The infamous Hotel Del Rey

Folks,

I didn’t get around to writing over the weekend, and yesterday was my birthday, so we ended up going out for a few drinks.

Hotel Del Rey
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We headed in to San José again on Monday night. A bar called ‘El Cuartel’ in an area called California(!) is THE Monday night place. Afterwards we decided to see if we could get anywhere for a late night drink. We ended up in a hotel called Hotel Del Rey. This is an infamous hotel known mostly for prostitution. So there was myself, Jack, Fionn and José sitting at the bar, and the rest of the area was swarming with ladies of the night. They don’t approach customers, and we avoided eye contact so we had a great night. Myself and Jack didn’t leave until nearly 7. When we got home everyone was going to work.

Arts Festival
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The Arts Festival here is the National Arts Festival, which Heredia is hosting for the first time. So all week there has been music, theatre, dance and art exhibitions centred around Parque Central just up the road. It’s been featured in the papers, and we’ve wandered up to sample it a couple of times.

Heredia
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Just to let you know a little bit about the city we’re living in. Heredia is the capital of Heredia Province. It is located at 10°N 84°W, at an elevation of 1,140 metres (that’s 3,730 ft) above sea level. In 2004 it had a population of some 42,600 people. The city was founded in the 1570s as Cubujuquí. It later changed its name to Villavieja before adopting its current name in 1763. For a brief period in the 1830s, Heredia served as the national capital. Heredia also is home to one of Costa Rica’s largest colleges, the Universidad Nacional, so it’s a university town. So now you know.

El Pueblo
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We finally made it actually into El Pueblo on Friday night, with Fionn and his Irish friends who have been here on holidays. It’s basically a compound of bars that are not very impressive. But Fionn brought us through a maze of little alleys to find a couple of local bars with live music. We really enjoyed this, and it will definitely be on the tour for any of you who decide to visit!

My birthday
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As I said, yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to those who have sent emails. If you haven’t there’s plenty of time, as we’re not celebrating it until the weekend, because I’ll be finished working! Yesterday, one of my classes (who remembered it was my birthday from an exercise a few weeks ago on how to say dates in English) surprised me with a party to celebrate, with pizza’s and coke! I was very impressed.

Although we will go out to celebrate at the weekend, myself and Jack went to our local ‘El Cholo’ last night and had a couple of pitchers of beer to mark the occasion!

It’s now Tuesday, and I’m finished work on Thursday, and then we’ll sort out the itinerary for our travels starting next week.

Hasta luego.