Cold Showers, Hotdog Buns, and Border Crossings

I've become an expert in the art of taking cold showers. You need to approach the stream of water with determination and without any fear. There are two techniques that can be executed. One is the "splashing" strategy, where you scoop small amount of water over yourself, attempting to climatize yourself to the cold. The second strategy, and the one I prefer, is when you dive straight in and submerge yourself in the flowing water. The best way is to start with your hair, and everything else follows after that. The first 15 seconds are somewhat challenging, but after the initial shock it can actually be quite enjoyable. It's an important lesson to learn, especially considering there is no hot water anywhere in costa rica or nicaragua (at least, not where I have been). 

From my travels in Costa Rica and Nicaragua I have come to understand that bread is not something that many typical ticos or nicos appreciate. If there is any bread, it is most likely plain, white bread. OR-- what I have come to realize is possibly more common (especially in nicaragua) is the use of hotdog buns in place of regular bread. Order french toast, you get french toast made with hd buns, order french bread, you get hd buns, order a club house sandwich, you get 4 hd buns with some sort of filler in between. I don't really understand the logic behind it, whether they think it actually tastes the same, or if they don't know the difference, but it is quite entertaining once you get paste the initial disappointment. 

Do not ever try to cross the Nicaraguan/Costa Rica border (trying to enter CR) on a Sunday. Apparently (and we were unaware of this at the time), everyone leaves Nicaragua on Sunday to go find work in CR for the week (at least this is what we deciphered from our experience). We got on a bus from Granada to Rivas at 6:45 am, arrived in Rivas by 8:30, made a direct connection to the border and arrived at 9:30. We thought we would then be able to go straight through and make it in to Costa Rica in record time. Little did we know that the border did not open until 12 pm, and we would be waiting with what seemed like thousands of other people until we would finally be let through. We sat in the same spot in like for 6 hours without moving, in the hot sun, with people pushing and cutting, until we finally made it through the border at around 3:30 pm. We finally made it back to Samara by 8 pm, but this was only after we paid a taxi to take us from the border to Samara (a 4 hour and $80 trip). So, the moral of the story-- no border crossings (from less desirable to more desirable countries) on sundays!