Costa Rica Chronicles: Food Fight Friday Edition

Hola y bienvenidos mi amigas/amigos!

Happy Food Fight Fry-day Friends. I’m taking a break from a long day of doing nothing but catching sun rays to join the Friday festivities. No,@dandays and I have actually been out all morning trying to figure out the laundry sitch (pronounced: citch, which is short for situation) and it looks like we’ve finally gotten it all sorted out (read what I did there?). Not without a little mischief first though.

Dandays got back from the gym kind of late today and needed to make a few phone calls. You know, the IRS and tax season still follow you to different countries, Incase you were wondering, so the calls were our business for the day. Once that was finished it was mission: get laundry done. I’ve asked about laundry since we’ve arrived here on Saturday, being this is the first spot we’ve stayed without a washer/dryer.

Because my Spanish is so broken I may have misunderstood the sercurity guard when I asked him how we do laundry. He said “600 metros y parque, izquierda, local numero cinco”. Atleast this is what I got from our brief convo. It means “600 meters and the park, left, then local number 5”. I figured, ‘how hard can this be’ 🤷🏼‍♀️

Today we ventured that 600 meters to the park and parked our car infront of a suite that clearly said “LAUNDRY” and an “abierto/open” sign on the door- this was looking good. Dandays brought our basket of clothes, I brought our laundry detergent/softener (like spoiled North American brats we still use softener) and we made our way to the facility. Tug, tug, the door isn’t opening. Maybe it’s a push door… push, push, and it’s clearly locked. Dang it.

I call the big number written on the laundry sign and quickly realize it’s our air B and B hosts phone number. Of course, no answer. There’s a cafe on the corner so I venture in there and ask the person behind the counter if the laundry place is closed or when they’d be open. He explained that the lady comes and goes all day and takes care of a few Villagio’s down the road so she’s constantly bringing things to and fro. Sounds reasonable so we decide to wait a bit.

We take a seat on these two comfy chairs infront of a store and start discussing our food fight dilemma. The dilemma being neither of us have one. A lady pops her head out of the shop and tells us “you can’t sit here, they are for sale”. We quickly moved our butts onto the single step that separated the ground from the sidewalk. I know where I won’t be shopping for a personal home decorator…

This inspired me to walk back into the cafe and see if they have anything I can gnash on. Neither of us have eaten a thing yet today and now it’s 12:00 noon. Dandays can’t refrain from ordering a lunch being our stomachs are yelling at us and the kind girl behind the counter was more than happy to accommodate my strict eating habits.

It’s a cucumber, mint, avocado, ice and water smoothie. I know, it probably doesn’t sound that good to you, you sugar addicted negative Nancy but I assure you it was delicious. Take a look from another angle…

Dandays’ sandwich came out shortly after that and my drink was long gone. This only placated my appetite for a second and then it seems it actually induced it more so. Now my stomach is screaming at me… dang it, and the laundry lady still isn’t back yet. I suggest we run home so I can eat and have a go at this laundry thing when I’m better fed. Dandays scarfed his Sammie and off we went.

I ran inside and immediately got to work on some lunch. The first thing that popped in my head was ‘ I have a 1/2 an avocado that needs to be eaten and can make guacamole with cucumber slices with it. Ooohhh, I also have green beans I can grill up with a little onion, garlic, and jerk spice’… yum. I quickly got to work…

Did I forget to mention my last minute addition of Keto microwave bread? Yeah, I did that too. 1/2 an egg, 1 Tbsp coconut flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, garlic powder, pinch of salt and a Tbsp melted butter, then 90 seconds in the micro and I had bread. I plated my green beans and used the same pan to grill the bread and brown it a bit before I sat down to eat. This proved to be an ingenious idea.

I added a slice of tomato to my plate and welcomed that fresh, cold, and spicy guacamole on the side…

This might not look like a lot of food to you but it Stuffed me. Seriously, I could only eat one half of the bread and I left the tomato for later. In fact, I’m still frikken Stuffed and it’s been an hour and a half. I guess this is the perfect time to try the laundry ordeal again, so off we went.

We got back to the laundry place and this time we see our lady outfront washing the windows. I quickly jumped out of the car scared she would disappear before we had a chance to get in there and asked her if we can do our laundry. She, of course, said yes. Dandays grabbed our load and I grabbed our laundry detergent.

When we walked in it was clear that she was going to be doing our laundry. Dang it, I hate other people doing my laundry. What are you going to do 🤷🏼‍♀️… We paid the 12,000 million colones, tried to write our unit number where she wanted our name and needed change from a local behind us in line for all I had was a large bill, then dropped off our stuff to be picked up manana (or it’ll be dropped off at our unit. We aren’t too clear on those details yet). It’s a good thing it’s constantly bathing suit weather here because we really pushed it with how many days we’ve gone without doing laundry and both of us were getting pretty low on our under garments. I guess we’ll have to wait this one out at the beach…

Thanks for stopping by friends! Looking forward to the other food slinging posts this evening 😉

Pura Vida ✌️