I realized that although I’ve been uploading these pictures to flickr, I’ve not been putting them on this blog for the last couple of days, so here they are:

August 9th: Kind of lame for a Picture of the Day, but there are lots of flowers around these days.

August 10th: This is a bug that Angela found on the side of the house, so she called me over to see it. She said that this is sometimes called “mula del diablo,” or the “devil’s mule,” but then again, I’m pretty sure she’s pointed out about three other, completely different bugs that she also said were called “mula del diablo.”
In any case, it was about 6 or 7 inches long, and pretty cool looking.

August 11th: This is our “Cucho candle,” which we decided to light to think about Cucho, who died almost a month ago. We still miss him. He was a great cat.

August 12th: And now for something completely different…
On Thursdays I’ve been going to San Jose to teach in the evenings. The first week I went there I noticed a fast food restaurant called “Don Döner,” or “Mister Döner.” As you can imagine, my curiosity was piqued… could it actually be the same delicious döner kebab as found in Turkish restaurants in Germany??
As it turns out, almost. It was quite tasty, but still not as good as in Germany. And probably Turkey, for that matter!

August 13th: Our car had a problem with its brake lights. They wouldn’t turn off, no matter what we did. I had to disconnect the cable that led from the fuse box, but that was only temporary. In the end, a guy from down the road came over and was able to fix the problem. He had to dismantle about half of the car in the immediate vicinity of the steering wheel, but it worked, and he only charged us about 10 dollars. We got lucky on that one.

August 14th: This is a poster we have hanging up at work. It’s for the United Nation’s refugee organization. I decided to take a picture of it because of the phrase “I hope I find some water soon,” which was ironic because the water went out at school that day.

August 15th: An apple cake that I made for Mother’s Day (it’s August 15th in Costa Rica). I got the recipe from our Belgian friend Sofie, and it turned out very tasty!

August 16th: It’s been raining a lot lately, but in the last week or so it’s gotten strange. It’ll storm crazily for a short period, and then shape up for a while. In this case, it had rained a lot in the morning, and then it basically got clear in the afternoon.

Still, we could see part of the coast (in the horizon here, you can see the Gulf of Nicoya and the peninsula where Guanacaste is), but there were these super-puffy white clouds just sitting there, slowly moving up the hills.

August 17th: “Dónde jugarán los niños?” Ha ha! This is just a swing at the school where I work. They finally replaced the wood seats, but now it looks like the chain could use a bit of attention.

August 18th: I actually read most of this on the 17th, but it kept me awake into the wee hours of the 18th, as well. It was a good book, and if you’ve read “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” you’re sure to like this (and to notice some pretty obvious plot similarities). Fortunately, both books are quite enjoyable and well-written.

So, that’s it for now. As usual, there are some leftovers, including pictures from Mother’s Day at Angela’s folks’. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!