Inauguration, Taco Bell, and a movie!

Hola!
Today was the inauguration of the first woman president of Costa Rica! Since we happened to be here for this moment of history we decided we had to go see it in person! So on the first day we've had to sleep in for months, we got up early and went to the huge park downtown where they were holding the inauguration ceremony. We had to take the bus to downtown San Jose then catch another to the park. We figured the one to the park would be crazy busy but we got on the first one that came and it wasn't even packed. We got to the park and the people who were directing us where to go kept telling us different directions, finally we found a really nice girl who asked us where our tickets were. We didn't have any, they were free I think they were just on a first come-first served basis of what color section you got to sit it. She could tell we were confused so she just told us to wait there and brought us back three tickets in the red section! Turns out we lucked out with that cause the red section was pretty close and we actually got seats! There were also free hats/visors on our seats! They were handing out free umbrellas too but I didn't manage to get one, too bad because we were forced to sit and back in the sun for hours and none of us even thought to put on sunscreen. Suffice it to say, I have the worst sunburn I've even had in my life. My whole front side is a nice shade of tomato red, and even the tops of my hands are burnt, and my face as well. During the inauguration there were all sorts of tipical Costa Rican performers, dancers and an ox-cart with real oxen on stage and the huge "gigantes" which are like big puppets with people inside and it was really cool! I have pics up on facebook! The sung the national anthem and everyone chanted for the out going president and there were people there from all over the world, presidents, princes, and princesses and they all got introduced! I thought it was amazing, but my host family didn't seem to like it too much (they watched on tv.) I guess they thought all the performers and stuff was in bad taste and it stayed too far from tradition, but they're old so maybe that's why I liked it and they didn't!

After the inauguration, we figured again that the buses would be crazy and it'd take forever to get out so we left a little before it actually ended (but everyone else did too!) and were surprised to find the bus we needed just pulling up so we got on! We were starving so when we got to San Jose we decided to try McDonald's here for the first time just to compare but it was packed so we went to Taco Bell instead. I ordered a chalupa, and they asked if I wanted a combo and I said yes but since the sign said combos came with fries I asked for nachos instead. Apparently chips and cheese nachos you normally would expect from taco bell don't exist but they do have french fries. Also, I forgot a Taco Bell combo includes a taco so I ended up with my chicken chalupa, nachos supremes (with beef) and a beef hard taco (we also think they don't have soft tacos for some reason...) The really funny thing is they gave me the nacho supreme for the same price as a regular combo! I picked the beef off and it was all good, way more food than I wanted but it turned out ok cause it looks like I'm not getting dinner for some reason, but I'm not really hungry anyway!

After the Taco Bell experience, we came home and rested for awhile and applied aloe to our sunburns then decided to go see Bounty Hunter at the nearby mall. They have movies in English, subtitled in Spanish so it was great and cost less than $4! We took a taxi there because it was dark and needed to take a taxi back. I wasn't worried about this because there are always a ton of taxis near the mall. When we got out a lot of the taxi drivers were out of their cars and talking and there was a group of younger ones that was joking around and told us it'd be 2000 colones to take us where we wanted to go. Since we've taken taxis from the mall a couple times before we knew it was actually around 900 and they're supposed to have meters so they don't normally tell you how much it will be ahead of time unless you ask. They were also calling us all sorts of names and whistling and stuff so we were a lot freaked out, told them no and walked back into the mall. We also didn't see any ticos taking these taxis so we weren't exactly sure what to do, we had to take one of them! So we waited for awhile and headed back out, and on the other side of the mall there were taxis and none of the drivers were yelling or anything so we got one of those with an old driver and he took us home and charged us the correct amount! I was really scared for awhile cause we almost had no other choice than to take the sketchy driver and over pay. Lesson learned, taxis at night are not the same as taxis during the day especially if you're taking one from that mall! But, I was also reminded that there are a crap ton of taxis are if you look you're likely to find one that you like, there were literally probably 20 or more taxis around the mall!
Now I'm exhausted and sunburnt like no other so I'm going to attempt to find a comfortable sleeping position, we'll see how that goes!
Hasta luego,
Chelsey