Barb & Chick Visit Costa Rica

When Gene's cousin Barb emailed that their cruise would be making a port call in Limon, we decided, along with our friends Emma & Jon, that it was the perfect excuse (like since when do we need one!) to spend a few days on the Caribbean. So we booked rooms at our favorite Caribbean get-away spot, Kelly Creek Inn, right on the edge of Cahuita National Park. After spending the first night there, falling asleep to the sound of the surf and the howling of the monkeys, Gene and Jon drive to Limon to pick up Barb and Chick at their cruise boat. We spent the day walking through the park and along the beach, watching the animals, lunching at EZ Times in Puerto Viejo. At the end of the day, they all surprised me with a birthday cake back at Kelly Creek! Chocolate cake and wine at a Caribbean Beach - tough to beat that one for a birthday celebration! We were all sad that their stopover was for only one day, but everyone had a great time, and we're hoping that Barb and Chick will get back to see us soon for a much longer stay.









Bye Bye Barb & Chick! Hope to See You Again Soon!

Gail Comes to Costa Rica

My best buddy Gail from Hollywood, Florida (where we lived before Costa Rica) actually came to visit us! She had promised when we moved here that she would be down - and Gail is always good for her promises. What a great time we've had!


Bienvenida! Welcome Party for Gail on the patio

Zarcero-
famous for the topiaries in every size and shape in front of the church
Topiaries shaped like a cat riding a motorcycle, an elephant, a bullring with matador, charging bull, and spectators. That's what I've read. You coulda fooled me. Interesting, but mostly I thought it looked like mis-shapen shrubbery!


















And a morning at Zoo Ave - not only is it beautiful but it's one of the most relaxing and fun places to visit in the area, as well as being filled with educational information about all the birds and animals that are rescued and bred there. A Costa Rica must see!

They say that all good things must come to an end, but I've never understood why. We did a few days on the Caribbean in Puerto Viejo and Cahuita, some more day trips, a lot of sitting around and talking. And suddenly it was time for my good friend Gail to leave. I just hope that she had such a good time that she will want to come visit us again soon. I miss her already!

Groceries

The regular grocery stores that most Ticos use are much smaller than what we were accustomed to in the US . “Pali” is the lowest price grocery store, but the merchandise is very limited. Good for laundry supplies and staples, but not much for fresh merchandise. “Mas por Menos” is a step up in price and also in variety of product availability. You could probably get everything you need there, but not necessarily everything you want. They have a decent fresh produce department as well as fish and meat. They also carry the local coffee that we like and our favorite “vino collapso.” Another store, “MegaSuper,” is similar. Depending on the neighborhood, both “Mas por Menos” and “MegaSuper” may have a greater or lesser selection. There are also “Hipermas” and “Auto Mercado,” which are almost like the big stores you are accustomed to in the US , and offer many imported products at very high prices. Next, my favorite stores are the little neighborhood stores, the "pulperias". It’s amazing. Every little neighborhood has one. There are two in easy walking distance of our house. Their size ranges from teensy to very small, but they cram an amazing amount of varied products into the space available, everything from a few fresh vegetables and fruits to school supplies, zippers, bread and milk and gift wrapping paper. Many also carry meats. Recently, on the corner of our street, someone opened a small meat market (carniceria). If figure if I wanted to, I could get by without ever leaving “the hill.” Many neighborhoods also have nice little fruit and vegetable stands, but we don’t have one - yet. Also, downtown there are many open fruit and veggie stands on the street, and in some areas, people just selling peppers, cilantro, or whatever from the sidewalk. Another of my favorites is the Mercado, the big rambling area downtown with many vendors of fruits and vegetables as well as meat, fish, herbs, fabric, kitchen ware, clothing, baskets and God knows what else. Going to the market is always fun, the produce is fresher and cheaper. Last and least expensive for fresh stuff is the Saturday morning feria, or farmers’ market. The one in our town, Heredia, is huge. It’s about 4 blocks long, with vendors’ stands selling every sort of vegetable and fruit. There are also a few stalls with meats, cheeses and other stuff. But mostly it’s fresh produce. A great way to buy good fresh stuff at great prices, but also great entertainment on Saturday mornings. Some towns have their ferias on Sunday mornings. On a recent trip to the feria, we bought:
Kilo of potatoes
Kilo of carrots
4 Red peppers
½ Kilo of onions
Bunch of radishes
Large squash
3 Small cauliflower
4 Large tomatoes
4 Ears of corn
4 Small cucumbers
Kilo of avocados
Small pineapple
Small watermelon
Cantaloupe
Strawberries
½ Kilo of cheese
All told, the above, which more than filled my super oversized market shopping bag, cost about $8 US. It’s possible to eat very well on a very small amount of money. It’s also possible to spend a lot, if you need specific imported or prepackaged things.

Christmas Nite Lites

Great Christmas afternoon eating, drinking good wine, and having good conversation on a great variety of subjects with our new friends Linda & Chuck (hosts) and Emma & Jon. The lights out over the valley as we rode down over the mountains coming home tonight were awesome.
It’s Christmas. It’s different from any other Christmas we’ve ever had. We miss our family. We miss our long term, loyal, forever friends. We miss shopping for fun presents and wrapping them and watching them get opened. But we are enormously grateful for our newly adopted home, for the opportunity to live in such an awesomely beautiful and fascinating place, for the amazingly warm and friendly people, the opportunity to learn and live in a new culture, and for the wonderful new friends we are making, who, while adding a whole new dimension to our lives, will never be able to replace the old friends and family we left behind. Hopefully all of them will eventually find their way down here to visit us.

Holiday Customs

There are some odd combinations of customs here. Of course it's a very Catholic country. Throughout the evening and late into the night on Christmas Eve, we heard church bells ringing. Beautiful. There are so many beautiful old churches, and several are close enough for us to hear the bells toll. But we also listened to the fireworks late into the night. How did fireworks ever get to be part of Christmas? Some of them sounded like bombs going off in front of our house!

Every house in Costa Rica, as near as I can tell, has a crèche in, or in front of, the house. Many of them are huge, and very detailed. Apparently historically, in keeping with the private celebration of Christmas, the crèches were inside the house. In recent years, the Ticos have started decorating outside, and the displays of lights and huge crèches and other decorations are fantastic. I wonder how some of them can afford the electricity bills.
I suspect that the stores sell more during December than they do the entire remainder of the year. This is largely because every Tico worker, by law, must be paid a full month's salary as a bonus during the first week in December. Rather civilized idea, don't you think?
And of course the food. It's a big tradition here to have tamales for Christmas. Apparently every woman in Costa Rica has her own recipe for tamales, and prepares large batches of them. They are fabulous. I don't know what other things they cook for the Holidays, but I can tell you that the aromas coming from my next door neighbor's kitchen last night were so incredible, I thought of going over and standing at the door looking hungry. This morning there are more aromatic foods being prepared over there.
Speaking of food, we have been invited to Christmas dinner this afternoon at the home of our friends Linda and Chuck, who I had met when I was down here two years ago. They live further up the mountains from us, real country, with a fabulous view. It will be fun!

Feliz Navidad de Costa Rica

It's Christmas morning at our casa in Siboney de San Pablo de Heredia de Costa Rica. As I sat in the courtyard peeling onions for our traditional creamed boiled onions, I daydreamed about all the Christmases past. Has there ever been a Christmas when I haven't made boiled onions? I don't think so. Are my kids making boiled onions today? I doubt it. Funny. I always thought I was raising them to be totally independent. But now I think I failed to teach them the most basic of important things. Creamed boiled onions on Christmas day.
Today is very different from our Christmases past. In some ways it may be like Christmas forty years ago or more in the U.S. Especially if you were Catholic. Which I wasn't.

Last night we went downtown to go to mass at the beautiful old church by el parque central in downtown Heredia. We didn't know what time the service was, so we got there at almost seven, just in time to hear the end of the Ave Maria, which was incredibly beautiful. There weren't as many people there as I had expected. But then we realized that almost everyone goes to the midnight mass. After the mass, they go home for dinner. We enjoyed walking downtown on Christmas eve. There were a lot of people out and about, but not nearly as many as the night before, when it appeared that absolutely everyone was downtown doing last minute shopping. Buying a few gifts for our friends, I thought this must be like Christmas in New York, with all the hustle and bustle, street vendors selling everything, and bubbly young women cheerfully wrapping gifts for their customers. It was fun.
Speaking of view, it is the most glorious Christmas day in Costa Rica. I'm sitting barefoot in the courtyard writing this. It's warm and sunny and beautiful. Our house is enclosed by this beautiful private courtyard downstairs, so there's no view. But from upstairs, we see out over the valley and to the mountains on the other side. It is so beautiful. I really can't believe we live in a place like this. We’re so lucky. At night the lights all across the valley and into the hills are absolutely indescribable.

Unfurnished

As I’ve mentioned, the house we’ve rented is unfurnished. I probably should describe what that means in Costa Rica. Generally speaking an unfurnished Tico house has nothing in it. I mean it has no appliances, no kitchen cabinets, no closets, no medicine cabinets or shelving or mirrors in the bathroom. Emma was relieved when the landlady told her that, unlike most Tico houses, hers already had light fixtures. She was excited that she wouldn't have to shop for light fixtures to cover all the bare light bulbs. Then she found out that what the landlady meant was that it comes equipped with light bulbs! So we're all out shopping for light fixtures, among other things. We've done a lot of shopping together, and have lent and shared and got by and laughed a lot! By the time we moved in, we had a mattress, fridge, stove, washing machine, beautiful rattan table and chairs for courtyard, some cooking pans and a set of dishes for 4. We also had a few odds and ends like some drinking glasses, wine glasses (priorities, you know), "silverware," and a few other little things for the kitchen. We keep acquiring more stuff, but as I mentioned before, shopping can be a challenge. We have been known to spend days shopping for sheets and towels and a blender for Jon, which he apparently could not live without! A set of bed sheets can cost $60 - $80. The locally made ones aren't made quite big enough to keep the bottom sheet on the mattress. Some of them have fabric that is close to burlap! If I'm ever in a Target store in my life again, I'll probably buy every set of plain white percale sheets on the shelf! But life is good. On Monday we found a bathroom mirror. It is framed in bamboo and I'm in 7th heaven. Of course I got to see myself for the first time in 3 weeks, which was kind of frightening!
No matter what else it is, it's always an adventure!

Christmas Gifts

I miss buying presents for everyone, wrapping them on the kitchen table, delivering them up to my friends and family. But there are so many wonderful things about Christmas here. Historically Christmas is a family thing here. All the family gathers for Christmas Eve and Christmas day and many other parties during the season. The entire family participates, and in that way, it reminds me of Christmas many years ago in the U.S., a time when life was simpler. I always think of Christmas as a kid when we all went to Gramma's house! Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, old, young, everyone. And presents under the tree for everyone. Of course most of the presents were handmade. Not because we were so arty and creative and individualistic, but because there was no money to buy lots of store-bought things. For some reason, I always remember making pin cushions out of walnut shells! Every adult in the family must have had a huge collection of walnut shell pin cushions accumulating in a drawer somewhere! But it was important to have a gift for each person. A lot of aprons got made. My mother worked on her knitting year round. We all had the most beautiful sweaters. And every kid in town had a pair of my mother's mittens! My grandmother crocheted beautiful things. Everybody made something.

Self Service - Not

Self service has not come to Costa Rica yet! Having someone wait on you can be very nice. Sometimes it’s aggravating having a “helpful” clerk follow you around while you shop. In many places, like the hardware store or the pharmacy, the merchandise is not out for you to see and touch. It is thus necessary to explain to the clerk, in Spanish, what you would like to purchase. The clerk then goes to the back to find the item for you. Once the item has been located and you have agreed to buy it, the clerk writes up a sales slip, which you take to the caja (cashier) and pay. The cashier takes your colones, gives you change, stamps the sales slip paid. You then take the paid sales slip back to the sales clerk, who packages your merchandise and gives it to you. Sometimes instead of going back to the sales clerk, you go to the paquette desk to retrieve your stuff. In the case of the Christmas gifts I bought today, after returning to my sales clerk, I found that I was supposed to go to the line at the paquette and wait while the sales clerk looked in the back for the boxes. While standing in line, I saw that other customers were getting their purchases gift wrapped and asked if I could get mine wrapped too. Just like any big store in any big city during Christmas week, I thought. When it was my turn, one of the bubbly young women spent about fifteen minutes meticulously wrapping my four gifts with beautiful paper and fancy ribbons. When she was finished, they were a work of art. I said yes to the gift tags, she smiled appreciatively when I told her they were muy bonito, and wrote me up another sales slip, for the wrapping, which I then took to the caja, paid 300 colones ($.80), obtained my stamped slip, returned to the paquette, and obtained my gifts. When you're accustomed to self service, it all seems a bit awkward and time consuming. But here it's the way it's done, you get a lot of service, you learn patience, people smile and say friendly things, and it doesn't cost much.

Every Day Another Incredible Experience!

We were downtown at Mas por Menos, a medium sized grocery store. The pre-Christmas crowds were huge everywhere we went. Suddenly we heard beautiful Christmas music and wound our way through the aisles to see where it was coming from. There was a whole choir singing by the checkout counters. We learned that they were a project of the University, although some of the singers were way under university age. It was an wonderful full professional choir, with a conductor and the whole thing. Some of the most beautiful Christmas music I've ever heard, in a straggly little downtown grocery store with street vendors outside crying out about their wares to the crowds. I love this place!

We've Rented a House!

We found a great 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in a nice area up on a hill near downtown Heredia. From upstairs we can see all the way across the valley to the hills on the other side. The view at night with the lights is awesome. Upstairs we have a big master bedroom with vaulted ceiling and a window seat. There are also 2 small bedrooms with windows overlooking the coffee fields and the valley below. All of the upstairs floors are wood, except for the bathroom, which is tiled and has a suicide shower. Downstairs there is a long narrow living / dining room, a kitchen, and another bathroom. At the back there are French doors from both the living room and the kitchen out onto a beautiful small tiled courtyard with high vine covered walls. Off the courtyard there is a "pila" (laundry room) and a storage room. From the front of the house, you enter directly from the sidewalk (no front yard) to an extra large double garage. The garage has big double metal car doors plus the pedestrian door, so it's totally closed in from the street. But there's a break in the high roof toward the front and one side so that lots of light gets in. The garage ceiling is wood and the floor is ceramic tile. There's a pretty tropical garden area on one side. Of course we don't have a car and it's very nice out there, so Gene is going to set up his studio out there. It's much more house than we had planned to rent, but it was so fantastic compared to the other few places we'd seen in the same price range that we grabbed it. We're paying $425 per month, unfurnished. Actually we weren’t even thinking about looking at houses for probably another 6 months, but Emma and Jon invited us to go look with them and the rest just sort of happened! The landlady had 2 houses for rent and Emma and Jon have rented the other one. So we already had friends for neighbors before we even moved in. We've spent a lot of time together, out looking for the things we need to live here and just visiting. They are very friendly.

Back to the Pacific: Tamarindo!

In our ongoing attempt to see as much of the country as possible before "settling down" somewhere, we're now in Tamarindo. The trip to the beach took an hour more than expected, about 6 ½ hours. Bus was hot and uncomfortable; no room to move legs. One stop along the way to pee, etc. Got let off right in front of the Villas Amarillas, where we are staying. Certainly not a fancy place, but everything we need. A/C and hot shower, too. Right directly on the beach. And the beach is absolutely gorgeous! On-site outdoor restaurant. Outdoor kitchen for the use of the guests. There’s a balcony outside our room with a great view out over the beach and the ocean. The cost is $25 per nite (+ 7% if charged on Visa). Had a good lunch from the bus station; took it aboard and ate on the bus. Had dinner at a nice place on the beach in middle of town, Restaurante ZullyMar.

La Caja Continued Again

To Caja. Try in another 22 days, mas o menos! Great excuse anyhow for another trip to our new favorite restaurant, Matices. Dale went with us. We all had a great meal. Very friendly and consciencious waiter, Caesar. Went to Azzurra’s for coffee.

I'm beginning to understand that everything is in 22 days, mas o menos (more or less)!

The Little Theater: Chase Me Comrade

Dale and I fixed pasta with spinach and sautéed garlic for lunch. Very nice. Enjoyed it with some red wine. In the evening we finally got to see “Chase Me Comrade.” It was Dale’s first acting part, and she was great! The play was hysterically funny. We were invited to the after-play party at Stephani & Kevin Glass’s home next to the theater. A very large group of fascinating people. Kept trying to figure out why one of the actors seemed so familiar. Finally realized why. Harry Towne used to live on San Juan Island, and was active in the theater there! By the time I had figured this out, he had left the party. I’ve asked Dale to ask him when she sees him at the Sunday matinee, how he liked living on San Juan Island! Stayed at the party til 2 am!

Theatre People

Went to a very nice soda in Santa Ana for delicious arroz con pollo (Gene & me) and pollo asado for Dale. That’s about all they serve at that particular place. Then stopped at Pali for a few supplies and got a box of wine at the liquor store. Ann and a couple of other people from the theater stopped in for drinks after the play, so we ended up staying up too late talking! Dell (who’s in the play) and his visiting friend are from Toronto. Ann was her usual entertaining self and was telling us about the theater that she had back in Toronto years ago.

We Have Malls in Costa Rica too!

My first trip to Multiplaza – just like any mall in South Florida. Felt for all the world that I was in Aventura Mall, except that the prices had gone up! Dale needed tea. I wandered through 2 bookstores. Gene bought a pair of “Dockers” pants! We stopped in the mall for desserts and coffees and laughed about the fact that we’d spent more than we would for a whole meal at a soda! Went to an art supply store and got Gene a few things to do some drawings. By the time we came out, it was pouring! Got totally drenched getting a bus. Stopped later on and picked up some dinner pastries at Musmannis so we wouldn’t have to go back out in the rain for dinner.

Return to Civilization

Chad drove us to Carrillo to catch our 8:30 am flight. Hung out on the beach waiting for our plane. It is a gorgeous beach. Nowhere to stay right on the beach here, but there are a few places fairly close by up on the hill, and of course a lot of places in Samara, some of which are right on the beach and many others right across the street from the beach. Also there are several good places to eat in Samara. Looks like it could be a good place to hang out for a month or more, although I suspect that when we go back we will want to check out some other places we haven’t been to yet. The flight back over the mountains was beautiful. A nice clear morning. Stopped at ARCR. The lawyer said that our residency application was indeed submitted before they changed all the rules, so we are o.k. with that. Great news! Called Dale and arranged to meet her at Tex-Mex around noon. Bussed to Santa Ana. Dale is letting us stay at her place for a few days so we can get to the play on Saturday nite and to Sharon’s party on Sunday. In the evening, Ann picked us up in her car and we all went for pizza at Ginos. Dale brought wine along. Good wine; good pizza. Great conversation. Neat, fun friends. Pizza for 4 of us was less than $10.

The Flying Crocodile

The “Flying Crocodile” is a beautiful place, hidden away in the Rain Forest, feeling very remote. There was only 1 other couple staying there, a young couple from Germany, friends of the owner. The owners are away in Germany (for 6 months I believe). The staff, with a little help from Chad, apparently keep the show running without them. Chad flies the ultralights and takes customers up in them as well. Other than that, he seems to just be hanging out and doing a little overseeing and making trips to the airstrip and such. He apparently wandered out there one day a year or so ago, wanting to find out about the ultralights. He learned to fly them well enough that the owner, Gaido, trusts him to take others up for rides, so he hangs out and helps out from time to time. He was in the Marines for 6 years and has been out for 10 years, so I put him at about Mark’s age. He likes to wander and has lived in a lot of different places.
We had good meals, breakfasts of fresh fruit, toast and cold cuts, cheese etc. Dinners different every night but seeming rather “German,” with meat cooked well and other things on the dry side, except for the salads, which were over-sauced. Nevertheless, generally the meals that the Tica cooks turned out were fairly impressive. The veggies were good.
We walked down to the beach the first day, 15-20 minutes over a muddy, rutted road, and made it back almost before the rains came. The beach area is beautiful and we went for a nice walk down the length of it. There’s a lot of driftwood and some trash on the beach. Not terrible, but not the beautiful immense stretch of pristine beaches that you see in the pictures. Since there was usually only a short stretch of sun time each day in between the rains, we spent the rest of the week sunning at the beautiful pool area at the Crocodile when the sun came out. It was steps from our cabina. The rest of the time we read, took naps, played cards or rummitile.
One day we spent the better part of the afternoon watching about a dozen howler monkeys in the trees outside our cabina. They are amazing – and amazingly loud! It was fun and we took many photos, but although we could see them all well enough running around in the trees, it is hard to see them in the photos. There were 2 fabulously beautiful macaws in a large cage by the dining area. The blue and yellow one was often allowed to fly free around the area, and even sat on my shoulder. He can talk, but his vocabulary seems to be limited to “Hola.” I think his Spanish is coming along about as well as mine! There were peacocks – a male, female and 2 babies. They were fun to watch. There were 3 dogs and several cats. There were a few squirrels around in the trees.
The sounds of the rain in the trees and the crickets at night. Relaxing and calming. Very good sleeping weather. Our cabina was a beautiful “Moorish” décor thing, with 2 big beautiful beds made of some sort of gorgeous wood. The building itself was sort of “rounded,” with seven or so sides, the floor on 3 levels, with a couple of steps down between each level. The bathroom was all tile, with exquisite designs made with different color tiles. The step down in the bathroom was rounded, everything free-form. There was a snake-like red light stream, like a neon thing, built into the tiles on the counter-top and up the walls. Fabulous open shower, with all the hot water you wanted!!! Above were different colored glass insets in the tall rounded ceiling.
The paths and gardens throughout the property were fabulous, with a real “hidden away in the rain forest” feeling. Probably my favorite part of the property was the kitchen and eating area. I seem to really be into kitchens – especially when they are “outdoors.” This was beautiful with lots of open shelving of gorgeous woods, beautiful European appliances, tile, and big serving areas. Although it could all be closed up like a smallish room, and was actually the bottom floor of the owners’ house, it led out onto the tiled eating area, and felt totally open and outdoors. The large eating area was covered with bamboo roof and also contained a turtle pond (2 big turtles), the macaw cage, and a hammock. Everything about the place was designed for total relaxation.
A big fun part of the week was catching a ride with Chad into town a couple of times. Each time he would check to see if we could cross the river to go the short way and decide it was too high. So we would take the long way around (about an hour to town), crossing 3 rivers along the way, one of which was pretty big. We stopped once to pull another vehicle out of the middle of the river, and another time to make sure that the smaller truck we had passed along the road made it across o.k. Chad always stopped to pick people up along the road. The Ticos walk for long distances all the time, but are very appreciative when they get a ride! There were a lot of dogs everywhere we went, and they were all skinny as hell. Also there were a lot of cows in pastures and they were all skinny. We saw a few horses and they were not fat either. It was about an hour into Samara and the beach there was wide, long, and beautiful. It was also virtually empty, this being the green season. I could live here.
Got an e-mail from son Mark, who said he “couldn’t help worrying a little,” when he doesn’t hear from us for a few days! Couldn’t help remembering trying to track him down back in his college days. Don’t you just love it. Paybacks are hell!

Flight to Playa Samara, Flying Crocodile

Early morning flight to Samara (Carrillo) was fabulous. Flying over the mountains and beaches in a small plane was truly incredible. The pilot decided not to land in Nosara because it was raining and there was no visibility. There was an older woman and a couple with a 9 month old baby who were left on the airstrip in Carrillo trying to decide how to get home to Nosara. The pilot had given them a choice. They could fly back to San Jose with him or get off at Carrillo. Apparently the couple with the baby were coming back from a trip to the States with massive amounts of luggage and stuff, definitely more than could be fit into a taxi! Hope they made it! They looked to be at least mid to late 30’s and said their baby had been born in San Jose and therefore had her first flight at the grand old age of 2 weeks, flying home to Nosara. Since then she has flown several times, including a couple of trips to the States to see her grandparents! All 3 of them seemed pretty casual about it all.
Chad was waiting for us at the air strip with a 4-wheel drive truck. The drive out to the Flying Crocodile took about an hour. We checked out the main river on the short route and he decided not to try it, although he “thought” we probably could have made it. The current looked pretty strong, the river was fairly wide, and I couldn’t tell how deep, but definitely not shallow. The “Crocodile” is definitely out in the wilderness. There certainly are no restaurants within walking distance. Supposedly the beach is in walking distance, but I don’t know if I believe it. I think it’s a good thing we have an “all-inclusive” package, which includes breakfast and dinner at the Crocodile.

Matices & San Rafael

Got ready for our trip to the Peninsula tomorrow and then walked downtown and messed around for the rest of the day. Had lunch at Azzurra and dinner at Matices in San Rafael de Heredia. Really like that place a lot and also like San Rafael a lot. I ordered a “boca” for something like 700 c, expecting a little bite to eat, and got a whole plateful of dinner! I definitely could live in San Rafael.