Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Yes, the wildlife was amazing and the scenery beautiful in Costa Rica. But the people, though not as uniformly *beautiful*, per se, were a lot of fun too.

The Brits we met were the most fun, given their fondness for drinking, Premier League, and the Office.

The Italians we met chastised me for not knowing Italian.

The Ticos we met were unfailingly kind and laid-back.

As for the Americans. In Alajuela, we met a cranky midwesterner who described San Jose as a toilet (while our Tico bartender chopped pineapple with a machete only a few feet away) and his southern gadabout traveling companion, who was fond of those lightweight traveling vests that have 47 pockets on them.

In Montezuma, we met a young woman who'd moved there after spending 6 months working on the Kerry campaign. She looked as though she would burst into tears at any moment. In Quepos, we met a naturopath, an acupuncturist, a hypnotist, and a contract killer* for the government who was accompanied by a Colombian prostitute named Monica who didn't understand English. Or maybe she was pretending. If I found myself with a 55-y-o 350-lb married john, I'd be all about the NO PEEKEE INGLEE too.

Though, to his credit, he was the most interesting person we met. He wanted desperately to spend time with us. I think he was tired of paying for companionship he couldn't talk to. I think it's odd that he didn't speak any Spanish, given that he seemed to spend a lot of time in Central and South America. He told us he'd just been in Caracas, "observing" the election for the "embassy."

He invited us to have dinner with him and Monica. We kept hemming and hawing about it, and chose instead to play pool in an American bar in downtown Quepos where we were overjoyed to hear "Hey Ya" after a week of nothing but Phil Collins and Expose. Yes, it had gotten that bad.

I feel bad now about not eating dinner with him, because he did seem lonely. And I bet he would have had entertaining (if true) stories to tell us. He might've even picked up the tab at the restaurant, but I feared that if he *didn't* offer to do so we'd be dealt a serious blow to our vacay budget. Clearly the man knew how to eat. Though maybe he'd have taught us how to kill someone with a church key or something. Ah well.

Finally, while we didn't really *meet* anyone in San Jose, we did exchange pleasantries with this guy and two friends in the lobby of the hotel. One of them had just been robbed of her passport. She was cheerful enough. I peered at them for a second, knowing that I recognized the redhead from somewhere. "You guys aren't from NYC, are you?"

"No, Hollywood."

"Oh, you just looked familiar."

[Oddly enough, this is generally the exchange I have with anyone I suspect is a celebrity. Yeah, stick it to 'em with that New Yorker insouciance. Tweak those hotshot Hollywood noses! Who tha FUCK are you, asshole? Nyaaah!

In this case, however, I honestly did think I recognized them from Greenpoint or something. It was a few minutes later that I realized who it was.]

We flew home with a number of aging frat boys who wore curved-brim ballcaps and t-shirts from bars in Montana they'd never been to.

Then, faster than we expected, we were back in NYC, where everyone looked like someone just shot their dog.
*I'm only guessing. Maybe he was just an...enforcer of some kind.