The word of the day is:

"Hilo dental"

Dental floss. Or the equivalent of what Americans call "butt floss" - it is simply amazing how many slang terms translate perfectly into one language, while they are utterly unimaginable in another language (Hinternzahnseide?).


I've completed my first week of Spanish here and it was just enough to realize how much I don't know - most of the time it's simply vocabulary that is missing. That and the desire to construct more complex sentences than necessary. Today I learned the entire vocabulary for the women's wardrobe - from maternity dress (el vestido maternal) over panties (los calzones - you don't eat calzones in C.R.) to the bra (el sosten) and of course the backside of a tanga - the hilo dental. I'll try my best to put that vocabulary to good use over the next weeks, I've already found uses of the verb "to turn on" that my teacher apparently wasn't expecting...

All in all there are about 60 students here in Playa Flamingo learning Spanish - some of them for similar reasons like me, others preparing for work in a Spanish speaking country, and yet others are still in school and earn some college credits here (those of course are the most studious people around, like college kids are).

The people here in Costa Rica are very friendly and helpful - up to the point where it seems to be "off" for us: I had just finished a drink and wanted to throw the empty can into a trash can. The can was packed full, so I decided to just carry the can until I would hit the next trash can. A passing bus driver saw me and stopped the bus, rolled down the window and pointed at the trash in my hand. Upon seeing the confused look in my face he dug up a trash bag from the floor of the bus and pointed again at the can and then the trash bag. I handed him the can, he put it in the trash and drove off. No word was exchanged. Now one might believe that maybe they are just very enviromentally conscious here - believe me, the ditches on the side of the road and the constantly burning trash fires in every front yard speak a different story. There also isn't any refund on cans or aluminum, so that can't be it either. Did he really just want to lift the burden of carrying an empty can from trash can A to trash can B from me? I'll never know.

This weekend I'll head to the "big" city of Brasilito. It has got 2 supermarkets and an internet place with DSL, maybe I'll be finally able to upload some pictures then.