The World Spins Madly On

Judah went back to Gig Harbor on Tuesday... two weeks flew by and I was sad to see him go, but we had a wonderful time and I'm very happy he was able to come visit. By the end of the trip he seemed to be really enjoying himself in Costa Rica and the genuine joy he found in the ministry was encouraging for me as well as him.

Elizabeth flies out on Monday, Eva leaves two weeks after that, and then I'll be on my own for a while until I come back to visit the States in May or June. I expect it'll be a little lonesome, but settling into a regular schedule is something I'm looking forward to. 

Excited to go ziplining! Photo © 2012 Judah Bishop

Getting ready for the Tarzan line. Photo © 2012 Judah Bishop

One of the other tourists as he launched the Tarzan. The line stretched for 1km over a valley. It was exhilarating and rather terrifying, and definitely worth the extra $5. Photo © 2012 Judah Bishop

The waterfall in La Fortuna. We met up with Tenley Golden who kindly showed us around and arranged for us to stay with a couple in the congregation there. After the waterfall we went to the free hot springs where we ran into the substitute Circuit Overseer, District Overseer, and their wives and friends. Brother Pizarro, the substitute C.O. will be visiting Sámara Inglés in the end of Februrary. Photo © 2012 Judah Bishop

Street performers outside the restaurant where we had dinner Saturday night.

Volcan Arenal and the Batty Bishops. Photo © 2012 Elizabeth Goudarzi-Fry

"Now a nice picture for your parents." -Elizabeth. Photo © 2012 Elizabeth Goudarzi-Fry

We encountered a whole herd of pisotes on the drive back. Pisotes are like raccoons with longer snouts.

Out in service with the Spanish group on Wednesday. Two families with small children are currently visiting, and it was a lot of fun to watch the boys explore the roadside, chasing iguanas and shredding green mangoes.

Benjamin is five and Abel is four and a half (the "and a half" is very important.) Photo © 2012 Elizabeth Goudarzi-Fry

They were trying to destroy the tiny green mangoes that had fallen to the ground.

Laura trying on my hat. 

We went to the beach after service and then made dinner.

Tico improvisation at its best.

We had a sushi night at the Cooks' a while ago. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

The first time I ever met them, Chris, Sarah, Kevin, and Bryan had driven to San Jose to hear Laura's part on the assembly, and the whole group was going to a movie afterward and invited me to join them. Bill had told me "The hotel is in Alajuela. Just tell them Hotel Paraiso, Avenida 5, it's easy to find." Since they said it would be no problem to drop me off afterward I went along, thinking that Alajuela was a neighborhood in San Jose and thus forgot to mention that detail when giving them directions. However, after an hour of driving around downtown San Jose looking for Avenida 5 and Hotel Paraiso, they called Bill to find out it was in Alajuela which was not, in fact, a neighborhood but a different town altogether. That was about the time that the adventurous happy-go-lucky mood wore off, and I spent the rest of the ride shrinking into a puddle of guilt and shame as the hours passed and the group grew more and more tired and irritated. It took an hour to get to Alajuela due to road blocks on the freeway ramp and getting lost trying to use the local roads because of a lack of detour signs. When we finally arrived in town, we began asking locals and taxi drivers where to find Hotel Paraiso (the Spanish word for "paradise", incidentally), but no one seemed to have ever heard of the place. After another half hour of driving around, just when I had given up all hope and had resigned myself to jumping out of the car and living on the streets of Costa Rican suburbs for the rest of my life, we found a cab driver who told us "Hotel Paraiso? Hmm... no, never heard of it... though there's a Hotel Paradise just around the corner." We turned the corner, and not 50 feet away was the hotel. I gave Kevin gas money, got out of the car, apologized for the hundreth time that night, and feebly thanked them saying "I'm so sorry.....I'll make you guys Japanese food?" although I secretly hoped never to see any of them again. I was fairly sure they would never want to see me again either, but they are all forgiving and understanding people and now we laugh about it, more or less. More now that I've actually fulfilled my promise of making them Japanese food.

I'd never actually made sushi before and we had no seafood, so it was a highly improvised version of sushi... but between substituting teriyaki chicken for fish or shrimp and the novelty of everyone trying to wrap their own sushi, the meal turned out fairly successful. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

Sarah found nori (dried seaweed sheets) in town. Some of us were more enthusiastic about it than others. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

Chris turned out to be pretty good at rolling sushi. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

I like eating straight nori, which they all found weird. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

Bryan doesn't believe in eating anything in small quantities. Photo © 2012 Sarah Cook

The World Spins Madly On is a song by The Weepies