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"La Romeria" in Costa Rica

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t

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Hi all, as my flag shows I'm from Costa Rica and as I sit and relax over our three days of vacations I thought I'd share an odd fact from my country.
Our capital state is San José but I live in Cartago, here we have a big church called "La Basílica" (big in Costa Rican terms, not in European terms). This church was built around a little statue of Mary, legend says a girl found the statue and took it home, every day the statue disappeared and reappeared where she had found it. It was assumed Mary wanted to stay in that place so they built a huge church around the miracle.
Our country was mostly catholic and Mary plays a central role in the catholic religion, so the statue became very popular. People began asking favors to the statue and making "sacrifices" to it (not bloody sacrifices but the "I'll stop drinking for a month" sacrifices). Eventualy "la romería" was borned...
It´s a day of the year (august 2) when people all over Costa Rica come to the church to ask/thank the virgin Mary for something... the thing is they come walking, some even from Guanacaste. About 1 million people come every year. Roads are blocked, red cross is on stand by, Cartago gets paralized... I don´t walk it but it is a funny thing to see, and this year we got 2.5 days off from school!

Trad

DS
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Originally posted by trad
Hi all, as my flag shows I'm from Costa Rica and as I sit and relax over our three days of vacations I thought I'd share an odd fact from my country.
Our capital state is San José but I live in Cartago, here we have a big church called "La Basílica" (big in Costa Rican terms, not in European terms). This church was built around a little statue of Mary, leg ...[text shortened]... t walk it but it is a funny thing to see, and this year we got 2.5 days off from school!

Trad
You've been here 2 years and now you say hi...? 😕

t

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Well... gimme a break... I'm shy.

Bad wolf

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Originally posted by trad
Well... gimme a break... I'm shy.
Thats an understatement....😲

DS
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Originally posted by trad
Well... gimme a break... I'm shy.
Oh okay... I'll let you off then.

BUT DON'T DO IT AGAIN!!!

tonytiger41

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an interesting read from a 2003 New York Times article,
http://insidecostarica.com/specialreports/costa_rica_bookies_in_exile.htm

t

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A rather harsh article that brings Costa Rican image very low. Most or what it says is technically true but it just paints it too pale for the country. SportsBooks are indeed a problem, people that work there (clerks) are often very well paid so they drop out of school, forget their careers, and start throwing money away... that´s the awful lifestyle they talk about there. I've personally lost a couple of friends to that world... but it is just on side of the coin.

m
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Originally posted by tonytiger41
an interesting read from a 2003 New York Times article,
http://insidecostarica.com/specialreports/costa_rica_bookies_in_exile.htm

I had no idea sports betting was illegal in the states, here in Britain it's everywhere.

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