day 11: independence day

i'm not an incredibly patriotic person but i was definitely upset i couldn't spend the 4th of july in the usa. it's always a great excuse to hang out with friends, barbeque, or float the river. i talked to one of my friends here from texas and we decided we should barbeque here so we headed to the supermercado. we bought hotdogs, buns, chips, chicken etc which would typically cost about $25 in the states but for some reason it was nearly $60 because i guess they aren't common foods here. we also sprung for french's mustard and heinz ketchup over the generic costa rican brands. we then headed to will's cabana, he lives on his own not with a family where they had a grill. They don't sell lighter fluid here so we had to go old school style and burn a bunch of newspapers to get it going. the food was really good though but that could be because i've lost all use of my taste buds from eating arroz y frijoles for 11 days straight. the person who owns the place were will lives also owns the restauraunt next door so we went in there and hung out for a while with some of the local policia. i've been here nearly 2 weeks and only seen the police twice and i figured out why, they like to hang out at this restauraunt and drink while working. not kidding. they had to leave to go make an arrest in santa elena and i'm sure they weren't sober because we almost convinced them to take us along for the road so i could record cops: monteverde edition. the rest of the night was spent talking in english and eventually the talk turned to politicals and more importantly, president bush. i wouldn't consider myself very politically-minded but on this trip are some of the most liberal people i have ever met. i didn't feel like arguing so i headed home around 10ish. although it wasn't the best 4th of july ever it was about as american as possible.