Costa Rica 3~28~11

On Monday morning, I woke up feeling so rested and was glad to see the sun starting to come in through the drapes. I was sure it was around 9 or so. Wrong! Try 5:30. Costa Rica does not observe daylight savings time so the sun rises about 5:30 every morning. By 6 AM,its looks like its in the middle of the day outside because its so bright. Oh well, we're morning people so no big deal. We ate breakfast and my love affair with sweet plantains began. It's like heaven in your mouth.

After breakfast, we decided to take a little walk on the beach. The beach was called Playa Conchal which means "shell beach". There were millions of tiny shells in the sand which surprisingly didn't hurt your feet to walk on. Unfortunately, my I blew out my flip flop. Neal's question of why I always pack several pairs of black flip flops was finally answered.

We visited with one of the local tour guides on the beach and booked an excursion for Wednesday. We jumped in the pool and began enjoying the swim up bar. Their speciality drink is called a "dirty monkey" and it was fabulous. This time was so much fun because we were constantly talking about the wedding. We ate lunch at the hotel and then got the car to go scope out some of the other beaches. Ended up at Playa Grande and walked on that beach for a while. When we returned, it was time for one of the many naps we took during the week. We had dinner at the Italian restaurant which had really good food. We mistakenly ordered a bottle of wine thinking it was included but were surprised when the waiter brought us a bill for $108! We learned the hard way that the glasses of wine are included but not the bottles. We chalked it up to having a fabulous meal with fabulous conversation and called it a day. We heard there was a casino in the next beach town over, so we drove to check it out. They called it a casino but it was more like a game room. One blackjack table, one poker table, a few slots and a video roulette table. We tried our hand at roulette. Neal lost his $20 pretty fast. Mine lasted a little bit longer and I eventually won back our $40. I kept betting the same numbers. 3-26-11 for our wedding date. Consistency paid off!