Houses and circles

I got to see a tiny bit of Costa Rica on Tuesday, and I mean tiny. Compared to the natural riches this country has to offer, I've seen a minuscule amount of Costa Rica.

But what little I saw, I took pictures of. The first two pictures are of the countryside, on the drive from one hotel to another.

The houses are tucked in right on the hills that engulf this region. The hills are all green and filled with vegetation, so the locals had to build the houses among them. I've not seen a lot of different areas of the city but this portion was filled with houses and buildings set this way.

One other thing I've seen a lot of but didn't snap any good pictures of are the English-language restaurants. I've seen Subway, Denny's (I actually ate there today, out of need mostly), Outback Steakhouse, Hooters (though I may have preferred eating here) and saw some construction for new restaurants including McDonald's and Taco Bell. For a minute I thought I was back in SoCal.

But the one thing that always lets me know that I'm not in Kansas anymore (relatively speaking of course) is this:

The traffic circle. Man, I am telling you, you take your life in your hands when have to navigate by foot across one of these. I had to do so because I needed to get to an ATM, which I did, and the cars here do not stop for you. You have to wait until there's an opening and go. It's like a real-live version of Frogger, starring LB as the Frog.

Luckily I didn't get smashed.

Oh yeah, quickly on the ATM. I withdrew 10,000 Colones (the local currency) and I felt like I had a lot of money. Until I realized that that was about 14 dollars or so. I went back and got some more.