The Big Book of Why

There is an art to asking questions. I knew it well when I was a kid.

"Mommy, why is the sky blue?"

"Daddy, what are the dogs doing?"

"Random stranger I just met, why do you smell funny?"

I mean the questions never stopped.  It's a miracle I ever even made it into the public education system. It's a wonder my parents didn't strangle me first. They even bought me a book once to try and shut me up. I mean they bought me a lot of books. I loved to read. But this particular book was titled something like "The Big Book of Why?"

I didn't like it. I didn't like the answers it gave because they were too long and scientific. I've always been more of a fiction girl myself. When it came to cold, hard facts and answers, I wanted someone to explain it to me. I wanted someone to sit down and draw me pictures, engage my interest and entertain me.

I'll clarify too that entertainment and television are not always synonymous. Sure it captured my attention for a little while. The scientist with the crazy hair and goggles was good for a laugh, but none of it stuck. It was interesting but it wasn't enough.

 The answers that science gave were never what I wanted them to be. They were always too cut and dry and matter of fact. I wanted the sky to be blue for some other reason than atmosphere and all that scientific mumbo jumbo. I wanted the sky to be blue because the Smurfs painted it that color or because blue was the sky's favorite color or because the sky's grandmother knitted it this nice, soft blue blanket and the sky didn't want to lose it so it wore it all the time.

Asking questions was more gratifying than having a television or a book just tell me answers I hadn't asked. If you asked different people then you always got different answers and your understanding was always growing and changing.

?????

I don't know exactly when I stopped asking questions, but I'd be willing to bet it was very closely related to the day I learned what straight A's were. That day learning became a game of who can get the highest score instead of who can actually obtain the most knowledge. That was probably the very day I stopped asking questions.

In my little brain it only made sense that if you had questions it meant you didn’t know something. And if you didn’t know something it meant you weren’t smart. I wanted to be smart. I wanted to make my parents proud and to win the competition that was the public school grading system.

Thus began the legacy of forgetting how to learn, of forgetting how to ask questions and be curious. I soaked up, like a sponge, everything the teacher said. If I didn't get something I went home and I figured it out, by myself, in secret, enough to get by. And I am an intelligent girl. Enough to get by, really was better than that. It was enough to "succeed" even.

But the question remains…Did I really LEARN anything?

Of course I have to give credit where credit is due. I did have a hand-full of teachers who were truly teachers. They didn't just spoon-feed answers to unasked questions. They made us work for those answers. Every now and then there was a teacher who sparked my imagination and who got me thinking. Wondering. But I let my laziness get the best of me a little too easily sometimes. Sometimes it was just easier to study for the test and get the A, than to take the effort to learn.

*****

So now I'm out of school. Learning should be irrelevant now, right? I got the straight A’s in college. I earned the degree that essentially says:

I, Sara LittleCloud Knight,

am a top notch test taker,

magnificent memorizer

and an overall brilliant bull-shitter.

I "learned" all I’ll ever need to know right? Unless I decide to go back to grad school. But let’s face it, the

root of my problem is not the lack of knowledge, but the loss of a skill I had once taken for granted.

I want to learn how to ask questions again. I want to learn how to learn again and how to use my imagination like I did when my best friend was a lizard and I slayed dragons in the woods behind the house. I want to learn how to see the sky for all that it is, instead of just blue. 

Shuttle Karma: A Fortuitous Sunday Hike

If I had hitched a ride with the boys all the way to the parking lot in Rockwood, the kayakers in the white Toyota would have passed right by without seeing me and my unlikely plan would have fallen apart.

*****

The plan was simple. The guys would get back from their 27-mile kayak trip two hours later than they said they would. I would get to highway 550 two hours after making this plan, via a trail I hoped was the right one. Josh would check his phone when he got to the car and would know the plan. I would have a ride back to my car. Simple.

*****

The previous day I had offered to shuttle Josh and his friends to Silverton so they could kayak back down the Animas River from there. I’d piddle around Silverton a little while, drive the car back to the take-out for the guys and go find a hike closer to Durango.

So Sunday morning we headed out. I left my little Subi at Rockwood where they would finish up, and I climbed into the Toyota with four of Josh’s kayaking friends.

Allow me to take this moment to clarify that there were 6 of us crammed into an SUV at this point. Four, not small, sardines packed into the back seat and two enviable guys in the front. And, in case you haven’t done the math yet, there were 5 kayaks stacked on top of the car. It felt like a clown situation.

Forty-Five minutes later we were in Silverton. Thankfully! We unfolded from the car, gave our limbs a good shaking and then it was time to get to work. Well, it was time for them to get to work. It was time for me to stand in the crisp Colorado sunshine and stare around at the snow-capped mountains and the rushing water and think to myself how lucky I was to be driving the car back and not sitting in a freezing river all day.

A little while later they were all geared up and I snapped a picture as they proudly posed with their boats by the river. They thanked me one last time for driving them all that way, then they were off like a bunch of colorful ducks, cruising with the current. Happy once again not to be in the water, I promptly bee lined it for the nearest warm latte.

An hour later I was back in the car and headed south. I pulled into Rockwood after a leisurely drive, and I cruised along the winding road to the parking lot where my happy Subi sat waiting. I stashed the Toyota keys in the designated spot and doodled about my merry way.

*****

[Cut to around 2 hours later]

I had been hiking for an hour and a half up a trail called Jones Creek Trail. I had passed from Ponderosa Pine land into the magical realm of the Aspen tree. The sky was blue. The sun was shining down on my quickly crisping shoulders. My feet were caked in dust and I was just about as happy as humanly possible.

The trail opened out into a field of dandelions that I regret not frolicking in. At the other end I found an intersecting trail.  

“Pinkerton Flagstaff Trail”

Well, I had only been hiking an hour and a half and really wanted to keep going. Now I had to decide whether I should go left or right. Well left looked like it went up hill some more, and being the type who can only enjoy down-hill if I know I won’t have to come back up it later, I chose the higher trail and away I went.

As I hiked steadily upward and the mountains began to rise around me in the distance, a little thought kept tugging at the corners of my concentration. The little though presented itself somewhat like this:

Pinkerton Flagstaff is the trail you hiked with Josh back in March.

That trail started at 550.

The trailhead is really close to the takeout where the Toyota is parked.

Did I turn the right way?

If only I had a map I could see which way I should be going on this trail and I could meet up with them and they could give me a ride back to my car, back in Hermosa.

It would be perfect!

So about 30 minutes later I was at a high point on the trail and couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to test my luck with the Verizon gods

 YES! Service!

I sat down on a stump and did something I am NOT proud of. I used my phone’s internet capabilities while out enjoying an adventure in the woods. [Cringe] In my defense though, if I had had a map you can rest assured I wouldn’t have touched that “mobile network” button.

As it turns out, I had turned the wrong way back in the magical meadow of dandelions. That was an easy fix though. What had taken me 30 minutes to walk up, took only 15 to race back down. I was back at the intersection in no time. I took a moment’s breath and one last look back down the Jones Creek trail. Then I was off. I only had a vague idea of how many miles I had ahead of me. I had no idea if I would have a ride once I made it to the end. I just had this gut feeling that I had to follow.

The next hour was pretty much just me praying that the part of the trail I recognized would be around the next bend. I had come out into an open part on a bit of a ridge and was making the climb to the top of the rise when I looked down and had to change my foot’s trajectory mid step to miss the Horny Toad who was sunning on the trail. I stopped and smiled and told him to be more careful in the future about where he chose to laze around. [When you’re hiking alone, you aren’t picky about who or what you’ll talk to.]

I left the lizard behind and as I continued up the trail, something came over me and I knew everything was just going to work.

 Sure enough, about thirty seconds later I came around a bend and up over the top of the hill. I threw my hands up and let out a victorious “WOO HOO!!!” I had found it! I was definitely on the right trail and going in the right direction, and if memory served me right, I only had about an hour left to go.

So, at about 5 o’clock I reached the last couple hundred meters of trail. I up-ended my water bottle and promised myself I’d eat all of the fruit later, and make smoothies for the next week. The last forty-five minutes I had been having fantasies about fruit juice and smoothies, and pretty much anything cold and even remotely water-based.

I came around the last corner and that’s where I met the final piece in the puzzle. Five high-school-aged  boys were climbing on a wall of rock, hidden in the trees. I was so hot and thirsty and had no idea if Josh and his posse were off the river or not, and if they were, if they had even gotten my message.  The boys saw me walking by and said hi. I greeted them in return, and with NO hesitation asked if they had any extra water. I told them I had been hiking for about 4 hours and the sun was brutal. They happily offered me a full bottle of cool, wonderful, refreshing water which I promptly drained.

One of the boys asked if I needed a ride anywhere. At first I declined, saying that my friends should be off the river soon and would stop by and get me. After thinking a minute though, I realized that I would have much better luck getting a ride from the kayakers if I was in Rockwood where the car was. The turn off to Rockwood was only a couple of miles up the road. The boys assured me they were finishing up and would be happy to give me a ride.

*****

If I had hitched a ride with the boys all the way to the parking lot in Rockwood, the kayakers in the white Toyota would have passed right by without seeing me and my unlikely plan would have fallen apart. I didn’t ride all the way to the parking lot though. At the intersection with 550, I thanked the guys for the millionth time, hopped out of the backseat and marched off down the road. I don’t know what made me get out there, but I just knew I didn’t need to go all the way to the parking lot.

I had been walking maybe 5 minutes, probably less when it happened. The white Toyota, piled high with kayaks and packed full of smelly guys, came around the corner. I threw my hands up and smiled as big as I possibly could.

It had worked!

My crazy, impulsive, irrational plan had actually worked! They pulled up beside me and asked if was ok and if I needed a ride. I asked if they could drive me back to my car at Hermosa, and as we drove the 10 or 15 miles back to the trail head,  I filled them in on what had just happened.

Moral of the story:

Instant shuttle karma is a thing. 

Back in Durango, a 10-point recap

Ok. It’s time. Correspondences are up and running once again.

So now I have to figure out how to fill you in on the last year in one blog post. I mean let’s face it, I don’t want to write a slew of posts about the last year, and I’m quite sure you don’t want to read all that.

I’ll do a 10-point list. Everyone loves a good bullet-point presentation right?!

Number 1: I came home. I was so shockingly homesick by the time the plane touched down that I really did want to kiss the great American soil. You’ll happily note that I refrained after seeing some of the shoes walking on it. Instead I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time in 6 months, drove straight to a gas station and bought junk food labeled in English. It’s kind of the same right?

Number 2: I came home. Ok so that first home-coming was to Texas, where I grew up and where my parents are and where all of my worldly possessions were etc . A month after that I came back to Durango. Again, I wanted to kiss the beautiful Colorado soil but thought better of it and went for some local beer instead. (Junk food in Texas…Beer in Colorado…It’s all like kissing the soil really.)

Number 3: I found a job. Two actually. You do what you must. When you touch ground with no more than a suit case, a backpack and your own determination to survive, you can’t really be picky with your job choices. Within the week I was working at the local bagel shop and answering phones at an electric company.

Number 4: I found a bicycle. This may seem silly and not like a legitimate point but when you are stranded to your own two feet it becomes quickly apparent how big your little town really is. Two wheels are better than none.

Number 5: I found a house. Yep, that’s right. I didn’t have a home when I landed. I didn’t have a home, a car or a job. So my friend Shelby and I found a house (which has turned out to be pretty…special. I can write you a post about the house later. Just you wait.)

So brief recap: We are at bullet five and I have moved back to the US and back to Colorado. I have two jobs, one bike and one house.

Number 6: I got a car. As great as two wheels are, many would say that 4 are better. I agree, but much like the house, the car brought with it its own little series of special misfortunes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy not to be crammed like a sardine on a hot, sweaty bus. I’m happy to be able to get out of town without navigating the Central American understanding (or lack thereof) of time. I really am thankful to be on my own wheels again. No one ever said though (and if they did I don’t care) that you can’t be happy and still complain about a few little hiccups in your otherwise unobjectionable life.

Number 7: I decided not to go to grad school. What? Yeah, I was thinking about doing the whole grad school online thing. It’s not a bad idea really. Not if you have something you are really passionate about and enough money and/or monetary prospects to make it out without owing ‘the man’ for too long. So with that in mind I did some very simple math…oh who am I kidding!? Honestly, I just decided I didn’t want to do it. Not now anyway. 

Number 8: I met someone. I mean technically I met a lot of people. I have become exponentially more outgoing since having to navigate life in a foreign language. But the point here is that I met someone. It’s going well. Nuff said.

Number 9: I found a better job. I am now working as an assistant to dental consultants. I am learning SO much. In fact, any doubts I had about skipping out on the whole grad school thing have pretty much completely dissipated at this point.

Number 10: I quit my other two jobs. Unless you have to, which many do, I see no reason to have 3 jobs. I quit the electric company first. I did find the other job in order to replace the inexplicably monotonous job of answering maybe 5 phone calls a day. Then after about 3 more months of one-day weekends I reclaimed my precious Saturdays and bid my farewell to the Druango Bagel. Last Saturday was my last day there. 

So that’s it. You’re caught up. I am back in Durango with a job, a place to live, a car, a bike, a boyfriend, no grad school debt, and weekends off. Sure my adventures may not be quite so grand or exotic as visiting volcanoes but shame on me if I ever stop having adventures. 

Heredia VS Cartago

Allow me to set the scene.

The biannual National Soccer Finals. The last two teams play two games and the winner is determined by the combined score of both games. So in other words, if you lost 3 to 1 in the first game you could still come back…maybe. Or if you won 3 to 1 in first round you could still lose…eek. It all rides on that second game and how many goals you can get…or how many goals you can stop the other team from getting.

Cartago-They haven’t won a finals game in over 70 years…(75 maybe). They won the first game last Sunday…3 to 1. Really, they straight owned last Sunday. They showed up to the Heredia stadium last night ready to change history.

Heredia- Not the underdogs you wanna cheer for maybe, but who wants to lose to the team who hasn’t won in decades? They lost miserably last Sunday in the first game, looking more like a little league team than a national contender.

*Note: I live in Heredia and since I have no other loyalties it only makes sense that I should be a Heredia fan to the death…or at least to the end of my stay in the country.

Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. The sound of car horns honked this…anthem? ...throughout the streets of Heredia yesterday. All day. At any given breath or interval you could hear it miles away or just outside the door. The fans were rallying their enthusiasm, their support and their energies for the night ahead. The big game.

At 6 Veronica, Mary and I left the house to brave the streets for a pre-game beer and to meet up with some friends before diving into the red and yellow sea of the Heredia stadium. The game started at 8 and already the chants and yells and honks and beeps were echoing off every surface of the city. Central park was alive with loving fans smiling and sharing in the kinds of shenanigans that come from a life-long love of the same team.  Of course we were decked out in appropriate attire: Mary in a team T, Veronica in a red hoodie, and I in a shirt so close to red who would know, and a yellow lei draped proudly around my neck. Someone had given Mary a free team flag on her way to meet us at our house, and then on the street corner as we headed to the stadium she was gifted with a package of tortillas…to what purpose we never quite figured out but it was game day so what the hell? Vive Heredia!

Ooeee Oeoeoeee! El Teeaam! El Teeaam!

Sí se puede! Sí se puede! Sí se puede!

As we left the bar for the stadium the chants filled the air. So much optimism. So much confidence. So much joy. Last week’s performance didn’t matter. I was all about this night. This game. Every face was aglow with that childlike confidence that everything will be ok if I just cheer loud enough, or pray hard enough, or shine bright enough, my team WILL win. And as we filed into the stadium the insanity sunk in even more. An hour before the game and the stands were overflowing. Fans were perched on the fence between the field and the seats, with more clinging on below. The men were dressed almost as if it were Halloween with their red wigs left over from some ex-girlfriend’s slutty costume of years past, and their masks of whatever sort (it was festive so it didn’t matter). They wore face paint and body paint, and everything in their closet that was red and/or gold. The women wore their tightest pants and T’s, and their hair and make-up were flawless. We are Heredia, Costa Rica and we are proud.

But dressed to the nines or in nine different things, no importa, when the players came out on the field all were equal. Equally excited. Equally insane. Equally enthusiastic to give their voices up to their players for a win. I mean we’re talking screaming, jumping, throwing confetti, throwing rolls of paper that unraveled through the air like streamers, spraying fire-extinguishers filled with red and yellow…whatever it is fire-extinguishers are filled with. You would think we had already won. And our little group of fans for the night put on our game faces and acted a fool with the rest of them…

Ooeee Oeoeoeee! El Teeaam! El Teeaam!

Sí se puede! Sí se puede! Sí se puede!

I won’t give you a play-by-play. I actually can’t give you a play by play. Red cards. Yellow cards. The ball moving around the field…out of the stadium. People falling. My attention span is really only long enough to watch when the ball is close to the goal. I’ll just shoot for an overview. At half time Heredia was ahead 1-0. There was a current of mixed energy pulsing through the red/yellow mass as we waited out the minutes to the second half. Heredia was winning the game…but they still needed two more points to  beat Cartago for good. Heredia scored again sometime in the second half …it actually gets really fuzzy here. All I know is we went into a 15-minute overtime because the teams were tied for total points. Heredia scored again and the stands went ballistic…again. It was seriously like we won the whole thing every time we scored. Then Cartago scored. The teams were tied once more. More overtime…And then a shoot-out. (If we were worried we had paid too much for these tickets, by this time our fears were relinquished.)

A shoot-out. Five players from each team go one-on-one against the goal keepers. Alternating. Shot for shot. Cartago first. Point. Heredia. Point. Cartago. Point. Heredia. Point. Cartago. BLOCKED!!!!! Heredia. POINT!!!!Cartago. Point. Heredia. POINT!!! Cartago. Point. Heredia……GGGGGOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!The fans spilled over the fences and onto the field.  (I know the word spilled sounds a bit cliché…but it was honestly like a liquid mass of red and gold pouring, flowing, splashing into the center of the stadium.)

It was the part of the movie where things start going into slow motion and the camera starts zooming in on those beautiful little individual moments. The Grown men in their red and yellow crying and pulling each other in for the shirtless hug. Women in their heels jumping up and down. The old lady waving her little flag wildly around in the air and the old men running out to join the rest as if they were kids. Fireworks. Things would slowly fade to black and white as the stage was brought out onto the field for the awards ceremony and post-game interviews.

We didn’t stick around for the whole shebang. Hunger and warm beds were calling to those of us whose hearts are not so devoted to the love of the team. We pushed, and were pushed through the definition of a bottleneck as we tried to make out way out of the crazed stadium. After just enough time to make me feel a notch above molested we were spit out on the other side where the infection of joy was spreading and thriving out in the streets. The drivers were drinking and honking and moving a centimeter a minute. The sidewalks were crawling or teaming or just…alive. Someone was spraying water from a hose out into the street from the second floor. As we approached central park the church bells were ringing and if you looked up into the tower you could actually see the priest, his whole body and soul thrown to the endeavor. After a few minutes he stopped ringing the bells and took up a Heredia flag to wave from the window of the bell tower. Yes…I think even God probably did a fist pump or two.

The honking and hollering continued into the night…and the honking, on into today. As I ate my breakfast at about 9 this morning I could hear the horns out across the city…and even now (5:22 PM) a car just drove by: Beepbeepbeep Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. I criticize this country for its childishness sometimes, but sometimes it’s good to see this much happiness one place. 

(I dare not speculate on the despair and shame of not winning a twice-annual national soccer tournament 75 years strait when there are only 8 teams in the league...)

Barva Volcano

So there’s this volcano…And I know I keep telling you about all these volcanoes but I really think this is the one. I guess what I mean is I feel like a broken record with the volcano stories but it’s better than the alternative. I promise. I suppose I could regale you with stories of the latest movies I have streamed online, or the people I have seen on the bus, or how a jar of peanut butter is more than $6. So…volcano story it is

*****

Barva Volcano. We read somewhere online that the bus would leave at 6:30 from point X. So at 6:45 or 6:50 on Sunday morning we loaded onto said bus at point -X-3 blocks or so. Accuracy is not a priority here. Fortunately we had Sida (our hilarious roommate from Columbia whose personality more than makes up for whatever she lacks in size.) She made sure we found the illusive bus to begin with and that we got off at the right stop…the right stop being basically on the side of a mountain on a road I didn’t even know a bus could navigate. But there was a sign…and it even had an arrow to tell us that Volcán Barva was up and that way. So we started walking.

I find it a little funny that no one told us a taxi wouldn’t be an option. We knew it was 10 Kilometers from the bus stop to the entrance…we didn’t know it was 10 Kilometers from absolutely nowhere. For the first hour or so we half-heartedly offered our thumbs to the fates, but most cars were headed down the mountain instead of up, and those who were headed up were either too small or too full for 5 girls on a mission. By the second hour we had pretty much accepted the truth that no taxi, no truck and nothing else with tires would be taking our tired feet up this mountain. So step by step we forged forward, and upward and occasionally backward up the road.

                *But really, picture it for a second, five girls walking backward up this road on the side of a volcano…right!? Haha.

At some point the pavement ended and we wound ever upward on rock and dirt and past Dr. Seuss trees and sprawling glimpses of the valley below…I have no idea what all we talked about for those 2 hours headed up. How much our legs hurt? How beautiful it was? What we needed to get at the grocery store? One of the girls, Mary, had gone back to the states for a week and Veronica and I grilled her about the whole experience.  

   Where did you go first?

   What was the first think you ate? How did your stomach feel?

   Did you drive? What was it like?

   What was it like to be surrounded by English?

   Did you go to the grocery store? Was it weird to understand everything effortlessly?

I would rank my curiosity and enthusiasm on par with a kid asking her friend what Disney Land had been like…or an acne-plagued teen grilling his older brother about girls and sex. No detail was too small.

And so the time passed and at about 10 we finally dragged our weary legs up to the ticket window…    
          Prices:  

                Residents- $2

                Non-Residents- $8
I don’t know if they guy booth was feeling extra generous or maybe just lazy and non-confrontational but whatever the case we all only paid our $2 (and believe me…I do not look like a local). We trekked onward.

Aside from hungers pains and a minor dehydration headache, the feeling I remember the most clearly was awe at how relatively close we were to our house and how very much in the jungle we were. Moss covered trees, vines hanging and reaching, green in every direction but down where we danced around the mud from the daily rains. And at last, the lagoon.

Have you ever been on an airplane, flying through a cloud? You’re looking out the window and it’s just hopelessly white. Maybe you sat over the wing but can’t remember because where the wing would be it’s only…white… and thus we approached the water. It could have been an ocean or a big puddle, and anything could have swum, or flown, or walked out of that fog. It was so dense you could actually see the individual particles of moisture swirling about in the slightest breath of a breeze.

We did finally get to see the lake and the wall of trees and green rising up on the other side. But only maybe 60 seconds, then the peep show was over and the cold damp air ushered us away and back on our way back down.

By the time we reached the bus stop again it was 1 and almost raining. We all fell fast asleep on the bus ride home. And at about 2:45 after scarfing down a sandwich in a delirious frenzy and somewhat showering off, I curled up in my bed to rest for real after yet another very successful Sunday Funday. 

Culture Shock

There are 4 stages to culture shock.

Excitement

Withdrawal

Adjustment

Enthusiasm

And it takes time to traverse the span of emotions associated with each.

Excitement- September – February

Honemoon

I passed easily and painlessly through this phase with flying colors. I loved the Spanish all around me, and the market on Saturday mornings and the bus (on time or late or moved around the corner from where it was yesterday.) I loved the beach a few hours away. I was moving around constantly, and spending a month doing my TEFL course, and going home for Christmas and coming back and getting an apartment and starting new jobs.  It was fun.

Withdrawal- February-End of April

This was the part where I found myself crying behind my huge sunglasses at the bus stop, and packing my bags in the middle of the night, and leaving class to pull myself together in the bathroom, and being generally racist for lack of a better word. I fantasized about buying plane tickets and went to Walmart just to feel at home. This was not the most rational point in my life.

Adjustment- End of April to Present

I would argue that I’m not completely out of withdrawal. I still can’t say that I have completely embraced this new world, but I don’t hate it nearly as passionately as before either. Some little bastards actually threw water on me out a car window the other day and I didn’t even shed a tear. I just flipped them off and kept walking. About 30 minutes later I even laughed about it.  If that had happened a month ago I probably would have just sat right down on the side of the road and thrown a full blown pity party. Progress.

Enthusiasm-

This part is supposed to come after about a year when you have really established a life and made a place for yourself in your new environment.

Yeah.

I think one of my bosses said it best: “Why spend your whole life working so you can retire in 

paradise, when you could just spend your life working in paradise?”

By the end of June I will be completely out of withdrawal I think, and will have started adjusting and relearning to love everything again. Good. I won’t be leaving on a sour note. I won’t be staying though to experience the enthusiasm phase. Why spend my life working and waiting to fall in love with this place, when I could just leave here now with some priceless life experiences and get back to the paradise where my heart already is?

Home Sweet Beer Festival

I’ll preface this by saying that my day-to-day life is a Central American cultural experience, so don’t judge when I say that on Saturday I fully appreciated, and even reveled in going home.

I went back to Colorado on Saturday.

Ok not really. I went to a beer festival, but it felt like home. The smell and taste of craft beers, the ambient sound of English floating in conversations all around me, the general air of relaxed excitement about being in the presence of something other than good ole Imperial or Pilsen. I kept feeling like I had just seen my friends a second ago and they’d be back any minute.

*****

I didn’t get a ticket. I didn’t know I could go until they had already sold out. You could still enter for free so the ticket thing wouldn’t normally be so bad except that with the ticket you got a t-shirt, and an awesome little beer-sampling mug, and some other random shit. I LOVE free t-shirts that are actually cool…*sigh. It’s ok.

My roommates, Veronica and Isa had tickets so I can’t really complain too much. With the ticket you were able to taste every beer they had there so I just mooched and we all left pleasantly buzzed. We tried everything from IPAs to stouts so rich and dark it was like sipping a cup of coffee (I think one might have actually had coffee in it) to one or two so sweet and light they could have been juice.

The beer was really only half the fun though. It’s the people who make these things. It’s the grown men in lederhosen (or rather, grown man. Singular.  One dude just rockin it). It’s the fact that one brewery brought goats to the event. I mean who doesn’t want to pet a baby goat while they taste beer? It’s the 60-something year-old gringos who have clearly retired here and are just livin’ the dream and making beer. It’s the guy who gave me his pretzel necklace when he saw me pointing at it. I was only trying to ask Isa how you say ‘pretzel necklace’ in Spanish. It’s the photo bomb below. It’s the sweet sweet sound of English drifting on the breeze.

I have grown oddly accustomed to only understanding about 25% of what I hear on the street or just in passing. For an eavesdropping addict this can get frustrating at times. So imagine how surreal and even heavenly it was to be surrounded by words I didn’t have to think about to understand. Imagine just being able to know what everyone was saying. Ok, not really a leap of the imagination for most of you…but I was like a kid in a candy store. I pretty much walked around for the whole afternoon with a huge perma-smirk plastered on my face.

*****

So I guess in closing, live where you live and soak up the culture, but there is also something to be said for being able to think you’ve gone home every once in a while.