Valentine's Day at Chinook Tavern

Happy Valentine's Day! Kerri and I had a wonderful dinner for Valentine's Day last night at Chinook Tavern in Denver. Though we do have our good friends Zach and Amanda to thank for dinner having given us a thoughtful Christmas present dinner at the restaurant! It only took us about 30 minutes at dinner to stop saying "si" and "por favor" to everything the waitress said. And I was able to order a lime in my Coke for the first time in 6 weeks--I have yet to learn "lime" in Spanish.

Home, Sweet Home

Kerri and I are back home in Denver for a couple of weeks! Due to booking our tickets separately, I took off an hour and a half before she did from the Juan Santamaria Aiport in Costa Rica and went through Phoenix, she went through Dallas, and amazingly we arrived in Denver 5 minutes apart from one another.

Man, does it feel good to be home and sleep in your own bed after 6 weeks in a foreign country. And a week of that in a foreign hospital!

Weekend at the Beach

Kerri and I spent the weekend in Tamarindo, Costa Rica for Paradise Poker's $1,000,000 Masters IV final table. Our upgrade to the Daihatsu Terios didn't work out so well--it was basically the equivalent of a Suzuki Samurai (if you remember that car from the 90s). So we took it back and upgraded to the Toyota Prado--the international version of the Toyota 4Runner. It made the drive to the coast about 5 times smoother.

Enough about cars. We arrived on Friday evening and had a great cocktail party and dinner with the 10 players that had made the final table. 9 men and 1 woman. About par for the course for poker these days. We were all secretly rooting for the woman during play on Saturday, but unfortunately she was short-stacked going into the final table. Toby Stubbs took down the top prize.

We had a great dinner on the beach afterwards to celebrate with the Paradise Poker team. And then off to the Jazz Casino in town for a little poker both nights. We played from about 8-2 on Friday night and I was dealt AAs, KKs, QQs, JJs, AK, AQ, and AJ and went home the big winner. Anybody can play when they get the cards though. On Saturday night, I wasn't so lucky and gave back a bit of my winnings to the locals. But just a bit.

The drive back from Tamarindo was a long one after getting stuck behind a sugar cane truck for about 50 kilometers. That's 30 miles for all of you in the States. Have to think in 6/10 when I'm in Costa Rica! But it was made much more enjoyable with some lively conversation with our good friends John and Janna. Great to spend the weekend with them as they are headed back to Ireland in March.

(Photos to come! We bought a disposable camera for the trip--as we had our digital camera stolen on New Year's--only to have me leave the disposable by the pool. Thankfully, someone turned it in and the hotel is mailling it to us in the States.)

Destination: Tamarindo...Take 2

Kerri and I are headed back to Tamarindo this weekend for Paradise Poker's $1,000,000 Masters IV final table. The event will be played live on Saturday, February 11 at the Hotel Diria Tamarindo. Here is the breakdown of the chip count and the players going into the final table.

After last weekend's adventure on Costa Rica's roads (read below) and the fact that we'll be driving up with our Irish friends John and Janna, we've upgraded from the Toyota Yaris to the Daihatsu Terios. Car names in Costa Rica are just as weird as in the US.

Then on Monday, we're headed back to Denver for a couple of weeks!

Lightning, Italians, and Guayanas...Oh My!

Kerri and I are back from our weekend trip to Tamarindo. It was quite an eventful weekend! Over the course of three days, we:

• Drove 6 hours in a tropical rainstorm (lightning included).
• Arrived at our hotel only to discover that the hotel had messed up our reservation and was overbooked. Negotiated a free night for Saturday night.
• Ate banana macadamia nut pancakes. Twice.
• Ate steak and lobster. Twice. For $20!
• Played poker with a Frenchman, three Italians, two Americans, and two Costa Ricans. Saw quad Qs twice in 3 hours. Neither was mine. Walked out slightly richer. Slightly.
• Took our Yaris through Costa Rican's worst pot holes. Think Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
• Found Mexican food. Finally.
• Almost drove over 2 iguanas. Iguana disaster averted.
• Passed 2,341 fruit stands from Tamarindo to San Jose. Hypothesized that "guayana" means "guava". Have not confirmed.
• Had "Texas BBQ Ribs" on the way home. Yes, in Costa Rica.
• Forgot to take any pictures of ourselves on the trip.
  

And we're headed back this coming weekend for Paradise Poker's Masters IV $1,000,000 Final Table.

I'm Going to Disney World!

The Steelers outlasted the Seahawks in a defensive battle in the Super Bowl today. The only reason I bring it up is because my good friend Zach (best man at my wedding) is the biggest Steelers fan I've ever met in my life. And I took the Steelers and the points. At 21-10 and a 4.5 point spread and the Seahawks with the ball, I had a tense final 60 seconds.

¡Si!

Today is the presidential election in Costa Rica. Things are crazy here. People are out and about everywhere, waving flags, handing out flyers, etc. They have a law where they stop selling alcohol in the country on Thursday night and then don't resume again until Monday morning after the election is over. Kind of ironic considering it's the same weekend as the Super Bowl.

The Costa Ricans even have a carpool system set-up to get people to the polls, especially people that live outside San Jose and other towns. People attach huge colored flags to their car of the candidate they support and then drive around picking up anyone else who wants to vote for their candidate and take them to the polls. Rumor has it that Oscar Arias will win. As foreigners, we obviously can't vote. But folks tell us that Arias is the way to go—he's very "pro-American" and is trying to pass further legislation to encourage immigration and investment by Americans into Costa Rica.

Destination: Tamarindo

Kerri and I are off to Tamarindo this weekend to explore the beaches of Costa Rica for the first time. Tamarindo is in Guanacaste near Liberia on the West Coast of Costa Rica. We are staying at the Jardin del Eden.

I'm hoping we can find some Mexican food there.

Was That Bernie Ebers I Just Saw at Hooters?

There's a lot of ex-pats living in Costa Rica. Americans for sure, but also lots of Canadians, Australians, Brits, etc. There's a funny saying down here about the ex-pats: "Everyone here is either not wanted back where they're from, or they are wanted back where they're from."

Take my hair stylist for example. She came down to Costa Rica, opened a salon and spa, was hauled back to the United States by the Feds for securities fraud, spent three years in jail, then came back to Costa Rica to her salon.

But she's a nice lady. And she gives a good haircut. So who am I to judge?

Hooters in Costa Rica?

So probably the strangest thing about Costa Rica so far is the restaurant selection. Within 1 mile of where we live, we have:

• TGI Friday's
  
• Tony Roma's
  
• Outback Steakhouse
  
• Hooters
  
• McDonald's
  
• Burger King
  
• Kentucky Fried Chicken
  
• Taco Bell
  
• Subway
  
• Quizno's

It's like we never even left the US!

(I say "the US" because you don't say "America" down here. When you say "America", they say, "You are in America." Central and South Americans are a little senstive about the whole North/Central/South America thing.)

But to really make things interesting, Tex-Mex food (my personal favorite) is nowhere to be found in Costa Rica. OK, yeah, we have Taco Bell, but that doesn't count. I've looked everywhere and asked everyone and I always get the same answer, "Yeah, we don't really have Mexican food down here." It's 500 miles to the Mexican border and you're trying to tell me that Mexican food has never made it down here? Not a taco, an enchilada, or even a chalupa or two? I e-mailed the CEO of Chevy's and informed him of the market opportunity. He hasn't responded yet.

And on top of that, every restaurant is Italian. I'm exaggerating a little. We have found a sushi place and an Indian place and people have told us about a great Thai place. But we have probably been to 10 different Italian restaurants so far. Costa Ricans love their Italian.