Vishnu and Romeo & Juliet

Saturday night was a much needed break from church and the rest of life. Saturday was a rough day (sorry, but I don't feel like going into it this publicly), but after a cry and a short, much needed nap, I was able to move on. My good friend Ana Luisa (who sings in the same choir as me and helped me join) and I went to see Romeo & Juliet at the Teatro Nacional. The ads at the bus stops said it was the musical version, but the actors only sang during scene changes. Whatever. I was expecting a musical, like West Side Story or Les Miserables, where chunks of the script are actually sung. Overall it was well done. I'm not sure why, but everyone these days feels the need to throw some kind of interpretation to Shakespeare's work. For the most part, I liked the way it was interpreted. The set was absolutely minimal, but that allowed it to be really versatile. It's amazing what 6 wooden crate/boxy things can be used for! And this is the REALLY impressive part-only 6 actors made up the whole cast and chorus!!! For real. They pulled it off. There must have been some ridiculously fast costume changes. I did recognize a few characters to be played by the same actor, but that does make some sense, especially since the first character that actor played was dead. But, I was convinced that there were more than 6 people until the curtain call. I can't imagine how hard that would be to be in and out of character playing so many roles at once. I was a total theater geek in high school and did every show I could. I don't think I was actually that great an actress though. I would get too caught up in watching everything going on around me. I've always loved the limelight though. So anyway, it was fun to see a play.
Oh, one more note. It was a British acting troupe, so the performance was in English. (There were a surprising number of gringos there. I've started to feel kind of weird when I'm around a lot of gringos.) Anyway, being British English, I didn't understand all of it, even though I'm rather familiar with the show. Ana Luisa and I were in the topmost, farthest back row. And though the theater is pretty small, it still takes good effort for voices to be heard throughout the whole place. And, the naughty actors a) didn't project enough and b) dropped their lines (the first part of the sentence is audible but the end of it drains off...). So I understood between 70 and 80% of what was said. Ana Luisa got between 20 and 30%. We decided that between the 2 of us we made 100% and could understand it all. Jaja!!
Oops, I skipped the Vishnu part and went straight to R&J. Vishnu is Mommy's and my FAVORITE restaurant in all of Costa Rica. When Mommy came to visit me when I was a student here were ate many meals there. It is vegetarian, but has a lot of yummy food. Mommy's and my favorites are the pitas with a fruit drink/shake of mora (kind of like a black raspberry) in milk. SOOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!! And the service is fast and the food is cheap. It is a winner all around! On Saturday Ana Luisa and I enjoyed pitas and yummy fruit drinks and some really nice conversation. I really like one on one time with people getting to know them better. Ana Luisa is one of the people I met when I was a student here almost 3 years ago. We clicked and I knew we could be good friends if we were able to spend more time together. We haven't been able to spend as much time together as I might like or would have hoped, but we're working on it and I think God is really blessing it. I'm so grateful for her!!
(This isn't the greatest picture of us, but it's what I could find easily)

Oh, and I also have to throw in a brief tribute to Ana (the Ana I live with). She came to pick up Ana Luisa and me Saturday after the show because it got out after there were no more buses!! I'm so grateful for her too!!!!