Check out DJ Karim and Sonámbulo

I´m getting to know the kids that work at the hostel I'm staying at --Hostel Casa Yoses, which is the bomb diggity. :) <--- L00k. I made a smiley face -- and so I went out with a few of them to a show last night at Jazz Café in the San Pedro neighborhood. Sure, I´m sick, but other than sporadically feeling super tired, I feel quite fine most of the time. I took it easy and watched the people dancing to DJ Karim, and dude, it was awesome seeing these people´s personalities come out as they danced. I feel like I know all of them to a certain extent, especially since once the main act came on, Sonámbulo, a Costa Rican band that´s funking up some of the traditional samba, merengue, and cumbia by throwing in some reggae, punk rock, and an ode to the Pink Pather, well, I just had to dance. Everybody was dancing, dancing their own way, dancing shamelessly, and smiling like fools. What a fun night.

I felt right at home. I´ve realized that I´m a city girl. Let me give you a really strange example. In the country, though we live in the mountains, most every woman wears high heels, which most of you know I not a huge fan of. At the Jazz Café, only one girl wore high heels, but that didn't slow her dancing down. She looked liked the kind of girl that could wear high heels in a race and win. Everyone else, sandles, tennis, any type of flat shoes. Though I was dressed in my mom´s old t-shirt and (again no pun intended) a pair of mom-jeans, I felt right at home in my roman sandles (which I had just purchased at the Mercado Central earlier that day as my flip flops were rubbing my feet).

The point is, every girl came to dance. Every guy too for that matter. They didn't conform to the styles I've seen in San Isidro or in the little surrounding towns, where the super colors and extreme style of the 80s still thrive. When I first got to my town, my host mom bought me a cheap set of every color in the world earrings so that I have a pair for every outfit. Later, she and one of her friends tried to convince me to buy one of those bras that you can switch the straps to match your earrings, your shirt, your shoes, purse, and of course, most importantly your eye-shadow.

There was nothing like that at Jazz Café. Now don´t get me wrong. I don´t dislike matchy-matchy colors, and I don´t mind getting dressed up once in a while. But, since I had been asked to go to this show last minute and had no time to change or put on any makeup if I had had any with me, it was quite a relief that I fit right in. Sure, I wasn´t as punk rock, funky, or hippie looking as a lot of the other people, but I don´t get the feeling anyone but me was aware of the visual aspect of the night. And once I started dancing I wasn't paying attention to anything but the rhythm and taking part of the energy that was running through the night .