Feria in Alajuela
A couple of SOLmates and I are heading to the neighboring province of Alajuela to check out the feria (farmer's market) there. Hannah and I told Mamá Tica that we wanted to go, and she looked confused. She said there was one closer in Heredia that we could get to; apparently each province has a market on Saturday, and what was special about this one? It's been kind of difficult to explain to her that some of the things we've done, we chose to do because we hadn't ever done something like it before.
This happened when we told her we wanted to check out a panadería (bakery) in the other SOL neighborhood of La Esperanza. She asked us if we were going to get some bread, and we answered that we weren't sure. She looked at us incredulously and made sure that we knew that they sold bread at the little shop. We responded that yes, but that we were just meeting friends there. She still seemed a little confused; maybe that's a US thing...
Anyway, we hopped a bus to Alajuela (the same one that I took to pick up my parents from the airport) and were pointed in the direction of the market by the bus driver. It was really easy to find, and we walked through the fence into the little plaza. It. Was. Huge. Well, maybe not huge, but definitely bigger than I had expected, and bigger than I had ever seen a farmer's market be. We took several laps around, taking in the produce and comparing the prices between stands. After an hour or so we walked back to the bus station with our fruit.
A SOLmate and I were talking about the farmer's market that we have in Winona during the summer. I had never been there, but she said they sold some really cool stuff there. We decided to check it out when we got home. More cool stuff for us to do when we get back to the US.