Monday, April 27, 2009

What I look forward to the most about being back home in the good ol US of A


There's been plenty to like about Costa Rica over the last four months, and I'll be posting soon on what I'll be missing the most. But it's also time to look forward. In just over a week, I'll be touching down in San Francisco and on North American soil for the first sime since the early hours of 2009. Here's a small sample of what I've missed and am looking forward to the most:



1. Baseball



Reading the box scores and catching the occasional highlight on TV hasn't done much to whet my appetite for sports. And now that the Kings' season is over, it's time to move on to baseball. Since I'll likely be in Sacramento for a little while after I get back, I'm especially looking forward to River Cats Games. Biking along the river, catching the cool Delta breeze, hot dogs, burgers and beer at Raley Field... it doesn't get any better than that, does it?



2. Barbeques



Speaking of food, I think the single cooking item I've missed most is a barbecue. With the warm weather down here, it's been torture having to cook meat on the stove or with the oven. If I had it my way, I'd be grilling meat and vegetables every day.



3. HDTV

I try not to make a hobby of watching too much TV. Down here, that hasn't been hard. But I'm really looking forward to plopping down on the couch and catching up on some of my favorite shows like Lost, The Office and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Even better, I'll be able to catch the later rounds of the NBA playoffs, on HD to beat. Awesome.



4. Mexican food



There's a soda down the street from my office called Tacos Tumbres where I lunch frequently. It's ostensibly Mexican but basically serves up the same casados, albeit tasty ones, as anywhere else. For my first meal in California, I'm going for some real good, down home Mexican food. Los Jarritos, Oscar's, Caballo Blanco and (only after midnight) Carolina's. I get hungry just thinking about it.



Hmmm, everything seems to be revolving around food and sports. There's got to be more than that, right?



5. Seeing friends and family



Ah, ok. Much better now. Sorry for getting sentimental. But there should be some fun times ahead, ranging from visits to friends at Stanford and my sister at Santa Clara, Avalon and my cousin Jon's graduations, and hopefully a trip to Vegas and climb of Mt. Shasta. All in a couple month's work.




And now, a brief foray into what I'm not looking forward to: using a cell phone again, driving (although it was fun driving again for a while when we rented a car for Arenal and Monteverde, but that was mostly because the roads were deserted on Good Friday), lunching for more than $3, listening to Laker and Dodger fans gloat about their teams' success, inane politics, and, finally, not having amazing flora and fauna right next door...


Oh wait, I'll be in Northern California. I still will.

1 comment:

  1. you won't have to worry about laker fans gloating about success when they come up against my d-nugs. of course, if you're back around stanford, you're invited to come watch my d-nugs stomp in whatever series they happen to be in at the time.

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