Travel #1: San Jose

San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica, situated within the Central Valley within mountains on either side. But also within this valley are 4 of the country's 7 provinces (Alajuela, San Jose, Heredia, and Cartago) and 3.5 of the country's 4.5 million inhabitants. Because the mountains are so hard to build on, being so steep and volcano-y, all the cities are growing into each other as they develop and are just turning into a massive metroplex.

The aforementioned metroplex

Coffee flowers on a column

 As the first big group excursion, we spent the day walking around San Jose. First we toured el Teatro Nacional, the national theater. This is the big location for performing arts events in Costa Rica: theater, opera, symphonies, etc. An important note: with a valid student ID (the one from your home university will work) you can get a 40% discount on tickets. This building was built in the 1800s during the time of the Republic. Costa Rica didn't really want the independence that it got from Spain, and asked England if they wanted another colony. England was having problems with the American colonies at the time and said it wasn't worth the trouble, but that they would buy coffee from Costa Rica instead, which was very lucrative. Coffee continues to be a very important source of income for Costa Rica, so there are many depictions of coffee on columns and in the paintings within the building. The whole purpose of this and many other buildings is basically to say "Look how advanced and European we are!" so it is a giant mash-up of European architecture and design styles, full of symbolism about Costa Rica as a nation.

The entryway was entirely marble: marble floors, marble columns, large marble statues. The thing is, there is no marble in Costa Rica! It was all imported from Italy. The main room we toured was the foyer, mimicking the Palace of Versailles in France. For example, huge tall mirrors, and false doors to make the room look bigger/more important. The floor was beautiful wood panels, which included pieces made from trees that are now extinct. The ceiling is a painted allegory of music (the angel = music), and all of the walls and columns showcase symbolism of music and Costa Rica. Reliefs of famous composers are high on the walls throughout, as well as depictions of coffee everywhere. Each component of every painting was selected specifically by the painting to demonstrate something about Costa Rica.

Below is a statue of the angel of Fame, which used to sit on the roof of the building. It was replaced by a replica because the pigeon feces were starting to erode the statue.

After that we visited several of the many parks throughout San Jose, including the Parque Nacional, in which there is a large statue depicting the defeat of William Walker. Walker was an American who wanted to turn Latin America into another source for slave labor for the American south, so he simply conquered Nicaragua. He then continued with his new Nicaraguan army to try and conquer Costa Rica, but he lost. The statue depicts a cowering Walker fleeing from several topless women, who apparently represent nations that fought to defend Costa Rica. At the bottom of the statue you can see a sort of crumpled figure, which is a representation of Nicaragua (dead/conquered).

Next we walked around through more parks and ultimately got to the old military headquarters. Costa Rica has not had an army for close to 70 years, after a messy civil war. They left the bullet holes in the walls of the military headquarters to remind themselves of why they don't want an army anymore. Nearby are many of the current government buildings like houses of Parliament, as well as some cool graffiti. 

On the right is the "blue castle," which used to be the American embassy. When it relocated, the U.S. gave this building to the Costa Rican government to use for Parliament, etc.

Well this definitely wasn't all I saw of San Jose, but it's all the history and pictures I could remember to keep track of! I will post again soon about my visit to Costa Rica's smallest national park.