salad again but decided to try and be different. I really enjoyed this dinner, everyone was much more relaxed and I feel like our group is really starting to bond. Most of us ordered Imperials (the official beer of Costa Rica) and really just relaxed.  I said I was trying to be different but honestly I wasn't too ambitious. I ordered a Caprese Salad, which Wyatt and Kate ordered as well. To my surprise the mozz e pom at DePalams is actually better! Well actually the tomato I had tonight was better then those at DePalams, but DePalams definitely has better mozzarella. We all also managed to save room for dessert, I got Chocolate Mousse which was pretty good. 

All in all it was a great day. It wasn't as long as the past two and was definitely more relaxing. Tomorrow were were supposed to visit the Poas Volcano on our way to campus, but because of the recent earthquake we are not able to. I'm really excited to get to campus and see what a typical day is gonna be like here in beautiful Costa Rica!