Costa Rica Travelogue, Part 1

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, partly due to the excuses listed in this post, but mostly because I am bad at this kind of blogging. Namely the kind in which I have to upload lots of pictures and actually describe a sequence of events that took place in my life instead of just rambling about random crap and supplementing it with a google image (now that kind of blogging is what I would consider my specialty).

But lazy, impersonal blogging habits aside, I wanted to write about our trip to Costa Rica because it was pretty rad. Also because I love it when other people post about their travels so I thought why not join in the fun?

Our trip got off to a bit of a shaky start when we took a red eye flight into San Jose and headed over to pick up our car rental at 6 in the morning only to find that Budget's ghetto machines do not accept credit cards without raised numbers (yeah, remember this incident? The new cards arrived in time but apparently raised numbers are a thing of the past). So I had to get a little bit Soviet on the budget folks (much to the embarassment of my fellow travelers) but long story short we got ourselves a car and drove to La Fortuna, a city built around an active volcano. When we arrived in La Fortuna we pulled up to Arenal Backpacker’s Resort, our home for the next two nights and the nicest hostel I have ever seen. It had clean, private rooms and a lavish pool with a swim-up bar.







After lounging by the hostel’s pool for a bit, we went on a little hike (more like a steep walk) to the La Fortuna waterfall and swam in the pools there, all the while admiring the lush jungle. The place seriously looked like the Garden of Eden.












We finished off the day by eating dinner in one of the town’s many open-air restaurants (one of my favorite things about CR) and ordering a giant banana split that ended up being mostly whipped cream. We cured our disappointment by getting ice cream cones at a quaint local café called Burger King. You might have heard of it.





The next morning we went to the Arenal Observatory Lodge and hiked up Cerro Chato, one of the little mountains neighboring the volcano that has a crater lake at the top. The hike was pretty intense, even for us Wasatch babies, since it was essentially climbing straight up a mountain with no switchbacks. But the scenery was beautiful and swimming in the lake at the top was pretty awesome (well, at least I thought it was awesome. Josh has since admitted that he found it creepy).











That night we went to Baldi, one of the many resorts built around the volcano’s natural hot springs. We ate at the resort’s buffet, soaked in the many different pools, and went down some crazy fast water slides (I really wish we had some videos of this cause we looked hilarious).


Check back tomorrow if you want to hear about how a horse I was riding got hit by a truck and/or see a picture of a truly hideous dog.

Easy as 1,2,3

Some friends of mine have been doing these ABC posts, so I thought I'd join in the fun by answering the questions too.

Age: 25
Bed Size: Queen.
Chore I hate: Anything that has to do with my car. Although washing the exterior is not as bad as vacuuming the interior.
Dogs: Currently have one named Lola. She is a chocolate lab and a complete spaz but we love her through it.
Essential start of my day: Hitting snooze on the alarm.
Favorite Color: Green.
Gold or silver: It’s a toss-up.
Height: I claim 5’4”. And will until my dying day.
Instruments I play (or have played): Had a very brief fling with both the piano and violin, but nothing long-term.
Job Title: Technical writer.
Kids: None yet. But I like them in theory.
Live: C-wood Heights, yo.
Mom's Name: Marina
Nickname: Dash, Dashinka, Dashulinka, etc. If you want to get technical Dasha is actually a nickname for my legal name (Daria), but no one calls me that unless they know me from work or are a family member trying to get on my nerves.
Overnight hospital stays: Appendectomy my senior year of high school. Worst Christmas break ever.
Pet Peeve: The term “pet peeve.” It makes me picture bald gerbils or something equally creepy. I would really like to know who came up with it.
Quote from a movie: I can’t think of any particular ones right now but almost everything that Alex says in Everything is Illuminated cracks me up and is often quoted by my Russian family. In fact, I think Butch and I need to start borrowing some of his verbiage when introducing Lola to people (“she is deranged, but so so playful”). See a clip here. Oh, and I love me a good Tom Hanks "there's no crying in baseball!" rant, too.
Right or left handed: Right
Siblings: One of each (older sister, older brother, younger sister, younger brother). They are all pretty rad.
Time I wake up: Varies by the day but always about twenty minutes too late (see letter “E”).
Underwear: Yes.
Vegetables I dislike: I was going to say green beans but then I remembered that I’m OK with them as long as they’re not canned or frozen, so none really.
What makes me run late: Picking out an outfit, doing my hair, feeding Lola, getting distracted by shiny objects… pretty much anything and everything. I have some tardiness issues that need to be addressed.
X-rays I've had done: Teeth and left foot (stress fracture). And if CAT scans count you can also include the appenidx incident.
Yummy food I make: You can see it all here. I posted a shrimp recipe today.
Zoo animal: Hippos.

If you're interested

We got back from an amazing Costa Rica trip last week, and since then we've been pretty busy dirty dashing, fulfilling Best Man and Bridesmaid duties for the wedding of our good friends, and just catching up on all the stuff that piles up when you leave home for over a week. Hence no blog post about it yet.

But luckily our friend Josh put together a sweet video of the trip that I've posted here for any interested parties. I'll probably write all about it eventually since I'm not the kind of gal to let the pictures do the talking, but for now check out this video (I especially recommend the zipline footage at about 3:30).



P.S.- What's with blogger cropping videos? Anyone know how to fix it? You can get to the full version of this one on youtube by clicking the video title.

Another reason for me to avoid doing anything crafty

Have you heard about this?

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=153&sid=15422647

Well, apparently husband and I were victims of this little debacle (damn those 40% off coupons that lured me into Michael's) so our debit and credit cards are officially cancelled and we have to wait until Tuesday to get new ones in the mail.

The problem? We leave for Costa Rica on Wednesday and need to use a credit card for hotels and whatnot. So unless the mail decides to be reliable for the first time ever, we're sort of screwed.

I thought we were being all financially savvy and debt-free by only having one credit card to use for emergencies, but after this experience my advice to you is this: be ye not so stupid. Or just avoid craft stores altogether. I always knew they were trouble.

Quarter of a century

Yesterday I turned the big 2-5. To commemorate this occasion, here is a photo of a much younger me that I found while cleaning out my desk:
Kind of adorable if I do say so myself. Even though I look like a boy and the photo quality makes it seem like I was born in 1933. Apparently camera technology was a bit behind the times in the good old USSR.

This year I spent the majority of my birthday attending a staff meeting and editing random articles. And what a joy that was. But in case you are feeling sorry for me I should probably tell you that my weekend was chock-full of birthday week celebrations and that I’m heading to Lake Powell on Wednesday to soak up some rays on a houseboat. Plus Butch sent these little beauties to brighten up my cubicle:

I also celebrated my 25 years on this planet by consuming as much raw fish as humanly possible. I had lox and bagel for breakfast in the morning (thanks, Helen!), met up with my sisters and baby Anna at Happy Sumo for lunch, and when Butch asked where I wanted to go to dinner, my answer was Takashi. My sushi philosophy is that there can never be too much of a good thing. But don't worry, I diversified my diet a bit when we met up with friends at Leatherby's and I inhaled the better part of a black and tan. Gotta give my aging bones some calcium. Side note: I realize that this post would be better with pictures but for some reason few things make me more self concious than taking pictures in restaurants. Is that weird? Although in hindsight I don’t think taking pictures would have drawn any more attention to our group than the Leatherby’s staff singing happy birthday to me while kneeling around the table in one of the more awkward restaurant birthday rituals I’ve ever seen.

We finished off the night by watching the Memphis/OKC game, which nearly ended my life prematurely with its anxiety inducing triple overtime. Here’s hoping Memphis can pull off a win next time.

Oh, and Kevin O’Connor? If you’re reading this I have a birthday request for you. I would like Shane Battier sporting a Jazz uniform by this time next year please.

Thank you in advance.

But I still don't think Prince William is good looking.

OK, I’ll admit it. I think this Royal Wedding stuff is pretty awesome. Probably because I’m totally fascintated by the mixture of fairy tale elements (princesses, castles, etc.) and modern life that exists in today’s monarchies. I mean, the royal family of England doesn’t serve any real polititcal purpose anymore, yet tomorrow is a national holiday because of this shindig and, from what I understand, public funds are being used to pay the bills. I shudder to think what kind of riots would break out in the U.S. if, say, the Obamas decided to renew their vows and made a big to-do of it.

This wedding has also made my habit of reading trashy magazines at the grocery store slightly more classy, since instead of documenting the train-wreck lives of the Kardashians or Jersey Shore castmates, their pages of are now filled with sparkling tiaras, royal pedigree charts, and old photos of Princess Di. In fact, just yesterday I was looking through a fancy“collector’s edition” of Us Weekly devoted exclusively to the wedding while a Rite Aid cashier stared at me with judging eyes (he does not take kindly to my “browse through the magazines for ten minutes then only buy a gallon of milk” routine) .

Oh and have you seen this blog? My friend Marie linked it on her blog and I think it’s hysterical. True, some of the jokes are pretty lame but there are some gems like these:

According to the aforementioned magazine, Kate Middleton is actually a pretty nice, down-to-earth type person, but I figure since she A) is marrying a prince and thereby crushing the hopes of many British girls, B) will never have to worry about finances a day in her life, and C) has an absolutely ridiculous body that most women can only dream of, we’re allowed to have a few laughs at her expense.

This is how you roll when your names are Dasha and Masha

Below is a photo of Smash and I in one of the many coordinating outfits we sported in our younger years:

Judging from our expressions in this photo we were super jazzed about them.

Twenty some odd years later we showed up to Easter dinner looking like this:
Identical sweaters: check.
Grey shirts: check.
Dark jeans: check.
Grey TOMS(not pictured): check.

If you click on the picture and look closely you can see that we're even wearing the same shade of nail polish. And we've upped the ante on our childhood selves by adding matching hairstyles to the equation (which would have been impossible in the heyday of Smash's blonde 'fro).

The best part is that this was totally unplanned. Well, unless you count the planning that took place on my parents' part when they gave my younger sister and I rhyming names and essentially treated us like identical twins our whole lives. Apparently old habits die hard.

We we we so excited

If I were a legit blogger this post would be a detailed account of the spring break road trip Butch and I took with Smash and Matt last weekend. I would tell you all about the Ivory’s lavish house that we stayed at in St. George (thanks, Abby!), which had a kitchen straight out of my dreams and king size beds that made sleeping a joy.

I would post pictures of us eating at In-N-Out and Bear Paw Café, swimming in the pool and hot tub, and relaxing on the couch watching March Madness. I would tell you about the Bellagio casino actually having a table devoted to War, that most basic of all card games, and that one of the highlights of this mini vacation was watching my husband play it with two hilarious Eastern European men that kept giving him chips and chanting “Ace! Ace!” every time the dealer dealt a hand.

I would probably also tell you the story of how the Mulcocks learned the hard way never to play blackjack in Mesquite at 3 in the morning but we’ve agreed to pretend like that never happened. So instead what I’m going to do is post the youtube video that provided endless entertainment on this trip. You’ve probably already seen this so-awful-it’s-awesome video (it has a bajillion views and has been getting quite a bit of media attention lately) but if you haven’t, and you don’t mind having a few laughs at a misguided teen’s expense, then you’re in for a treat:



Conan’s version is pretty hilarious too:


Oh, and while we’re on the subject of youtube, you gotta love this take on a classic poster:

(click here if you don’t get it).

Weighing in on current events

I found out via a link my friend Nichole posted on facebook today that Jennifer Lawrence has been cast for the role of Katniss in the Hunger Games movies. My first reaction wasn’t positive, since this is the photo that ran with the article:

And last time I checked Katniss wasn’t really the blonde, pretty type. But then I read that Jennifer was nominated for an Oscar this year for Winter’s Bone, so I looked up that trailer:


And judging by what I saw, homegirl is gonna rock it. I’m not going to watch Winter’s Bone in its entirety because it seems like the sort of thing that would give me nightmares until the end of time, but it looks like this actress uglies up quite nicely and plays a tough, gritty part with real depth. I think her Katniss will be a complex, emotional character whereas in less capable hands the role could easily turn into the stereotypical “I’m a girl but I'm so hard core you can't even handle it” type of thing.

True, Jennifer Lawrence is kind of old but casting thirty-year-olds to play teenagers is par for the course in Hollywood so 20 isn’t that big of a stretch. Plus I think that if they had actual fourteen-year-olds playing characters that kill each other I for one would leave the theater slightly traumatized (or maybe that’s just because kids that age look like babies to me these days). Mostly I’m just glad that they picked someone with real acting chops to play Katniss rather than Disney Channel’s latest and greatest tween star.

And while we’re on the subject, wasn’t Mockingjay pretty freaking terrible?

More pages I've been turning

A few months ago I joined goodreads. I created an account, asked a bunch of people to be my friends, wrote a review of one book, and then never visited the site again. Looks like my tolerance for social networking is maxxed out at a facebook account and this little ole blog. But I still love to talk about books, so here are some unsolicited reviews of what I’ve read lately:

This is the book that I reviewed on Goodreads, so I actually read it quite a while ago but it’s worth mentioning here because I absolutely loved it. I first got acquainted with Kazuo Ishiguro when I read Remains of the Day and there’s just something about his writing that kills me. It’s so distinctively aloof and cool and it worked particularly well in telling this story of three characters raised to be organ donors in a fictional 1990s England. I hear they made a movie of it recently but Keira McNast Knightly is in it so I refuse to go there (She was also in the film version of Atonement, which makes me think she is hell-bent on tainting my favorite books).

When I told people I was reading this book, their reactions were more or less the same. My boss said “so is it going to make us all want to be vegetarians?” and a friend told me that she didn’t want to read it because she wasn’t ready to change her eating habits. So I’m guessing you probably already know what’s in this book: an account of how modern factory farming mistreats animals, destroys the environment, and puts all kind of scary things into our bodies. But the way Jonathan Safran Foer tells this story—through a mix of memoir, interviews, and good old-fashioned investigative reporting—makes this a particularly interesting read. His approach to this issue is also more philosophical than most (sometimes pretentiously so).

That said, this book did not compel me to be a vegetarian. Foer makes it seem like it’s impossible to be a true “selective omnivore” but I’ve found that you can eat meat without buying into the factory system. You can purchase your meat from a local farm like this one, and stores/restuarants like Whole Foods and Chipotle are becoming more committed to providing ethically raised meat to their customers. So there are definitely options out there if you are like me and not opposed to eating meat on principle but don’t agree with what the meat industry has become.

This is one of the most unique books I’ve read in a long time. Although it’s labeled as a novel, The Imperfectionists reads more like a series of intertwined short stories told from the perspective of various staffers at an international newspaper in Rome. Some chapters are humorous and some are sad, but all are masterfully crafted. I first heard about this book on NPR, and the commentator said that it was one of the best-reviewed books of the year. After reading it I can’t say I’m surprised.

With the likes of Lauren Conrad (LC if you know her from Laguna Beach) claiming to be an author these days, picking up a book by a celebrity can be a risky venture. But aside from a slight tell-all feel in describing what went down on the Ally McBeal set, Portia de Rossi’s account of life with an eating disorder reads more or less like a gritty memoir by a legit author or journalist. It’s a really interesting look at how a behavior our society praises (exercising, eating right) can develop into something ugly in its extreme form.

My older sister recommended this book to me when I was looking for a light, guilty pleasure-type read. It’s about a teenage girl whose sister dies and she copes with this loss by writing some truly crappy poetry and hooking up with both the dead sister’s boyfriend and a fellow band geek. Classy stuff. I read this book in much the same way that I read Twilight, meaning that I had to periodically slam the book shut in order to shake off the awkwardness of the passage I had just read. Young adult literature and I have quite the tortured relationship.

So, in keeping with the whole blog-as-goodreads-account thing, I would love to hear some recommendations on what to read next. My life is kind of sad right now because all the books I want to read have waiting lists a mile long at the library. Truly a nerd’s worst nightmare.