"Teacher, Do You Like Our Bitches?": Teaching English In Costa Rica

A year of decadent, dangerous Costa Rica hostel management is over.  I ungraciously return to a quiet life of English Teaching to support my traveling/drinking addiction.  I had already spent two strange years teaching in Thailand and Slovakia before, so it had the feeling of accidentally bumping into an old ex.  The familiarity feels good at first, but after a few moments you remember why you broke up in the first place.

Teaching English abroad is an exercise in humility.  You realize how little you know about the very language you've been speaking since you were a child.  You pathetically try to correct students' grammar errors and questions without screaming out: "Dammit, because I speak English, that's why!!!!"  You have to keep a straight face when students pronounce "beaches" as "bitches."  Your local coworkers quietly resent you because they had to put in years of education to get the same job you got simply by being a... dah dah dahdah: NATIVE SPEAKER!!!! (cue applause, shouts of, USA! USA! 'Murica! 'Murica!)

If you don't take students' errors too seriously; however, it can be a very funny job.  And I do mean funny...not fun.  The ESL teachers know what I'm talking about.
  
My interview with Berlitz, which coincidentally happened the same day I got robbed, went well and I started training the day after I left Castle Tam Hostel.  Ever the cynic, by the time I'm one day into training I already see problems with teaching in Costa Rica, as compared to Thailand and Slovakia.  My salary is lower than it was in both of these countries.  Given that Costa Rica has the highest cost-of-living for Central America, this means I'm sitting above the poverty line, but still sitting at home for two weeks doing nothing until payday to make rent.  Remember that alcohol factors importantly into my budget.

My awkward work schedule means 4 hours of teaching at 6 in the morning, followed by a 6 hour empty gap, then 4 hours of teaching until 9 at night...Saturday mornings included.  Even though Berlitz is an international language school, none of the administrative staff speaks English, and it's only by virtue of speaking Spanish that I'm able to wade through the paperwork involved with getting hired.  Fortunately, I am part of the government healthcare system, but that is not exceptional since Costa Rica has a social healthcare system anyway.

Berlitz is a giant, global American-based company, which is its justification for charging students an arm and a leg for 'professional language services.'  Unfortunately it's encumbered by local, self-serving Costa Rica-based labor practices, so all of this money is rarely used in a professional way.  My teacher training was a perfect example of this; two weeks of American-style corporate jargon, pretty colored pamplates, fancy, scientific-based teaching theories and the official Berlitz Method©®℗ - which did nothing to prepare me for the real classroom.  I've had 2 years of teaching experience previous to Costa Rica, so I spent most of the training catching up on sleep and spitting out funny anecdotes from my previous jobs.  The new teachers thought I was a genius.  I felt like Bill Clinton at a grand testimony defining the meaning of the word "is".  Bullshit taken to an art form (he was a teacher too.)

The training did have free pizza and soda.

At the end of two weeks, Berlitz assigned me a 40-hour work week at their San Pedro Equus center then promptly forgot about me.  I was disconcerted to find out that my manager was from England -since everyone thinks British English is better than American English- but when I saw his blue scorpion tattoo, missing teeth and bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey prominently displayed on the shelf, I felt strangely comforted.  When I walked into the teacher's office, I was surprised to hear only the sounds of Spanish.  Isn't this an English language center?

The next year became a mire of forced Berlitz Method©®℗ lesson planning, 5am workdays, bad grammar mistakes and intravenous coffee injections.  Classes were full of nervous, awkward long silences and freakish, blank stares followed by bursts of incomprehensible sentences with comical Hispanic accents.  It felt like watching the old Cheech & Chong sketches, but the students weren't stoned.  I wished I was.

The first 3 months sucked horribly.  After that the wounds healed, leaving just a dull, numb feeling that only hurt when it rained.  It rains a lot in Costa Rica.

I won't write much about the year I worked at Berlitz.  I'll leave that to the studious ESL teachers who take their jobs seriously.  Teaching paid the bills (barely), and I made some really good friends from working there who frequently shared the same hangovers with me.

And now I know the most beautiful bitches in Costa Rica are in Guanacaste.


Some People Came Here Because They Thought There Would Be Practical Advice For Teaching In Costa Rica.  HaHaHa.  If You Want To Work On The Beach, Don't Expect To Get Paid.  Here's Some Links For Schools (With Salaries) In Beautiful San Jose:

Berlitz: http://berlitz.co.cr/

Prolanguage: http://www.prolanguage.org/

Centro Cultural Costarriccense: http://www.centrocultural.cr/

Idioma Internacional: http://www.idiomacr.com/

Intensa: http://www.intensa.com/

Universal de Idiomas: http://www.ingles.co.cr/

Universidad Latina: http://www.ulatina.ac.cr/

Believe it or not, if you have any questions about teaching in Costa Rica, I will be happy to answer them.


         

Nis Fortress Nightlife

Nis fortress walls. Disco to the left.

A day exploring Crveni Krst concentration camp and climbing Bubanj Hill to see a mass execution site can depress the average tourist.  Serbia has a simple, powerful solution to cure this depression: coffee.  Or if that's not strong enough: rakia.  The Balkans can easily convert a sworn coffee-hater into a coffee addict (and potential rakia addict.)

He's sad because the Mafia made him into a disco

Coffee and rakia are two likely reason you will visit Nis Fortress in Serbia.  Nis Fortress is not so much a historical site as it is an organic extension of the city center.  There is no charge to enter and it has been left open to the public to function as a decadent city park.  Local Mafia took advantage of the lenient rules and built a large disco-cafe, Klinika, directly on the fortress stones.

Some people would say it's a tacky, tasteless way to deface a historical monument, but it sure is a fun place to party.  If you don't care to join the beautiful people dancing in the open-air disco, just buy a few liters of Jelen beer at the nearby kiosk, grab your friends and dance on the fortress walls overlooking the disco until sunrise.  You can still hear the pounding music and watch the sun rise from the fortress walls.


I experienced Nis' nightlife for the first time in 2010 and loved it so much that I had to return in 2011 to do it again.  If it were possible I would return to Southern Serbia every summer for partying.  As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Balkan people's flair for living rivals any typical Latino's "vida loca" attitude.  Perhaps due to the Balkans proximity to Asia, there's also a magical Eastern mysticism there that Latin America lacks.  While the world changes, The Balkans seems trapped in a time bubble that remains the same every year.  This night I experienced could have been in 2010, 2011, 2012 or any year...you decide...

I was Couchsurfing with some friends I had met from the previous summer.  I had the good fortune that summer to surf with my friend when he had 2 nice Bosnian girls surfing with him at the same time.  When I meet the girls, they told me (teasingly) that they hated Americans.  Yeah right...  What started as teasing hate over dinner and drinks ended up as love (?) by the time we had arrived at Nis Fortress later that night.

My Serbian friend and I are sensitive modern men, so we cooked a lovely dinner for the Bosnian girls.  After much debate of USA-Balkan politics, foreign food, counterculture (and beer) one of the girls and I ended up kissing in the moonlight in Nis Fortress on that hot summer night.  She fascinated me for being what I wasn't.  She was a wild, dancing, free-spirited hippie who was an expert fire-thrower.  I had my guitar and watched her mesmerizing fire-dance as I sang on the top of the Nis Fortress walls.  The music from Klinika disco below us provided an odd trance accompaniment.

Unfortunately, there were many people partying in the park, including several other beautiful Balkan girls.  I became very distracted.  Dare I say Balkan girls are one of my weaknesses, and a Serbian medical student caught me that at that moment.  While the Bosnian girl was showing off her fire-throwing skills on the fortress stones, I began chatting with the student.  Many Southern Serbian girls get pretty excited when an American guy with a guitar shows up in their town.  I'm a complete liar if I said I don't take full advantage of the situation, and I love my Serbian friends for telling me this.  They are some of the few people I know who will tell me to my face what a complete 'American asshole/fucker/sonofabitch' I am sometimes.

...America, Fuck Yeah!

An "American Fucker" in Nis, Serbia

Rakia and beer flowed freely in the fortress park, and people drifted in and out of my memory.  We danced, drank, sang, reveled and eventually the Serbian and I left for a quieter place.  I didn't notice until the sun was rising what had happened.  The Bosnian girl wasn't happy to find out I had changed allegiances and was in a rage.  When I'm traveling, I can be the naughtiest American asshole.

The Bosnian and I returned to our shared Couchsurfer place in the early hours of the morning.  She was angry and refused to even touch me even though we had to share a bed that night.  Now what do I do?

One Night In Lviv Is Never Enough

Hurry up and wait... 
                                Hurry up and wait... 
                                                                Hurry up and wait...


Now hurry up!  After a quiet train ride through the Ukraine countryside I found myself in a mass of people rushing off the train in Lviv.  For a few wild minutes I surged forward with the herd and suddenly....I was alone.

A large white concrete platform spread out in front of me.  Central Lviv was off in the distance.  The train passengers were dispersing and I quickly hailed down one of them before I ran out of options.  He was a large, young guy with an massive beard who spoke a little English.  He introduced himself as "VladakrunpronouncableSlavicname."  I showed him Maria's drawing of the two parallel roads and the directions for Retro Hostel Shevchenko.  Instead of simply pointing me the right way, he told me to follow him and walked me to the street where Tram 29A waited.  I thanked Vladakblahblahblah kindly and paid for the ticket.

The tram did a quick turn onto the main thoroughfare.  No sooner had I sat down when I saw the same bearded young guy running after the tram.  He quickly appeared at the door and apologized for putting me on the wrong tram.  As if I knew the difference.  He lead me to a tram immediately in front of the first.  He found two young, attractive girls on the tram and chatted with them briefly in Ukraine:

"This girls speak English.  They know where you are.  Follow them."

Here we go again.

Flirting with the girls was easy, since they were flabbergasted that some American guy would end up sitting behind them on a tram.  At that point I had been border-traveling for 14 hours and could barely entertain the notion of some wild, exotic Ukrainian girl sex fantasy.  I talked with them, but the only image that kept popping into my mind was me alone, sleeping in a warm bed.  We arrived at the Green Street stop and I found Retro Hostel easily enough.  I checked-in and slumped up the 6 stories to my 10 bed dormitory.  After a shower I passed out to recover for a few hours.  Before hitting the pillow, I saw several Polish guys drinking beer and vodka in the dorm.  It was only about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  They would be ideal party comrades.

Team Poland (plus 1 American) at Kriyyika

 We did party.  By the time we found Kriyyika Pub on Market Square at 11pm, we had already helped ourselves to several liter beers at the hostel after sharing travel stories, establishing my proud Polish roots and finding a few Polish girls as well.  Retro Hostel staff tipped us off to the pub.  Its well hidden and quite a task to find if you don't know where it's at.  This is exactly what the bar wants.  Even the website has a password.

Two bottles of 'Mint Stagger' vodka

Kriyyika Pub is what I expect from a part of the former U.S.S.R.  You can only find the location by word-of-mouth, it's hidden underground, the bouncers don't blink and they don't let you in without a password (ask the Retro Hostel staff.)  Once you're inside it's a different story.

The place is a massive underground cellar with a Communist theme.  Its food menu is nice and the drink menu nicer...especially the homemade flavored vodkas.  A few fresh, delicious bottles of  "Mint Stagger" vodka set our group of Polish folks (plus one American) reeling.  They were good enough to demand a 2nd round.  Possibly there was a 3rd round or even a 4th, but we were quickly losing track of the bottles.  Ukrainian vodka is strong and potent when its this drinkable.  Drinking it with a group of rowdy Polish guys and girls further complicates the problem.

These large amounts of vodka caused my mind to drift back to the lovely Ukrainian girls from the bus.  They weren't the only ones I had noticed.  Our difficulty in finding Kryyvina pub was troublesome, but it had given me plenty of time to watch the locals girls walking around.  What I had seen this night simply made my jaw drop.  That is no easy thing to say after having lived in Slovakia for 2 years and traveled through Poland.  Slavic girls are already amazing in general and yet somehow they got better in Lviv.  Maybe a Ukrainian mail-order bride isn't such a bad idea?

Lovely Ukrainian & Polish girls. Plus one Polish guy.

I abruptly stood up from the table and declared my plans to start looking for my future wife.  The Polacks were very amused and said since I was American it would be easy.  I started stumbling around the cavernous bar in search of a soulmate.

She was tall, beautiful and had jet-black hair to contrast with her ivory skin.  I found her drinking champagne with her equally lovely blond "mother."  I couldn't honestly believe they were mother and daughter, but who cares?  They joined our table for more vodka rounds.    

Hold on.  When two lovely girls so willingly leave their table at the request of a drunken, loud American something is suspicious.  The words of my border-crossing guide, Maria, "No English. Speak English, more money" echoed in my mind.  This thought bothered me, but the 5, 6, 7..??? shots of vodka told me otherwise.  I told the Ukrainians we were ready to dance and asked their suggestion for the next stop.

"We go to Fashion Club.  You and mother and Polish."

Fashion Club?  Sounds posh.  In our drunken mess, we managed to pay the bill and stumble out of the cellar.  The Ukrainians guided my Polish crew and I to a place right on the main drag.  It looked posh, intimidating and screamed "cover charge."  The line to pay cover had several supermodels and their big Mafia-looking boyfriends.  I wondered if my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Party Wagon" shirt was up to code.

Despite my drunken state, what happened next sobered me up quickly.  "Mother" and daughter had kindly gotten entry tickets for us foreigners.  Yet somehow we were all getting quoted different prices.  Men do pay more than women, but oddly one of the Polish guys was charged an additional fee because his shoes were "wrong."  Not surprisingly, I being the "rich" American got charged the most.  Mother and daughter said I was paying for them plus "added" fee.  I tried comparing single ticket prices.  Something wasn't adding up.  I could've spent more time calculating but drunkenly converting Ukrainian Hryvna to American Dollars while being scammed by beautiful foreign women is not something I learned in university.  I did the asshole backpacker thing.

"I'm not paying for you."

The golden ticket

At the risk of getting my ass beat by the skinhead bouncer with probable ties to the Russian Mafia, I argued with the ticket doorman.  By waving my arms, shouting and gesturing enough the man finally figured out I wasn't going to pay for the girls.

He ripped up my first ticket and gave me a new, single ticket.  I paid the new amount and stomped into the club, ignoring the fashionable Ukrainian spectators who were eyeing me with disgust.  Life is good.

My Polish comrades hadn't been so lucky.  One had paid the "shoe fee" and the others seemed unsure of what had just happened.  I myself wasn't so sure.  How had one ranting, jeans and t-shirt American convinced the Ukrainian staff of a fashionable Lviv club that he had been ripped off by two scheming Ukrainian women?

The rest of the night slipped away as we consumed more vodka and danced to bad Ukrainian pop music.  One of the Polacks fell victim to too much vodka.  Two Polacks fell victim to each other and left early.  I fell victim to another beautiful Ukrainian girl.  Somewhere around 5 in the morning I found myself sharing breakfast and singing "Just The Way You Are" off-key to a blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie doll in a 24-hour casino.  This is only the first night.

   

 

Costa Rica Hostel Debauchery: Raleigh's Birthday

I haven't celebrated my birthday on American soil for the past 4 years.  First it was Thailand, then Slovakia. and now Costa Rica.  The big difference this year is that I was working the whole time with a bottle of Flor de Cana rum in my hand:

Yeah. This is my job and I love it!  Come down here and be a part of it.   I will unabashedly say that while the rest of Costa Rica is known for its nature and ecotourism, San Jose itself is as much Sin City as Las Vegas, Nevada.  So its the perfect fit for me.  I'll get you a place to stay for the night, serve you a drink, then take you out for a pub crawl on 'Calle de La Amargura' for the night.

Calle de La Amargura is only 400 meters from the hostel, so that's where I wrapped up my birthday night.  You should too.  On this night, one girl just isn't enough for me.  Its a good thing this gringo can speak Spanish so damn well...

We had a reservation for our favorite dive bar, Eric's Copas.  This bar wins the "Gringo Award" because the music is low enough to have an actual conversation.  Most Costa Rican bars have the music cranked so loud you can't hear yourself think.  This is OK when the place is packed, but it makes no sense (at least to gringos) to have the music up when there's only 5 people inside.  After the pub crawl the night only got better.






Did I mention its not my real birthday?


Tuesday still awaits...