Such Is Life In Costa Rica

What to do when you're in a hurry and need to make breakfast for a teenager? Make a cake!! More precisely a mug-cake. What I've done is I've made it a little bit healthier. I used turbinado (raw) sugar, substituted some of the flour for oat bran and added protein powder for flavor instead of using vanilla. It provides a good amount of carbs to kickstart your day along with very needed protein. And which teenager doesn't love chocolate chips?? It's a complete winner! And ready in just minutes. Ingredients 2 tablespoons flour 1 tablespoons oat bran 1 tablespoons vanilla protein powder 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 tablespoon oil 3 tablespoons milk 1 tablespoons chocolate chips Preparation Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a wide mounth coffe mug. Add the milk and oil, mix thoroughly. Stir in 3/4 of the chocolate chips. Decorate top with remaining chips. Microwave for 1 minute and a half...

A really small town with a lot of history. Did you know the cobblestone streets and water ways were constructed by the Inkas way back when? And they still work! Albeit the streets are really narrow and bumpy. But why is this little town so important? It's where you catch the trains to Macchu Pichu!!! There are two train lines with different services throughout the day, we found that Inka Rail was the best rate/time combination so we bought that one (bear in mind that you need to buy the tickets well in advanced as they sell out quickly! - we bought them like a couple of months before the trip). Ollanta also has a beautiful archaelogical site you can visit. It is made up of terraces used to prevent erosion in agriculture and the different temples. Here you can visit the most amazing feat of engineering (maybe not the most amazing one but absolutely superb) a water fountain that you can turn on and off just by running your finger along the lip of the fountain. All made of ...

I decided to try a vegetarian menu this week, and so far it's been great. Last night I made the most scrumptious couscous ever that I want to share with you. I wasn't really excited about it but once I tasted it - oh boy! It's going into my favorite recipes! Yield 1 serving Ingredients 1 oz (dry) couscous 4 cremini mushrooms 4 broccoli florets 1 garlic clove 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 cup boiling water 1 teaspoon butter 1/4 cup almond slivers Preparation Prep and cook time: 15 minutes Boil water in microwave. At the same time, heat the olive oil in a pan along with the crushed garlic clove. Chop the florets into bite size pieces and slice the mushrooms. Once the oil is hot, throw in the mushrooms and broccoli, stir and cover the pan for about 5 minutes. Measure the couscous and add boiling water, let sit while the vegetables are cooking. Uncover the vegetables and add salt and pepper. Cover again and cook until broccoli is tender. Drain t...

Be it a small step or a huge leap of faith, they are all steps of courage. Courage to be happy, courage to be pain free, courage to live the life you want and courage to separate yourself from the people that don't share your goals. Stop being afraid!

Ballet. It was one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, and one where I got the most compliments for (though not from my family; I'm sure they were proud of me and everything, but they weren't the complimenting type towards me). I attended lessons about 4 or 5 times a week during 10+years and was really good at it. It was my passion! I was never encouraged to make that my career path though and I regret it a lot. I think I could've had an amazing career as a dancer and later on as a teacher. I'm actually glad my daughter didn't really like it, I probably would've been one of those mom's that pushes her daughter down a path I would've liked to take. I still think about going back...

In the last Perú post  we had visited central Cuzco, for our third day in Peru we decided to go a little bit towards the north, to a town called Písac where we were going to visit the ruins of a very interesting agricultural terraces which were clue to Inka farming. We didn't actually go to the ruins but instead stayed at the farmer's market happening in the town itself (a really good post about Písac Ruins can be found here ). We bought our souvenirs and had an absolutely wonderful ear of corn with the kernel's the size I've never seen before. We managed to catch a very nice procession to the church and traditional dancing by men. After spending all our money here jaja we went for some lunch to a little place called Blue Llama . The food was really good and we were practically by ourselves there (bathrooms were nice and clean as well). Make sure to take a good look at all the places Blue has been and all the interesting people he's met! From here we walked to t...

It's the small stuff...sure a big gesture warrants gratefulness, but to me, the everyday small stuff is more meaningful. It is a constant influx of efforts other people do to make you happy. I realized this today as I was talking to my husband about an upcoming trip we're planning. We are both very laid back and adventurous, we both work from home and we rarely do fancy stuff. But one of the shortlist items for this trip is having High Tea in London. I've been going back and forth between a fancy Tea Room, like Café Royal or the Ritz, or a Thames Tea Cruise (suggestions are welcome!). Anywho, I asked my husband about it this morning...also explaining that we would probably need to dress up for it - I mentioned that the Ritz requests jacket and tie and both Café Royal and Bateaux are smart casual. I was totally expecting him to tell me to ditch the High Tea but instead he put on his thinking face and the first thing he said was "we need to figure out where to rent ...