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Protoze vam dluzim vypraveni za poslednich par tydnu, v kratkosti se s vama podelim o nekolik postrehu.

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Since I haven’t shared any information about some last few weeks, here they are, in a little shorter version.

V jednom ze svych prispevku se Kyslik zminoval v Ghane o prekvapenich, ktere nastane po jakekoli mistni zmince o rodne zemi. Ja jich tady potkavam az necekane hodne – od obcasnych Skodovek, pres fotky libereckeho fotbaloveho tymu v novinach (hraje tam jeden kostarican, Winston Parks) az po billboardy s Petrem Cechem nebo Nicole Vaidisovou (fotbalovy brankar a tenistka, pozn. aut. 🙂

Patecni odpoledne na me ale prichystalo neco uplne noveho – ulice celeho centra San Jose byly bile! Mistni nejspise slavili 16 dni do Vanoc, oficialne skoncil skolni rok nebo testovali uklidove sluzby, protoze jak jinak si vysvetlit ty (nebojim se rict) tisice lidi s pytlikama bilych konfet (ano, tech malinkych utrzku papiru znamych ze stadionu nebo koncertu), kteryma se budto snazili “vylepsit” image okolojdoucich nebo je proste vyhazovali do vzduchu a tim za prispeni poulicnich lamp dotvareli dojem snehovych vlocek. Jo, to je presne to, co mi tady chybi. Ted uz jenom tech minus deset..

Paradoxem zustava, ze mam tady bile ulice drive nez v Evrope, ktera se poti v “tropickych” teplotach a i velka zimni sportovni strediska rusi jeden lyzarsky zavod za druhym. Pocasi se asi zblaznilo a ja zacinam premyslet, ze mozna ani nebudu muset Durovi tu bundu pujcovat, az se na Vanoce bude vracet domu.. 🙂

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In one of his posts Kyslik described surprises that he experienced in Ghana with any mention of our country. I’ve been seeing quite lot of them (more than I expected) – from Skoda cars and pictures of Liberec football team (there is one Costa Rican player there, Winston Parks) to advertising billboard with Petr Cech or Nicole Vaidisova (football goalkeeper and a tennis player, editor’s note 🙂

Friday afternoon prepared something completely different – streets of the whole San Jose centre were white! The locals have been probably celebrating 16 days before Christmas, official end of the school year or just testing local cleaning service, because otherwise I can’t explain to myself those (I’m not afraid of saying) thousands of people with bags of white confetti (yes, those tiny pieces of paper known from stadiums or concerts), which they used to “improve” image of other people in the streets or just to throw in the air that maybe a beautiful snowflake effect using the street lamps shine. Yes, that’s exactly what I miss here. Now only having ten below zero..

The paradox of this story is that we’re having white streets earlier than Europe that is still sweating with “tropical” temperatures and even the big wintersports centers have to cancel skiing races. The weather probably went crazy and I start to think that maybe I won’t have to lend Duro a winter jacket for his Christmas visit at home.. 🙂

Uz vice lidi mi vycetlo, ze jsem uz asi zapomnel psat, tak se to pokusim napravit. Jak by rekl Pavel Kacir, tohle je takovy “nouzovy prispevek”. Mam v zaloze jeste par temat, ale nejak nemuzu posbirat sily sepsat je. Uz proto, ze cely minuly tyden jsem marodil s nachlazenim a poranu mi vzdycky trvalo aspon pul hodiny nez jsem vydaval zvuky podobne reci tvora radu Homo sapiens sapiens.. A pritom bych mel vlastne spise oslavovat..

V patek to totiz byly 3 mesice, presneji 13 tydnu, ktere jsem stravil v daleke zemi. Mozna malo, mozna moc, pro me nic az tak noveho, uz se mi podarilo takhle dlouho nebyt doma i kdyz jsem byl v Praze a ta je relativne za rohem. Co me ale privedlo k melancholicke nalade bylo neco uplne jineho. V nedeli odjela Yvonne, holandska trainee, ktera tady byla (tusim) od cervence. To je vicemene bezna zalezitost. Ze ale behem dalsich 2 tydnu odjedou dalsi 4 lidi a pres Vanoce tu zustaneme dva, to uz nezni tak nadsene..

Takze se mi ani do nejakeho psani moc nechce a radeji se snazim shanet informace a premyslet o tom, jestli budu moct pres svatky zustat tady ve skole, kam nejlepe a nejlevneji do ciziny pro razitko do pasu, co vymyslet na Stedry vecer a hlavne co budu delat pak – az mi tady skonci staz a vratim se z cest. Pocitam nejdrive nekdy koncem unora. Poradite mi? 🙂

(poznamka pod carou: je to taky takovy maly test toho, kdo vsechno to moje povidani cte, tak se nestydte a prispejte do komentaru 🙂

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Some people accused me that I probably forgot how to write already, so I’ll try to make friends with them again. As Pavel Kacir would say this is an “emergency posting”. I’ve got some more topics to be shared but I just can’t get myself to doing anything. Maybe also because the whole last week I was a little sick and it always took me at least half an hour in the morning to be able to produce sounds that might have been similar to a language of Homo sapiens sapiens species.. Although I should have been celebrating..

On Friday it has been 3 months, 13 weeks to be exact, since I arrived in this far-away country. Maybe a lot, maybe just too little, nothing that weird for me, I’ve even spent more time away from home being in Prague only, and it’s relatively quite near. A reason for my melancholic mood was something completely different. Yvonne, a Dutch trainee who spent almost half a year here, left on Sunday. Quite usual. But the fact, that in the next 2 weeks 4 more people are going to leave Costa Rica and that only 2 of us decided to stay here during Christmas, that is quite weird..

Which hopefully is an excuse for my not writing so much recently. I rather spend my time on gathering information and thinking if I can stay here at school during holidays, where is the best and cheapest possibility to get a foreign stamp into my passport, what my plan for Christmas Eve will be and what my next steps after my traineeship and travels are going to be. Earliest at the end of February. Any advices? 🙂

(note: it’s also a small test who is reading my blog, so don’t be shy and express yourself in the comments 🙂

Vzdycky kdyz stravim vecer a noc v San Pedro, musim rano projit centrem hlavniho mesta, abych se dostal na svuj autobus. Cely stred hlavniho mesta je priblizne stejne velky a ma podobny tvar jako Vaclavske namesti. Presneji – je to 13 bloku.

Clovek po ceste potka spousty ruznych lidi, kteri se navzajem lisi barvou pleti, vzrustem, vekem a samozrejme taky duvodem, proc jsou zrovna ted v centru San Jose. Behem 15 minut muzete potkat uplne vsechny typy, na ktere si vzpomenete. Malou starsi domorodou zenu oblecenou v tradicnim odevu ze severu zeme, vysokeho statneho cernocha z jihovychodu, devce puvodem z Asie nebo turistu – belocha, pravdepodobne z USA. Uz proto potkate na kazdem rohu prodejce cehokoliv, od skakacich gumovych kulicek pres tamagoci (ano! 🙂 az po napriklad destnik, ktery vam nabizi chlapek hned jak vystoupite z autobusu za destiveho odpoledne. Podivoval jsem se nad legalnosti poulicniho prodeje a usmevne prchani pred zahlednutou policejni hlidkou me presvedcilo, ze jsem mel pravdu 🙂

Co me ale obzvlaste prekvapuje, je poklid, s jakym mistni ziji svuj zivot. Kostaricke heslo “Pura vida!” totiz najdete schovane ve vsem, na co narazite. Jak uz jsem nekolikrat zminoval, tyka se to obzvlaste nedochvilnosti (“sraz jsme napsali na 8.30, protoze tam mame byt kolem deviti”) pres bezne porusovani domluvenych dohod (“ahoj, cekam u McD, sraz je za 10 minut, jsi na ceste?” – “ahoj, neprijdu”) po neexistenci jizdnich radu (muj osobni rekord je 46 minut nez autobus prijel, behem odpoledni spicky, a 54 minut v patek vecer, nez jsem to zabalil a vratil se). Nemuzete si stezovat, kdyz neni na co. A priroda okolo vas jenom presvedcuje o tom, ze je tady vlastne krasne.

Kdyz uz jsem u te prirody, na okraji San Jose je obrovsky park La Sabana. Najdete tu dva sportovni stadiony, dve hriste na baseball, hromadu placku na basketball, nekolik jezirek a snad desitky kilometru bezeckych trati, asfaltovych nebo lesnich pesinek. O vikendu dopoledne musite docela davat pozor, abyste nahodou neprekazeli ostatnim sportujicim, je jich tu vazne plno. A navic jsem tady videl zdarma predcvicovat aerobik. Nemluve o cyklistech, ktere potkate i pres tyden, jak ve sportovnich uborech krizuji silnice, vyhybaji se vymolum a uhybaji pred kamiony. A to mi v Cesku rikali, ze jsem silenec, kdyz jsem prohlasil, ze jsem zvykly jezdit po cestach pri beznem provozu.

Tady proste nic neni problem, pokud se zivota tyka, a vsechno je problem, kdyz nahodou neco chcete 🙂 Ale to asi vsude na svete. Pri pohledu z okna na uzasne hory je uz pak cloveku jedno, ze ta sprcha je nechutne studena a ze jste se na teplou vodu nebo prestehovani ptali uz pred 2 mesici..

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Everytime I spend evening and night in San Pedro, I have to go through the center of the capital to get to my bus stop. The whole center of the city is more or less the same size and shape as ‘Vaclavske namesti’, one of the squares in Prague. To be exact – it’s 13 blocks.
During the way you can meet a lot of various types of people, that could be distinguished by skin color, height, age and also by a reason, why they are right now in the center of San Jose. In 15 minutes you can really meet any type you can think of. A small older indigenous woman dressed in a traditional clothes from north part of the country, a big muscular black guy from southeast, a girl with roots from Asia or a tourist, mostly white man from USA. Maybe also because of this factor at every corner there are sellers of basically anything – jumping gum balls, tamagochi (yes! 🙂 or even an umbrella that you are offered just after getting off a bus in a rainy afternoon. I was wondering about legality of street sellers but I was persuaded by a little bit funny running away from a police guards 🙂

The thing that really surprises me a lot is the patience of life of the locals. The Costa Rican slogan “Pura vida!” – Pure life – is hidden in everything you have the opportunity to experience. It’s mostly about unpunctuality (“we set the meeting time to 8.30 because we need to be there at 9”), not keeping agreements (“hi, the meeting is in 10 minutes, I’m waiting at McD, are you ont he way?” – “hi, I’m not coming.”) and no existence of timetables (my personal record is 46 minutes before the bus arrived and 54 minutes before I returned back). Well, you can’t really complain where there is nothing to complain about. And the nature around is only telling you that it’s just nice piece of the world.

Talking about nature – at the edge of San Jose there is a giant park called ‘La Sabana’. Here you can find two stadiums, two baseball pitches, a lot of basketball playfields, several small lakes and probably tens of kilometers of running tracks, asphalt as well as forest paths. During weekend morning you have to be quite cautious not to be a constraint to the people running around, there’s just so much of them. And – I even saw a free aerobic classes, not mentioning the bicycle riders that you can meet also during the weekdays cruising the streets in sporty clothes, avoiding road holes and trucks. And I was considered crazy when I said I was used to ride my bike on normal traffic roads back in CZ.

There’s just nothing problematic, concerning your life, and everything is a problem if you coincidentially want something 🙂 But this is probably everywhere around the world. Looking out from your window at the mountains you don’t really care that the shower is so damn cold and that you asked about hot water or moving place 2 months ago..