Another Old Friend & Finding an Apartment

We meet up with Chuck in Heredia. As always he is full of information about Costa Rica. And he even ends up leading us to our first apartment!Had made arrangements to meet Chuck in Heredia. Got a little hung up on getting ready and needing to stop off at the internet café so ended up splurging on another cab [something like $5 for a 20 minute ride; 3 days ago I spent $10 to taxi down the street to the post office and back in Hollywood]. Chuck is the guy who runs one of our Costa Rica Internet discussion groups, “Gallo Pinto.” We met him at Azzurra’s, the coffee shop across from el Parque Central. Talked for a couple hours. Chuck is a wealth of information. Told us how to get cell phone cards so our cell phones will work here (outgoing only; some people get pagers so people can page them to call back). Don’t feel any need for a cell phone, but maybe someday we will, so it’s good to know how to go about it. Talking to Chuck is kind of like listening to an ongoing encyclopedia of Costa Rica in progress. I had first met Chuck and his charming wife Linda when I was down here last year. After meeting them at Tex-Mex with a group of online expat friends, they had invited me out to their home in the hills for lunch one day. I remember that on that day I had taken the bus from San Jose to Heredia and Chuck met me in front of McDonalds and took me on a grand tour of the area in his truck before going to lunch. I learned a lot about living here that day. And the valley view from their lovely home in the hills reinforced my desire to move here.
We Find an Apartment: Chuck mentioned a place called Apart-hotel Roma where a couple of other “Gallo Pinto” members had stayed when they first arrived. It’s up on a hill in walking distance of downtown Heredia. I had eliminated the place from consideration, although it sounded pretty good, because the guide books said it would cost about $50 a nite. For some reason, we all ended up climbing into Chuck’s little truck and trekking up the hill to check the place out. Turned out we could get an apartment for anywhere from $600 to $900, after a little negotiating, and by taking it for the whole month and paying cash. We fell in love with the biggest, nicest apartment. It has an incredible view of the mountains and the valley. At night it would be awesome, seeing out over the lights of the entire valley and the mountains and San Jose. Anyhow, after talking with Chuck for a few more hours, we had lunch on the square in Heredia, caught the bus back to San Jose, and called Hotel Roma and told them we wanted the “Penthouse Suite” starting on Sunday.
Dale called to say she’s bought a set of dishes for her “wee” apartment and we were invited to help her christen them on Saturday for lunch. So another big day on Saturday and then we’ll move to Heredia on Sunday!