Playa Hermosa and Date Night

Playa Hermosa

Yesterday we decided to visit Hermosa Beach (about 3 miles south), so we hopped in a taxi and 5 minutes later we were there.  We tripped around a little, but there wasn't too much to see.  We've been to quite a few beach towns now, so we know what to expect.  There was nothing really unique about Hermosa, but it was still fun to explore a new place for a bit (even if it is close to home).

We stopped for lunch at Bowie's Point Restaurant:

It was beautiful and the food was good, but very expensive.  For a salad and burrito, we spent like $30!  I'm sorry, unless I'm shitting diamonds afterwards (pardon my French), a normal salad in Costa Rica shouldn't cost $15!  Of course, I took pictures of our rent-money meal (yea, I'm a little bitter):

Then we went for a stroll on Playa Hermosa:

As you can see, it was pretty deserted and it was gorgeous.  The sand was almost black and powder soft.  The waves were intense though, I fell a few times and ended up with sand in places there should never be sand.  Needless to say, we didn't swim for very long.  The rip tides and currents have been strong lately (probably due to the full moon), even in Jaco (they found a body on Sunday morning), so it's important to be cautious when the waves are strong.

We kept walking and saw a couple lizards, a gross bug and a weird tree:

We stopped into a bar for smoothies and drank in the view:

Then we realized we had seen all of Hermosa in about 2 hours and called a cab to take us home.

Date Night

After dipping into the pool for awhile, we figured we'd do dinner and hit up the local cinema (that's a movie theater, Cali folk).  Aaron has been wanting to see Fast and the Furious and I just wanted a date night, so I was game.  We decided to try an Italian place for dinner, since they're everywhere.  While walking downtown, we stopped into an aquarium because we saw this incredible fish:

All the proprietor really told us is "It's from Africa", but it just looked so frickin crazy we were mesmerized.  

Then off to eat it's fishy cousins (sorry, that was morbid):

The restaurant was called Peccati di Gola, which in Italian means gluttony (I looked it up on my translate app).  Word for word it's "sins of the throat," poetic huh?  I ordered spaghetti frutti de mare, which is seafood pasta:

It was decent, not the best ever and not the worst.  The sauce was delish, but pretty thin and they served it on a flat plate, which was weird to me.  The squid was tough, which is a no-no!  I'm a huge fan of squid and calamari and if it's chewy it's a straight up crime punishable by death (in my head).  Aaron ordered spaghetti with chicken, bacon and spicy peppers and he loved it.  Overall, I guess we give Gluttony a 7 out of 10.

Then it was off to the cinema!  We ran to the store downstairs from the theater because the concession stand was a joke:

They had popcorn and a few gummy candies, but not much else.  At the store, I saw the most massive grapes I've ever seen:

and an entire aisle of Salsa Lizano:

Salsa Lizano is big in Costa Rica.  It's on almost every table in every restaurant and the locals put it on everything.  It tastes a lot like Worcestershire, but the consistency is a bit thicker.  I don't know, it's okay (we've bought a bottle and Aaron puts it on stuff sometimes).

Then it's up to the theater!  

Aaron was so excited to see Fast and Furious, he could barely contain his excitement.  Then we got to the box office and they were SOLD OUT!  And then the Earth came crashing down and everything was darkness.  I could hear the zombies chewing.  Was this the apocalypse we've been told to expect?  No, it was Aaron's insurmountable pain.  Yes, that's how bummed he was.  We still wanted to see a movie, so we settled on:

That's Insurgent, for those of you who don't speak Spanish.  It was definitely entertaining, but not fantastic.  I've seen the first movie and know the story a bit, but I definitely think it appeals more to the young adult crowd.  Don't get me wrong, I like my share of young adult stuff (Hunger Games!), but some stuff (Twilight!) is just too juvenile for me.  I get that makes me sound like a total snob, but it's just not my aesthetic.  If you're into that, more power to you.  That made me sound even worse, didn't it?  I'm just gonna stop before I dig my own grave.  Basically, Insurgent was entertaining and I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have paid to see it (even though I did...which makes absolutely no sense.  What can I say, we're still getting over the black hole in our hearts where Fast and the Furious should have been).

Despite the content, it was great to see a movie!  It was so nice to do something normal and almost imagine we were back home for a couple hours.  

So, the way the Citi Cinemas work is there are 4 movies playing at a time and the theaters are small, like 1/4 the size of a normal theater back home.  There aren't tons of showings, maybe 4 of each movie in a day.  I think all the movies play in English at certain showings (for Fast and Furious and Insurgent, both the evening showings were in English) with Spanish subtitles.  

Since we missed out on Fast and Furious last night, we weren't gonna make that mistake again!  We bought tickets for tonight's showing, so we're doing date night round 2.  Aaron is super psyched.

Lastly, my dear friend, Karina, sent me a letter her daughter, Melanie, wrote to me.  She likes to look at the pictures on my blog and wanted me to post her letter (which is adorable!), so here it is:

Thanks Melanie!  I'll try to spot as many animals as I can, just for you!  Never stop writing, you're a natural!