First Day in Costa Rica!

We did it! I still can’t believe we’re really here. And yet somehow I feel like I have come home. It’s been a busy day, meeting friends, learning the busses, eating and drinking. But mostly just soaking in the flavor of our new country.
8:00 am: Having my café con leche on the patio of Hotel Dona Ines. Gene’s already out walking.
8:30 am-My friend Dale just called! We’re meeting at Tex-Mex in Santa Ana at 4 this afternoon! The front desk guy brought the phone to my breakfast table. I thought it was a mistake. No one knew where we were! Then I remembered. Dale was the only person in the world who knew where I was! Yesterday morning I had seen her daughter post on our on-line Costa Rican discussion group that she and her husband are leaving to go back to New Zealand. I panicked! Dale helped me celebrate my birthday when I was down here by myself last year. She had invited me to opening night at the Little Theater – and the cast party afterwards. She was my first real friend in Costa Rica! I immediately e-mailed her – please tell me you’re not leaving just as I’m finally getting back! Within 2 minutes I had a reply: No, I’m staying and I have my own “wee apartment” in Santa Ana already! So much excitement as I e-mailed her to tell her we’d be staying at Hotel Dona Ines in San Jose again. So it’s Tex-Mex at 4!
Lunch: Stopped at one of my favorite places to eat in San Jose, the little “soda” across the street from my old school-arroz con cerdo (pork fried rice) for me and arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) for Gene. Café con leche for me and Coke for Gene. Total bill 2,300c (about $7.50) – and it was great! You can feed yourself well and incredibly cheaply or you can spend a lot more. But the difference in price is definitely not necessarily indicative of the difference in quality. The comida del dia which can be had at any little soda in the country for 1,100c or less is really good food, a whole meal with salad, vegetable, fish or meat, rice, beans, a drink and sometimes even soup.
Later: Tex-Mex is a real gringo hangout in Santa Ana, a 20-30 minute bus ride from San Jose. On my last trip here, I had met a bunch of people from the internet groups there on a Saturday afternoon. That’s how I started to meet people and make friends. Dale wasn’t able to make it that day, due to a Little Theater rehearsal. She e-mailed and invited me to get together another time. And thus we immediately became fast friends! Santa Ana, by the way, is pronounced “Santana,” like one word, and skipping one of the “a”s.
Getting to “Santana:” (Remember this is our first day here!)
Gene: We’ll take a cab?
Laurie: What for?
Gene: Why not?
Laurie: It’s expensive.
Gene: How expensive?
Laurie: I don’t know.
So we took the Sabana-Cemetario bus (the one that is going to turn towards Coca Cola as opposed to the one which is not going to turn towards Coca Cola! Wonder if I’ll ever understand this type of direction!) from Calle Once, Av Central y Dos to Coca Cola (the large bus station-not one of your more savory areas, but no big deal). After only 2 minutes of standing in line, we caught the Santa Ana bus on the street outside of Coca Cola (they leave every 20 minutes). Anyhow, since it came so fast, I hadn’t figured out how much it cost yet, and couldn’t see any amount on the window, as is normal. I had figured out that the driver had said ciento cuarenta y cinco but was having trouble counting out all the weird coins for 145 twice. A man across the aisle said “It’s 300.” Not the first time I had tried to make something too complicated. It doesn’t have to be exact. They will give you change! The truth is, though, somehow, you always end up with mounds of strange coins and eventually have to try to use some of them! Anyhow getting to “Santana” was quick and easy, as well as cheap – 60c to Coca Cola and 145c to Santana (exch is about 360c to US $1).
At Tex-Mex: Wow! How great is it to arrive in your new home in a new country and on the very first day get to meet an old friend! It was so great to see Dale. She is such a fun friend. And she even came with a huge bouquet of flowers for us! Welcome Home! What a great time! Dale came to Costa Rica from New Zealand a couple of years ago to be here for the birth of her first grandchild. Her daughter and son-in-law have now returned to New Zealand, taking Dale’s only grandchild with them! Dale has no plans to leave. Like us, she is home.
Another New Friend: And an amazing experience! Dale’s friend Ann showed up, abruptly announcing, “I am now brain dead.” Since I had never met her before, I wasn’t sure how to take her comment. Seems she had been on the phone with RACSA (the Costa Rican internet provider monopoly) all day, trying to get her computer working again. "I don't understand computers in English; nevermind in Spanish!" One guy gave up on her "and went for coffee, apparently." Her monologue on her experience with RACSA sounded like theater. I kept thinking if she was sitting on a stool in the middle of a stage, doing the same lines, people would pay good money for the performance. It helped that she had a fascinating English accent, and pronounced “Racsa” very crisply! Turns out that she does do theater – both acting and directing, as well as writing the theater newsletter. She also writes for the Tico Times – and is off for a few days to Guanacaste to interview several people for as many articles. Later, reading last week’s Tico Times, I realized the article on a new wine bar in town was hers. Fascinating person. Lived here 11 years. Left a few times to do some traveling in other countries, once for a year, but she always comes back to Costa Rica. “I couldn’t live in Canada again, and certainly could not afford England.” She says you can travel around on $5 a day if you don’t have a home base to maintain. When she first got here, she would go places with her landlady, who apparently sold cosmetics, or whatever else she could find to sell, door to door. Her clients paid her 50 colones a week or whatever. So she goes around with the landlady to call on her customers. At every gate, the landlady would call out “Upe!” Ann thought it odd that so many of the Costa Rican women were named “Upe.” Eventually she learned that “Upe” is the greeting that one yells at the gate, waiting to be invited inside! They would get ready to go somewhere and the landlady would say they were going to “Alavuelta.” They never seemed to end up getting there and Ann was anxious to see “Alavuelta” and eventually one day asked the landlady about it. “You always say we’re going to “Alavuelta,” she said, but we never get there. Where is it?” After falling on the floor laughing, the landlady told her that “a la vuelta” meant “around the block.” Every story Ann tells is hysterical. The British accent helps! Ann recently acquired a car and started driving. She says that it turns out that most of the streets are one-way, but the only way you know that is when oncoming drivers start yelling at you!
What a Day! A gringo named David at the bar kept coming over to our table to welcome me profusely. In grand shape after spending most of his day at the bar, he obviously had heard me exude about it being my first day here! After sitting around getting caught up on everything that’s happened since I left a year and a half ago, and of course drinking Imperial (local beer), and then having dinner, we splurged on a taxi all the way back to our hotel for 2,500 c. We went for coffee in the evening, around the corner on the porch of the charming Fleur de Lys hotel. 2 cafes con leche and a shared dessert cost 2,000c. We are happy. Hey! Everybody back home, we made it! We really did it!