Job Discussion Forums

[dan_lawrence]

Recently spent a week in San Jose. I went out one evening to get a couple Colas to share with the night clerk at my B&B. It was pouring rain but I made the several block uphill walk to a small "soda" to get the drinks. In a cooler I spotted 2 glass bottles of Pepsi and gave them to the cashier. She asked me in Spanish if I wanted a "bolsa" (bag). I said please and she then pulled out a tiny baggy and before I could say no, she had poured one of the bottles into this little sandwich bag. I asked her if she had a larger bag which seemed to flummox her. Someone spoke up and said that I wanted a big bag to carry the unopened bottles in. She had none. So I made my way out into the roaring rain with an untied baggy full of drink in one hand and an uncapped bottle of Pepsi in the other. Not wanting to appear to the hotel clerk as a bigger idiot than I felt, I tried to drink the baggy Pepsi as I slogged down the steep street in the pouring rain all the while trying to jump the 3 foot deep gullies in front of the sidewalks. I did not succeed. My friend at the frontdesk got quite a kick out of my Spanish lesson and thoroughly enjoyed his Pepsi.

[John Hall]

Bienvenido a Ticolandia!

[logicpocket]

She poured the Pepsi in to the bag itself? wtf?

[John Hall]

Yeah, this seems like a funny Tico custom at first. But the bottle is refundable, so this is a way to pay for the drink and return the bottle at the same time.

The thing that befuddles most North Americans at first is how to drink out of a plastic bag. Of course, the bag is firmly tied shut. Ticos then put the knot side down, which makes any air in the bag rise to the corners of the bag. They let one of the corners protrude more than the other, and then they bite off the very tip of it. As you drink from the bag, you squeeze it with the palm of your hand to get the juice out; gravity does the rest.

[logicpocket]

that's awesome

[OleLarssen]