Cathy and Gil's Excellent Adventure--Day 2
Someone should send a sacerdote over here....quick!! I have to make my confession before I fall off a cliff because I fear that I have committed some very grave errors today.
Rules for Getting Along in a Foreign Country....
Rule #1--Do NOT call your host an idiot!!
Here's what happened. I started out the day with a grand plan for my adventure. Today's adventure was to go around Costa Verde and talk with all of the Ticos that work here and ask them to contribute to the Phrasebook project that was instigated by Mountaingirl.
So off I went to the folks in the front office. A great bunch of mostly bilingual folks who smile at me nicely and fill in and fix my Spanish so I can rattle at them about what I'm up to. I explain about the project and they are game to go along with it. Everything is just great until I make a big mistake with my Spanish which leads me to call myself "tonta" (stupid). That would have been great, except what slipped out of my mouth was "Eres tonta" and the happy smile left the face of my nice Tico and his eyes went straight from bewilderment to aversion. Then it dawned on me what I said. "NO, NO, NO," I screamed as I all but fell on my knees in suplication before him. Words of apology came flying out of me. I felt like a Hydra who was cutting off my own heads as fast as they sprung up lest they offend again. "It's me...it's me who is stupid. O my gosh, o my gosh, I'm so sorry" and by then everyone behind their desks were laughing at me the the poor guy who had been helping me blushed to a color that was far brighter than anything in my Crayola box.
That will teach me not to call anyone stupid....even myself.
Rule #2--Middle aged women with bad eyes make poor whale watchers.
Here is the link to our hotel. The room shown is exactly ours. In the picture with the pool is our building. We are on the second floor with the balcony on the left---the ocean view. You will need to know this for the story... link text
We are out on our balcony, studying Spanish and having a wonderful time just being us. Then the sun begins to set and we are looking out at the ocean. People begin congregating around the swimming pool below us. They are all very low-key. It is nice and quiet here. Some folks are reading, others fiddling with their cameras taking pictures of the impending sunset. Gil and I get up and try to take pictures of ourselves. Then we lean against our railing, watching the sun, the birds, the water... Suddenly, we see a flash of black rise up in the distance...and then vanish. A few seconds later a smaller flash of black appears, disappearing with a splash. We study it closer. There it is again, just a little futher to the north. Excitement builds. This is too good to keep to ourselves. This is, after all, whale migration time. I call out to the two dozen strangers below, "Hey guys, there are whales right over there". They rise up en masse, cameras poised and at the ready. They see the flash of black and share in the excitement. Then, 30 seconds later, the same flash of black, the same splash....the same place. From our elevated vantage point, the truth dawns on us far sooner than on those down by the pool. Gil and I exchange looks....what should we do? Before a plan could be devised we found our feet moving, as if totally outside of our will, away from the balcony and to the safe, dark recesses of our room. Yes, we made a run for it, and ran into the bathroom together and slammed the door behind us, laughing so hard that we had to hold each other up. "Rocks....rocks" was all we could sputter before doubling over again into peals of laughter.
Once again, miscalculation had visited our doorstep. We had forgotten that our ENTIRE room was open to the air, as the bathroom "window" was the same as all of the "windows" in our screened in room. Far from being muffled, our laughter was echoing off of the tiles, out the window, and directly into the ears of our once-unsuspecting but now wise-to-us-victims.
It seemed like a good time to leave the room for a while and go to dinner.....
9 Answers
My wife still asks me to order "gay men with cheese" because of one of my early Spanish blunders.
Don't you just love true stories. Ah, the memories you both are building!
Jejeje....Perdona la falta de tu servidora...lo seinto, la culpa es mía....es que eres bien tonta 
Great story Cathy! I can't wait for the next installment.
I am laughing with you...I do stuff like that all the time, but not in a different language. Not yet at least. I sure can't wait for the other stories. This sounds like great fun. And your Spanish will be so good when you get back! Take care, Cathy!
This is hilarious Cathy! Thank you for sharing this with us 
. I can't wait to read more!
HA! This is a great post! I have been hanging around my computer waiting for the update.
Hi Cathy. I am enjoying your posts tremendously!
Hi Cathy, I can see you are learning a lot of things
Please read PM, thanks
Holy too funny Cathy!! I can't wait for the next installment. Hope all is well and you bring back a ton more stories!! Oh, look a whale...the black rocks, priceless.
