TheEdgeClinger & TheTallGuy

Visit Our New Web Site

2010-03-30T17:17:00.001-06:00

I give up. It's clear that I am probably not going to post here anymore. We got all involved in our current blog over at http://edgingfurthersouth2.blogspot.com/ so that's where our current adventures will appear. Join us there!

I'm Still Here!

2009-05-18T20:58:00.005-05:00

This is ridiculous! I just can't seem to get into writing anything here any more. And I really want to. But I guess I don't really want to write about Costa Rica right now. I did, however, do a whole blog on my solo trip to Antigua, Guatemala for Semana Santa last month (my 2nd trip to that fascinating country). I hope you'll take a look at all the wonderful pictures I posted of the magnificent scenes during that week.

2008-11-24T21:01:00.003-06:00

Wow! We're in South America! See our latest travels over here: http://edgingfurthersouth.blogspot.com/

Not to Brag or Anything...

2008-07-20T21:41:00.002-05:00

But this incredible singer is my grandson, Jorden! Isn't he totally awesome!

Cows in San Jose

2008-07-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

Gene's Day at the Dentist

2008-07-20T19:47:00.001-05:00

This is for Larry, the only person who has questioned why I'm not blogging any more, and who is thinking about coming to Costa Rica for dental work!

Le Tub

2008-05-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

One of My All Time Favorite Restaurants in Florida. When we lived there, we used to go all the time for their seafood salad, which is really just a bowl of mostly seafood, not much salad to it. But it is fabulous! The gumbo is great, too. This time, I decided I just had to have one of their incredible cheeseburgers -best burgers ever. My annual beef craving is all gone now. Those things are big!
To see the slide show with a lot more of Le Tub, click here.

Couch Surfers Heredia

2007-10-07T17:12:00.000-05:00

A bunch of Couch Surfers (see August 29 entry below) currently in the Heredia area got together for lunch today. What fun to get to meet some of these people in person! There were people from at least six countries, God only knows how many languages. Travelers are definitely some of the most fascinating people you can meet. So glad my friends SarahJoy and Julio told us about this group.

Charlotte & David buy a Finca

2007-09-21T21:30:00.000-05:00

What a treat! We got invited out to see the finca (farm) our friends just bought. The view from their wonderful property in the Orosi Valley is incredible. We went over to their house the night before and did a sleep over so that we could get an early start to the farm in the morning. After a walk around the property we had a picnic and admired their view and the river. I am not kidding you. There's actually a river that runs through it! I don't think I've ever known anyone who owned property with a river running through it before. Sometime during the next few months they will start making plans for building a house on their property. It will be fun to see what type of house they decide to build in this beautiful spot. Meanwhile we've been assured that we will have an open invitation to visit them at their house on their river. What a life!

Hey, Hey Jude! Great Art Show

2007-09-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

What better thing on a rainy day than - an art show! I had always wanted to meet Jude Maceren, the talented artist who lives and paints right up the road in San Rafael. When we received an invitation to view his art at his home and studio, it was a must go. The rains even receded for a while so we actually got to go without getting soaked! Besides being obviously talented, Jude is also personable. Inspired by his garden and by Costa Rica's generous gifts of nature, Jude paints varied styles and media. Gene the artist and Jude the artist could have talked all afternoon, but I hauled Gene out so that Jude could give his attention to some of his other guests! Unfortunately my photography doesn't approach the quality of Jude's paintings, but hopefully my photos will give you some idea of how beautiful his pieces are. You don't have to wait for the next art show. Jude says you can call anytime to make arrangements to stop by and view his art. Call him at 261-6746. Or email him at jude@judemaceren.com. His place is in central San Rafael and very easy to find. For more about Jude and his art, see his blog here.

I Love Going to the Dentist!

2007-09-07T08:47:00.000-05:00

It's not just that my dentist, Dr Pacheco, is adorable, always smiling, never causes me pain and charges me a fraction of what those ladrones (thieves) charge in the U.S. Oh, all those things make me very happy, especially after some really bad experiences with dentists in that country up north. But the real excitement for me is the dim sum! Gene and I have a whole tradition wrapped around our trips to the dentist. We usually go for our appointments together. Afterwards, if we are able to eat, we go down to the next block and across the street to Restaurante Don Wang for a dim sum feast. If it's a day like today when I don't even have an appointment, but decide to tag along anyhow, so much the better! They offer a grand selection (46 different items) of dim sum, in addition to other types of Chinese dishes. We usually order from 4 to 6 different items to share (3 - 4 pieces in each little basket) and are totally stuffed by the time we leave. Yesterday we ordered just 4 things and the total bill, if we hadn't ordered the overpriced capuccinos, would have been just over 5,000 colones total ($10 or so). I have mentioned before that I DO NOT eat Chinese food in Costa Rica, since it is consistently inedible. Dim sum is different. It is the exception. This is one of my very favorite restaurants in this country. Its only shortcoming is that it is ordered off the menu rather than chosen from carts wheeled around the room. The place to go for the traditional service from carts is the Chinese Cultural Association in San Jose. That is a whole other experience, best done for lunch on a Saturday or Sunday when everyone else is there. Need to try that again soon, too!

The Friendliness of Strangers...

2007-09-01T23:19:00.000-05:00

...never ceases to amaze me. After our walk in the park at Inbioparque, we walked back to Santo Domingo central to catch a bus home. As we passed a beautiful old colonial home, we stopped to greet the older gentleman in the front yard. As we admired his garden, he quickly unlocked the gate and invited us in. His garden indeed was pretty, but I was itching to see the inside of this house which from the garden was gorgeous! He picked 2 of the biggest flowers I've ever seen and presented them to me. Maybe next time we'll get invited inside...

Inbioparque-A Walk in the Park

2007-09-01T19:17:00.000-05:00

Let's go do something! Before the rains come! During the rainy season, we have to learn to think like this. My inborn tendency to have coffee, surf the net, have something to eat, relax, think about what to do today, does not work during the rainy season. If you want to do something, it's a good idea to do it soon after waking - especially if you are not an early riser. So today it was let's go to Inbioparque. This place describes itself as "an amazing theme park that offers an interactive experience with nature." It further says that it "teaches people about Costa Rica's biological diversity and the importance of conserving it." Sounds either like a fun park for kids or an educational tool for school trips. In our book it turned out to be a pleasant place for a walk through "jungle" trails, around a pond and through a butterfly garden. Pretty birds in the trees along the way made us feel like "birders" without the early morning awakening. A relaxing cafe hidden away in the midst made for a nice rest stop for a snack with coffee when the rains started. Yes, of course they started. After a walk back to the entrance during a lull in the rains, we stopped for lunch at the large commercial feeling restaurant. Yes, there are educational displays with information about flora and fauna and all that stuff. There are also markers naming the plants growing along the way. There is a huge map display with a video about Costa Rica's national parks. Our timing was off. We arrived just as the video ended, but the map was interesting. For us it was mostly just a pleasant walk in the forest. We will go again, but won't bother with the overpriced, oversized casado (set meal) in the restaurant. Instead we will just lunch on a variety of the nice little pastries with coffee in the cafe in the jungle. Or maybe we'll take a lunch and just have our coffee there. The 2,300 colon entry fee was reasonable enough for a pleasant morning. I would not, however, pay the $20 US fee that is charged tourists. We have lived 15 minutes from this place in Santo Domingo for 5 years. It was time to see it. We had always planned to take guests there but always ended up filling their time here with other activities and never made it. I guess I'm glad we didn't take them now. Although it would be a pleasant place for a morning with guests, I don't think any of them would find the $20 entry fee a worthwhile value.

1st Day of School

2007-08-29T16:47:00.000-05:00

Grandma brags! That cute guy is Evan (1st son of my son Rob & his wife Polly) ready for his first day of 1st grade. And the adorable little girl on the left is Megan (1st child of my son Mark & his wife Debbie) with her best friend on their first day of kindergarten.

Couch Surfing

2007-08-29T11:48:00.000-05:00

A good friend told me about “couch surfing”. Apparently the term has been used for some time among the college crowd to describe “crashing” on someone’s couch when traveling. Now it’s a huge online site for people who are willing to “host” total strangers
in their homes for a night or two or more, or for travelers who would like to stay in the homes of total strangers in unknown places. Wow! Right up my alley, I thought! Not only a way to possibly meet new and interesting people from around the world, simply by offering our guest room occasionally, but a way to find free places to stay for part of the time when we roam the world! “Sounds dangerous,” says my son. How did I raise such conservative kids? The very day that I joined the group and set up my profile, we received a request from 2 brothers from Ohio who would like to couch surf at our home in October. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Mi Artista

2007-08-24T20:17:00.001-05:00

As a person with zero artistic ability or inclination, In am constantly amazed at the number of artists I know. I even live with one! My husband Gene does mostly abstracts. Over the past several years most of his work has been airbrush on canvas. But he has also done some sculpture and mixed media.
Recently a friend presented him with a large piece of scrap wood and challenged him to "do something with it." With my usual I don't get it reaction, it looked like a piece of wood to me. Several days later, I walked into his studio and saw thls relaxing beach scene. This is why we call him the artist in the family!

Many of his abstracts are in black and white. Here's one of my favorites.

And here's some more:

El Mercado

2007-08-17T22:17:00.000-05:00

I try to go to the Heredia market (el mercado) at least once a week for fruits and vegetables. This is not the vast Saturday morning feria, but rather just the everyday market. You can find anything there (well almost). Sometimes when I go on Fridays, I run into my friend Flora. Flora sometimes helps me when I can't figure out how to explain what I want (pork chops thicker than 1/4 inch!) or don't know what on earth some strange vegetable or fruit looking thing really is and what to do with it. I love going to the market. It is so colorful! And so economical. I think I could do all our grocery shopping at the market and feed us well for very little. 'Course that's not what we do. We like all that cool stuff you can get at Mas X Menos (mahs-pour-MEY-nos, or "more for less"). But el mercado is one of my favorite things about Costa Rica.

Happy Birthday Aunt Kay

2007-08-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

We Love You!

Lunch with Friends

2007-08-10T18:08:00.000-05:00

Jon & Emma decided we should do lunch to celebrate the 5th anniversary of our moves to Costa Rica. OK. Seemed like we'd been home long enough that it was time for me to come out from behind my books and get sociable. Then Jon suggested that we post a message on the online groups Costa Rica Living and Gallo Pinto telling people where we were going to lunch and maybe a few other people would like to join us. Great idea! 23 people showed up! It was a lot of fun. We got to see some people we hadn't seen for a long time and also to meet some new people. We may tell people where we're lunching more often!

You Can't Go Home Again

2007-07-19T23:03:00.000-05:00

Here we are back in our old hometown. Hollywood, Florida has changed a lot since we left 5 years ago. Surprisingly, it keeps getting better. Lots of nice new restaurants to try in the downtown strip. Outdoor tables at a lot of them. Beautiful new sidewalk areas. We like it. Young Circle, previously unused except for a few street people, has been totally redone with a big beautiful fountain, a neat childrens’ area with a cool fountain to run through and fun big spinning toys to lie down on. The entire childrens’ area is covered with some sort of soft artificial material. No concrete jungle here for the little darlings to break their heads on!
Of course we all went to Sushi Blues where Gene and I met about 12 years ago. We always go to Sushi Blues when we’re in town. Here’s Kenny, the leader of the band, one of our favorite people. Junko, his fabulous wife and chef extraordinaire, was off the night we were there, dancing in a ballroom dancing competition. We had gone out to eat early and so didn’t stay long enough to hear the band. Just eat slowly and stay for the music, said Kenny! But we were there way too early. Next time for sure. We haven’t hear Kenny play for a long time. He’s great!
Of course we also had breakfast at Jack’s Diner for a great breakfast. Jack’s is where we ate most of the time during the year that we renovated our house in Hollywood (while living in it, but without a kitchen – interesting!). We used to arrive and yell, “Mom, we’re home!” Dennis and his crew are still serving up great food at reasonable prices for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We ate at a really neat waterfront fish place on the Intercoastal. It’s been there like forever and I can’t remember its name but for some reason I don’t think I ever ate there when we lived there.
We tried a new fish place on the downtown strip, but it was very disappointing and way overpriced. So we won’t bother to mention it.
Another place that we always have to go when in Hollywood is the breakfast place on the beach. Angelo's Corner. We’ve been going there like forever for weekend breakfasts (when we lived there). They also have pizza and Italian stuff. It’s an Italian name. Antonio’s or some such. But it’s right on the broadwalk, so you get the watch the roller bladders strutting their stuff, runners, bicyclers, people on those bicycle thingees that carry 4 people, and just plain sun-bathers enjoying the fabulous white sand beach. Hollywood Beach is still the best. And they have a beautiful newly paved broadwalk that really fancies the place up.
I get a kick out of going to the grocery store (Publix) with Gail just to look at all the “stuff” that’s on the shelves. It’s overwhelming really. But I like the fact that you can actually buy fresh sushi in the grocery store. My friend Gail loves Publix because they have this really special kiosk where someone actually cooks a meal, shows you how it’s done, gives free advice and recipe cards and sells you all the needed ingredients right there so that you don’t have to go running all around the store finding them. Gail is learning lots of new recipes. She has one for sea scallops that is absolutely dynamite.
There are also condos going up everywhere around Hollywood. I can’t imagine who’s going to buy all those high priced digs. Reminds me of Costa Rica! There is a huge new condo complex right on the railroad tracks that supposedly has apartments starting over $300K. I don’t get it. We can’t afford to move back. Thank God we don’t want to.
We’re on our way home tonight. Back to the “real world.” This one feels especially unreal when looking at things like restaurant prices. Oh, my God! It has been a great trip. We have had a blast and loved getting to see everyone. I hope we’ll see them again soon. It would be nice to get together in Costa Rica next time. Adios mis amigos!

We Travel to Eat

2007-07-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

Friends Forever

2007-07-17T16:41:00.000-05:00

This is my friend Gail. Way back in the "old days" when I moved to Florida, I rented an apartment from Gail and Tony. Later on I sold their apartment buildings for them and helped Gail find the house she owns now. Still later I found them another investment property which fortunately they sold at a market high before the current crash. Along the way, we became friends forever. It's Gail who we visit when we go to Hollywood. It's also Gail who lent us a car during our entire 2-week visit. It was Gail who lent us an apartment for a month when we found ourselves temporarily homeless when our house sold in Florida before we left for Costa Rica. Gail is also the one who, when she learned of a homeless shelter being built in her neighborhood, took a bunch of stuff over to donate to them. This was while the rest of the neighborhood was up in arms doing that "not in my neighborhood thing." It was Gail who, with no hesitation, said "Of course" when I asked her if she wanted to drive across state to help when Hurricane Charley devastated the other Florida coast. Now she's a regular Red Cross volunteer. She's an amazing woman.

Driving a Car

2007-07-16T19:02:00.000-05:00

Driving all the way from Port Charlotte to Plant City yesterday morning and then down to Hollywood last night was not really my idea of fun. On the other hand, since we don’t own a car and I don’t drive in Costa Rica, it’s kind of interesting to be on the road. Our incredible friends Gail and Tony, who live in Hollywood, actually lent us one of their cars to use for our entire 2 week trip! How great is that? What a huge savings not to have to rent a car this trip. Thanks Gail and Tony! Of course we always stay with them at their house when we’re there, too. Gail and I are the absolute best of friends and always have tons to catch up on, even though we talk regularly on Instant Messenger. There’s finally an airline with a flight from San Jose to Ft Lauderdale – Spirit – so for the first time we were able to fly there instead of going through all the crap at the Miami airport, which I hate. Gail picked us up at the airport and we visited with them for a couple days then took off for Port Charlotte. Now we’re back to visit some more before going home.

Speaking of Staying Young!

2007-07-15T22:00:00.000-05:00

The amazing Uncle Nello is doing great and says he’s just a little sore where the incision is. He certainly doesn’t need us. So, much as we would love to spend more time with them, we drove this morning up to Plant City to visit Gene’s Aunt Mary. We had called to invite her out to lunch. You know us, everything is about food. Yes, she said, I’d love to see you. But of course when we got there, she had the table set for lunch! Well, she had had a little spare time yesterday, she said, so she decided to fix us lunch instead of bothering to go to a restaurant. And of course her famous jello salad.
Aunt Kay and Aunt Mary are both gorgeous women, still in their 80’s. Aunt Mary golfs, sings in the church choir and does a zillion things around her community to help some of the “older” people who live there. Her next door neighbor Lucille will turn 100 in October. I hear that her family is planning a huge birthday party for her and inviting the entire community, along with a lot of other friends. I wish I could be there for that. So maybe it’s not just Port Charlotte. Maybe it’s Florida. These women age well and slowly!

Something in the Water?

2007-07-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I had been thinking that Aunt Kay and Uncle Nello were unique somehow in their ability to remain forever young. I know that a lot of it has to do with attitude. They both seem to think like very young people, if not teen-agers, most of the time. They take classes, learn new things, go to exercise class, lots of other stuff.
But in the past couple of days here we’ve noticed a lot of “mature” people who are clearly very youthful. One woman in particular was eating lunch at a table near ours. I had noticed her and thought how attractive and refreshed she looked. She was probably in her mid-70’s. And then she stood up. This woman, wearing shorts, had legs that any 19 year old would be jealous of. She was a knock out! So maybe it’s just attitude, living and eating well, getting exercise and being active. On the other hand, maybe there’s something in the water around here. I’ve been trying to drink the recommended 8 glasses a day every day.

Let's Play the Game!

2007-07-12T21:58:00.000-05:00

Those are Uncle Nello’s words when we get to the house! Shouldn’t you be resting, we ask? No, they told me not to lie down and to make sure I get up and walk around. So it looks like playing cards is perfect, as long as I stand up and walk around from time to time. So we spend the afternoon playing “the game.” God we’ve missed these crazy relatives of ours! We wish we could spend more time with them. But they’re not going to move to Costa Rica. And we’re not gonna live in Port Charlotte. ‘Course we don’t have to wait for someone to have surgery to go visit. We wish they would visit us once in a while. They came down once but feel that it’s too much strain to do it again. We love spending time with them but it’s expensive to get there. Actually the expense was substantially reduced this trip thanks to the generous loan of a car from a friend (more on this later).

Operation Totally Successful!

2007-07-11T18:57:00.000-05:00

It was long day. I don’t know how Aunt Kay held up, but I was a wreck. You know, that hospital thing. They put you in a waiting room and proceed to get your loved one ready for surgery in some other mysterious area of the hospital. Hours later you’re worrying about why you haven’t heard anything since someone told you 3 hours ago that he was going into surgery. It was supposed to take only an hour and a half. When you finally find somebody who will help, you learn that he is still in pre-op, waiting for the surgeon. So after hours of waiting, we find him still in pre-op. I think he’s now been nearly 24 hours without food or water and how ridiculous that is. He says he’s doing just fine. Been napping on and off and listening to the activity around him. We try to get an update on the expected time of his surgery, but no one seems to know. After a while someone comes over and informs us that the surgeon has had to tend to an emergency at the other hospital and will probably be tied up for 3 or 4 hours. Apparently that was old news because 20 minutes later someone else comes in and says that the doctor is on his way. There are too many people in his little cubicle, so we all decide to leave and return to the surgical waiting room. These people can’t even communicate and organize well enough to get their stories straight to tell you whether he’s still in pre-op, still in surgery, in recovery, on his way into surgery or some other option. And yet you have to trust them to have their systems working well enough to work together to cut open someone’s body!
Of course after we leave pre-op we have no way of knowing if the surgeon really shows up, if he is now in surgery, or what. After a few more hours, we decide that it’s “tea” time (North American style) and I get sent out to procure the wine and cheese. By the time I get back, Aunt Kay has been told that he is out of surgery, in post-op and that everything went well. We will be able to see him in a while. We have time for our wine and cheese in the waiting room first.
Uncle Nello looks great! You’d never know he just had surgery! You’d certainly never know that he’s over 80 (considerably over 80 actually!).
While we wait in the hall outside his 2-bed room to be able to see him, a nurse walks up to us and starts asking Gene questions about the patient’s normal medications. The only trouble is that she’s asking about the other patient in the room. Comforting, huh? Don’t ever go into a hospital without somewhere there at all times to look after your needs. That’s what they do in Spain. A family member is there at all times. Uncle Nello will not like me saying anything negative about his hospital or the staff because he believes that his surgeon and everyone else associated with him are perfect. I’m certain that his surgeon is great. He did a great job on Uncle Nello. But the organization (or lack thereof) in hospitals terrifies me. Not just this hospital. All hospitals. From what I’ve seen, they are all confused.
But right now we are all just totally relieved that everything went well and that we can take him home in the morning. In spite of my fears for the system, medical science is a wondrous thing.

Aunt Kay's Art

2007-07-10T23:12:00.000-05:00

Aunt Kay is getting ready for her next art show. She now has a gallery wall in her house. She also has a cozy little studio off the lanai. That’s the lanai which had to be replaced after Hurricane Charley. Recovering from Charley was a long two year process, but the house is now beautiful. Aunt Kay loves her brand new kitchen. The new flooring is nice, too. It’s practically a new house, thanks to Charley. May there never be another hurricane year like 2004. She was teaching art classes but got derailed after Hurricane Charlie and hasn’t found the time and inspiration to start again. Hurricane Charley (and the 3 that followed within a month) changed a lot of people’s lives. But she still takes art classes and displays her art regularly in various venues. Her art is fabulous. Watercolors that are so beautiful. Dewdrops so real you think someone dropped water on it. Roses so soft you want to reach out and touch. After years of incredible still lifes, she is now doing abstracts – fabulous abstracts. What a woman!

I Don't Know What I'm Going to Do When I Get Old

2007-07-10T22:53:00.000-05:00

This is one of Uncle Nello’s favorite sayings. At 93, he doesn’t appear to be planning on getting old any time soon. He’s scheduled for spinal surgery tomorrow. Last week he went out and bought a table saw so that he can get to work on some of his projects after the surgery, once he doesn’t have to endure this pain anymore. He’s been feeling a little better the last few days, so we’ve been able to spend some good time visiting and playing “the game,” the card game with no name which he and Aunt Kay taught us years ago and which we have now taught to all our friends.

Lunch with the Grandkids

2007-07-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

Megan is 5. Austin is 3. They are absolutely adorable. And they have amazing amounts of energy. We met them for “lunch” at Jaxson’s – Hollywood’s famous ice cream parlor. We let them bring along their Daddy – my elder son Mark. He’s kinda cute, too!

Home Again-But Not for Long

2007-06-29T22:14:00.000-05:00

After 3 months in traveling in Guatemala, we’re back in our wonderful home in Costa Rica. What a welcome home. Our friends Emma and Jon and Dale met us at the airport – a real homecoming! Not only that, but they had made sure that our house was stocked with the essentials – coffee and wine! Of course we had assumed we were coming home to 3 months worth of accumulated dust and God only knows what else. Que sorpresa! (What a surprise!) The ever helpful Emma, in her spare time, had brought her maid over and cleaned our entire house! I say in her spare time because she is in the middle of supervising the construction of their new home. We’re here for about a week – long enough to see some of our friends, brag about the trip, do our laundry and repack the backpacks. Then we’re off for Florida! Gene’s wonderful Uncle Nello is having spinal surgery. We doubt that he needs us, but this is all the excuse we need to go up to visit Uncle Nello and Aunt Kay, play some cards, see our great friends Gail and Tony and also, hopefully, see the Florida grandkids!

Guatemala Here We Come!

2007-03-26T15:33:00.000-06:00

This is it! Tomorrow's the day. We're off for a 3 month adventure in Guatemala and I think this blog is way too long, so I've started a new one just for the trip. You can find us at Tall n Edgy in Guatemala. We plan to spend the first month or so in the colonial city of Antigua, seeing the sites, enjoying the town, and studying Spanish. After that we'll probably head up to Tikal to see the most awesome Mayan ruins in the world. We're thinking of spending some time in Copan, Honduras, too, because the ruins there are said to be amazing, the town sounds great, and we've heard of a wonderful woman who teaches Spanish on her veranda and lets out rooms to her students. After that we expect we'll head back to the Western Highlands and roam around the Mayan villages and see what we can see. We'll probably continue our Spanish studies there also, unless we get really burned out! Anyhow, look for us over on the new blog. We'll try to update the blog with stories of our travels from time to time. And we'll be hoping to hear from our friends and family when we check into the internet cafes, too. If you don't see anything new posted over there, you'll know we're either traveling in remote locations where internet is not readily available, or we're just having too damn much fun to bother! Hasta Luego!

Afternoon in Grecia

2007-03-17T20:36:00.000-06:00

We took a day trip with our friends Emma and Jon today. Grecia's claim to fame seems to be its red metal church, which was shipped from Belgium in pieces in the 1890's. They also claim to be the cleanest town in Central America. We had some good bocas in a plain and comfortable bar/restaurant, enjoyed the attractive parque central, which actually has grass instead of concrete, had ice cream and came home. The museum was closed. Funny thing is that before we moved to Costa Rica, Gene had it in his mind that we would end up in Grecia (this just from reading about it). I always thought of it as a pleasant little town. After spending an afternoon there, I've decided it's too big and too busy. I still like Santo Domingo de Heredia - or perhaps Barva. But it's a pretty place.

Friends on the Caribbean

2007-02-27T18:58:00.000-06:00

We're just back from a fun few days over on the Caribbean - the area we first fell in love with in Costa Rica. Pretty nice these days - we have friends who actually live over there to visit. Judy and Bob are in the process of adding on a huge patio to their adorable little house. But don't take my word for it. Check out Judy's blog.
We also discovered a really fun new restaurant where they have an outdoor kitchen just like what I want but I'm not going to bother to tell you about it because as soon as we discovered it, we learned that the place has been sold. So next month the fabulous Swiss trained chef from Cameroon, along with her husband and three children, will be in Switzerland - and the fabulous meal that she served us will be but a memory!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T17:01:00.000-06:00

Wishing all of my friends and family an especially Romantic Day!

I got a Valentine Card! (Yes, we do have such things in Costa Rica!)

Late Night Breakfast at Denny's!

2007-02-11T23:35:00.000-06:00

After spending the afternoon playing cards with Emma & Jon, and talking about some of our old favorite food haunts, Gene suddenly remembered that he hadn't had chicken fried steak in at least five years! And yes, we really do have a Denny's! This was our first time there and it was weird. It looks exactly like the ones in the US, with the prices to match - and maybe more! But Gene got his fix of chicken fried steak. Late night breakfast was fun, with free coffee refills and all! Of course Jon's $3 coca cola made up for the coffee refills!

Sunday Afternoon

2007-02-11T23:07:00.000-06:00

Sunday brunch at Maiz Tico. Really good "tipico" food. Really fun band. Really great friends. It doesn't get any better than this.

An Afternoon with Old & New Friends

2007-02-09T23:49:00.000-06:00

One of the luxuries included in our retired in Costa Rica lifestyle is having the time to visit with friends. We had been wanting to get back to the Spanish restaurant that we recently "discovered." So we called a few friends who agreed that spending Friday afternoon consuming tapas and paellas and sangria would be a great idea. Then Jim (of Jim & Flora in the mountains) decided we should post a message on Costa Rica Living in case anyone else wanted to join us. What a great idea. Loyd (Zendude) showed up. We hadn't seen him in ages. He says one thing he loves about living in Costa Rica is that he can go dancing almost every night of the week. He's buying a house back in Texas and planning to spend part of his time back there in order to help out his Mom. The trouble with traveling, he says, is that he always needs an extra suitcase for all of his footwear for various types of dancing! What a guy! Jim's post also got noticed by Charlotte and David, which was a real bonus. We had been meaning to call and make arrangements to meet these new imports from Texas ever since David had posted a message on CRL which had got us involved with volunteering at the orphanage. Then we had heard that they had spent last month on the Caribbean, where they had met our friends Judy and Bob (who deserted all of us in the central valley last year and decided to live in a tropical jungle beach area.) So now instead of hearing about this new immigrant couple from the sidelines, we have acquired them as new friends. Our buddies Emma and Jon had given us (Gene and me and our good friend Dale) a ride to the restaurant, so we drove to their house after the lunch, with Charlotte & David following. After some more conversation and another glass of wine at their house (OK, some of us had Emma's delicious fruit drink!), Charlotte & David dropped us off at our house so they'll know how to get here next Friday when we do a follow up afternoon at our house. As usual we got so busy having fun that we forgot to take photos 'til the end. So here you have Gene & me and then Flora and Jim, followed by Loyd and then Dale. Some people claim that we never stop partying around here! I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but we certainly have a good time!

Where Are We From?

2007-02-09T23:40:00.000-06:00

It's always interesting to note where everyone is from when a group of our friends get together. At today's lunch, everyone in attendance lives in Costa Rica. There were 4 people from Texas (I tried to add myself but they all said that 10 years residence there did not a Texan make!), 1 originally from Washington state, 1 from Maine, 1 from Michigan, 1 from New Zealand, 1 from Boliva and 1 from Costa Rica. It's interesting that there is always some confusion over the question of "Where are you from?" Although many people answer this by saying where they were born, others refer to where they grew up or where they've spent most of their lives. My friend Emma says she's from Bolivia, although I happen to know that she has spent most of her adult life in Virginia. I think her husband Jon usually says he's from Virginia, where he spent most of his adult years, although he grew up in Washington state. I'm still trying to figure out how to answer this question. It's true I was born in Maine, but since my family moved to New Hampshire before I was a year old, it seems kind of weird to claim it as my "home." New Hampshire makes a little more sense since I grew up there, but I haven't lived there since I was 17 and that doesn't feel like home, either. At times I seem to be a New Englander and at others, not. Some people here seem to think I should say I'm from Florida because that's where we lived immediately before moving to Costa Rica, but I never felt a part of Florida. I'd like to claim Seattle, just because it's one of my 2 favorite cities in the United States, but I didn't really live there long enough to earn it (1 year) or San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington State, where I lived for 4 years. In my adult life, I've also lived in Japan, the Philippines, Mississippi, Texas. "Home is where you hang your hat," they used to say before we all started going bare-headed. I certainly feel like this is my home, but when I try to get away with saying I am "from" Costa Rica, I am always told that I have to be "from" somewhere in the United States. Now if I could just figure out where.

Flowers for my Birthday

2007-02-09T10:51:00.000-06:00

Gene & Dale both arrived with an arm load of flowers. The combination made a huge bouquet!

Happy Birthday, Gene!

2007-01-22T10:39:00.000-06:00

Gene's "fun" for his birthday? Watering our neighborhood "finca!" When he was a kid in Detroit, he swore that when he grew up, he would live in a place where his birthday wasn't always cold and windy and snowy and miserable! Once again, Gene, We Made It!

San Jose de la Montana - 6000 Feet Up

2007-01-21T18:53:00.000-06:00

What a fabulous day! Flora & Jim's house up in San Jose de la Montana - up past Birri - was actually HOT! Hardly a cloud in the sky! This is the reward that we all get, I think, for surviving the horrendous January winds over the past couple of weeks. First thing I did was toss my sweatshirt on the deck. Then I removed my sweater. Next I stripped off my t-shirt, leaving nothing but my long-sleeved undershirt! When visiting Flora's heavenly little cottage another 2000 feet highe higher than our place, I
I usually need all these layers and more! It was another of those wonderful lunches that start around noon and end by 6 pm.
We also enjoyed talking to Jim & Flora's friend Tim, another long-term expat. After a great afternoon of tacos and wine and lots of conversation, Jim drove us down the mountain to the bus stop in Birri, where we caught a bus home to Heredia - and then a taxi to our house. Seems that even when the bus is filled to capacity, there's always room for a few more. After all, it's Sunday. It wouldn't be nice to leave someone standing on the side of the road waiting for the next bus if you can fit them on this one. This evening the temperature is comfortable, there is no wind, we have great friends. The view coming down the mountain was awesome. Life is good. Pura Vida. This must be what we were thinking of when we moved here.

Friends in the Mountains

2007-01-21T09:51:00.000-06:00

We're off today to visit our friends Flora & Jim, who live higher up in the mountains - high enough so that usually by the time we get there, the clouds have rolled in and we add a couple of layers of clothing. If we get lucky and the clouds haven't arrived, maybe I'll have some good photos for you tonight!

Happy Birthday to All of Our Children

2007-01-21T09:21:00.000-06:00

Saratica over at Abroad in Costa Rica often has thoughts similar to mine on a variety of subjects - living in Costa Rica, adoption... Her post on her son's birthday is great. Someday I'll write a post about the day I got my daughter. 'Course it was really more like she "got" me - and my heart - forever.

El Parque en Santo Domingo

2007-01-09T20:25:00.000-06:00

I love the parks in Costa Rica. Santo Domingo is one of my favorite Central Valley towns.

Baile de los Diablitos

2007-01-04T21:01:00.000-06:00

Our New Year this year was spent in the wonderful indigenous village of Boruca, where each year the villagers have a 4 day festival that celebrates the fact that the Boruca people were never conquered by the Spanish conquistadores. Many of the men dress up as diablitos (in this case best translated as spirits) and fight against a bull (who represents the Spaniards). At
the beginning it seems like the bull might win, but in the end the diablitos prevail! There are sometimes over a thousand spectators (both extranjeros and locals) to this festival but only local men who have carved their own masks are allowed to participate.

Our entire trip was arranged and led by a marvelous couple, Sarah Joy and Julio. Anyone who knows us knows that we do not do tours. This trip was definitely the exception to the rule. Thanks to Sarah and Julio, we felt like honored invited guests for the entire 6 day trip. This was not a fancy resort, eat in the hotel kind of "tour." This was a trip with friends, where we were invited into peoples' homes and made to feel like a part of the family.
We met the van at 6 am on Friday for the 6 hour trip to Boruca. After lunch and getting settled into our various accomodations in private homes or the "hotel," we relaxed a while and met up with our group again for dinner at the home of Doña Rosa, who indeed fed our entire group 3 meals a day the entire time we were there. She prepared all our wonderful meals on her wood stove, and she was always smiling! After dinner that first night, the local "story teller" arrived to tell us some Boruca stories and legends. Like most of the villagers, this community elder speaks the Boruca language as well as Spanish. He told his stories in Spanish - and Julio and Sarah translated for those of us who don't understand Spanish well.
On the second day we were taken by truck and car to the top of Mount Cuasrán, from where we could take photos of the incredible views and hike through the wilderness, either the short hike or the long. The mountain is a holy mountain in the Boruca tradition and the home of one of the most important gods of the Brunka, Cuasrán. In the afternoon we were invited to the home of the "mayor," where we were allowed to watch the creation of the "bull." We were then told about the rules for visitors, which involved staying out of the way, understanding that we were guests and not to get in the way of the ceremonies. The main thing was to not use flash cameras and to keep a reasonable distance with cameras. The actual ceremonies were to begin at midnight.
By morning of the third day (Sunday, New Year's Eve), the "game" was in full force. We awoke to the sound of the diablitos shouting, horns blowing and more fireworks, which we had already learned the night before sound more like bombs than any fireworks I had ever heard. There was a "battle" on the corner by the hotel - before breakfast even! The excitement begins! After breakfast, which didn't begin until 10 since some of us had actually attended the opening "ceremonies" the night before, we visited some of the artisan's homes. At our first stop, at the master carver's home, we saw the mask that I should have bought. It was an incredible "traditional" mask, made of natural cedro wood - not painted. Although it was amazing, I made the mistake of wanting to see others before deciding what to buy. So of course it was sold by the time I went back. Nevertheless we had a great time viewing the masks of various carvers as well as the homes of the weavers (the women). These women are amazing. They grow and harvest and process the cotton, dye it, spin it, weave it - everything. Beautiful stuff. And when you look at what they sell their weavings for (based on hours required to create them) compared to what the men sell the masks for, you have to start thinking again about the perceived value of "women's work." Eventually I bought a mask - one of the painted ones - carved from balsa wood. It is truly beautiful. I also bought a woven bag (purse). The diablitos paraded about the village all day, stopping to stage a battle and then continuing to another location in the village for another battle. It was an ongoing process throughout the day.
In the evening our group gathered at the local bar to drink beer until close to midnight, when we had been invited back to Doña Rosa's to see the new year in. There was a large crowd of locals and visitors gathered at her house - and every sort of booze was offered on a big table. Interestingly, there were no "mixers" offered - until Sara went back to the bar and bought some. I guess if you're accustomed to drinking "chi cha," (an evil corn liquor thing) which many of the participants seemed to drink throughout the 4 days, you might not find mixers to be a necessary part of drinking alcoholic beverages! All of us had a blast. I think it was the most fun New Year's Eve I've ever had.
Monday, Day 4 - New Year's Day - We wandered about most of the day - watching the diablitos do battle and looking at weavings and masks. Some of the group had planned to go horseback riding, but the horses never showed up. We think that the horses were ok, but that their owners perhaps had had too much chi cha!
Tuesday, Day 5 - This was really the big day for the "game," with major battles going on throughout the day, and the bull eventually being defeated at day's end. In the evening, the bull was burned (fortunately just the "costume," not the human being inside!
I wish I could do a better job of describing this 4 day event, but it's definitely one of those things where you "had to be there." The next morning, leaving the village, I wished that we could stay longer. We had to leave, but have already decided we want to go to the Baile de los Diablitos again next year - and we definitely want to go with Sarah & Julio. I hope the photos will give you a feeling of this awesome event. For even more photos, go to our group's photo site
.

New Year's in Boruca - New Friends

2007-01-01T13:09:00.000-06:00

A great Time was had by all on New Year's Eve - first at the neighborhood bar and then at the ever friendly Dona Rosa's

Pictures of Our New Friends

Sarah - our Amazing Tour Guide
Mike ("Dad")- an angel from Bainbridge Island, WA
Pedro - font of knowledge on everything Borucan
Julio - font of knowlege on Costa Rica
Peter - always smiling & helpful (Mike is his Dad)
Annalisa - a year in Argentina & now in Costa Rica
Alexis - a year in Thailand, 6 mos in Nicaragua (Mike is her Dad)
Norma & Jose - from Sacramento, Calif - loved Costa Rica
Jose, Alexis,Rochelle & Tom - from Canada
Rochelle - likes to have fun
Gosia - the one with the pink hair - from Poland - then US - now Costa Rica
Christine - 63 countries so far ...
Annalisa - after talking with her I just know we have to go to Argentina
Gene had a great time!!!
Norma & Jose with Julio

Christmas Day

2006-12-25T22:42:00.000-06:00

Christmas Dinner was great. There were only an even dozen of us this year, which made for comfortable conversation, as well as comfortable seating.

Unfortunately I'm still trying to get over this horrible cold, but at least I can talk now. Dale and Gene spent 2 days running errands and shopping. Then Judy and Bob arrived and handled a lot of the last day prep work. All in all I relaxed more than usual and took naps while they did all the work. Not a bad deal. Christmas day actually turned out to be rather relaxing. I'm thinking that 12 is a good number to stick to. In past years when we've wanted to invite everybody, it has been nuts all day.

A New Restaurant!

2006-12-10T17:23:00.000-06:00

Well, not new. Actually it's been there for years, but we just discovered it and are very excited. It is La Lluna de Valencia and they actually specialize in paella and other great Spanish food, including a nice selection of tapas! They are in San Pedro de Barva de Heredia. Easy to get to. Gene and Emma and I spent the afternoon there - and we definitely plan to go back soon.

Christmas Tamales!

2006-12-02T21:36:00.000-06:00

Tamales are a Christmas tradition in Costa Rica. It's quite a process and is usually turned into a party with everyone in the family participating (or all the women anyhow!) So our friend Jackie decided we would have our own tamale making party.

We definitely did it the easy way since her Tica assistant gathered together all the ingredients and did the major part of the preparations in advance. When we all gathered yesterday afternoon, she had the banana leaves cut to size and spread out on one counter. On the kitchen island were bowls of prepared pork, rice with red chiles and peas, and a bowl of cooked and diced mixed green beans and carrots. There was also a large bowl of prepared "masa," a mushy corn meal mixture.
We each got to take a turn (this included not just Jackie, Emma and me, but our husbands Joe, Jon & Gene, equal opportunity kitchen such as it was!) as our "profesora" patiently showed us how to spread a large dollup of the prepared masa onto a double sheet of banana leaves, then a dollup of the rice mixture and a spoonful of the veggie mixture. Next a couple strips of pork, and then the wrapping process.
We learned to wrap them, folding the leaves over in a precise manner so that the stuff would stay inside when cooked. Two tamales were placed together, seams facing each other and then tied together with twine. After being steamed in water for about 1/2 an hour, the tamales were ready for sampling. And sample we did! Not only did we have a great afternoon with our friends Jackie and Joe at their beautiful cabin in the mountains, but there are now six more tamale experts in our part of Costa Rica!

A Toast to La Profesita!

Crime, Security & Returned Camera

2006-12-01T15:47:00.000-06:00

On an online group that I participate in, Costa Rica Living, a woman recently asked about safety in my town of Heredia. Someone had posted about being attacked on the street and his gold necklace stolen. She had decided to move to Costa Rica and was now questioning her choice of Heredia as a place to live. We hear a lot about crime here. We sometimes don't hear enough about the other side of the coin. My answer to the concerned woman:

I honestly don't know if Heredia is a "much safer place to live," but I have lived here (up the hill from Universidad Internacional, so relatively close to downtown) for over 4 years now. Although I am aware of crime in the area, and even in my own neighborhood, I must say that I do not live in fear. I go where I want to go when I want to go. I have walked on the downtown streets and in parque central after dark without feeling threatened. It's also true that I had my day pack stolen from right on the floor by my chair while I wasn't paying attention in Pop's ice cream place. And yes there were once some small items stolen from our garage. On the other hand, my home was broken into when I lived in Tacoma, Washington (and the door was broken down to enter); I had stereo equipment stolen from my home in a "safe" suburb of Houston, Texas; my apartment was broken into and several items were stolen in Hollywood, Florida. I feel no less safe here than I did living in those places or in other places where I've lived. I know that no matter where I live I am not exempt from crime. But I do not feel threatened. Most people here are so friendly and helpful that it's amazing to me. If anything, most seem to need to look out for my welfare, knowing that I am an "ignorant foreigner!" Yesterday, getting off a bus, my husband Gene somehow dropped his camera. He didn't realize it until the bus driver came running down the sidewalk looking for him to give it back. Another passenger had noticed it and told the driver. This morning after our neighborhood exercise class, my Tico neighbors reminded me (twice!) to close my garage doors! I like living here. Sometimes there are things I do not like. I could say the same about any other place I've ever lived. But by and large I am much happier with my lifestyle - and my neighbors - than I was in the other places.

Day Trip to San Ramon

2006-12-01T15:24:00.000-06:00

We had been meaning to get over there for a long time. Our friend Jose has a used book store in the town of San Ramon. We love used book stores! Actually it's a book store / internet cafe / coffee shop / real estate office / furniture store and probably a few other things I can't think of. But mostly it's a charming little shop called "Solo Bueno" in a pleasant small town. Yesterday we went with our friends Emma and Jon to check the place out. The four of us can make the smallest thing into an all day trip. It's part of the fun of discovery here. We'll never run out of places to see.

As always, just getting there is a big part of the fun. We all live in the town of Heredia, but the simple place to meet is in San Jose at the end of the Red & Yellow (bus line), where we have a cup of coffee and a pastry at Musmanni and then walk the 6 blocks to the Puntarenas bus terminal. From there the bus to San Ramon takes about an hour, first through town and then through some beautiful hills where coffee and other things are grown. We didn't know exactly where Jose's place was, but knew that San Ramon is a fairly small town and figured we could find it. Bravo, Jose! Your "direcctiones" were perfect. Once the bus turned off the highway into San Ramon, we traveled about 1/4 mile and pulled the "parada" chain when we came to the traffic light. We could, at that point, see the "Twelve Disciples," the tallest palm trees in the world. The bus stopped at the parada (bus stop) right in front of the bookstore. We recognized the colorfully painted building, with its cigar store sign (ah ha! I knew there was something I was missing in my description of what is sold there!) immediately.
Once there we met Jose's charming wife Joanna, as well as Adela, the manager, who, although we had never met before, greeted us like long lost friends! We all browsed and bought a few books (as well as trading in a few). We admired the beautiful bamboo furniture, which I would love to have if only we had room! There were quite a few people using the computers. Gene tried the coffee and told the rest of us it might be better to wait and have coffee elsewhere. Solo Bueno is apparently the gringo place to hang out in San Ramon these days. If we lived there, I'm sure we would be there often, or at least whenever we needed something else to read!
We ran into Tom, who we had met a couple of years ago (funny how you keep running into people you know in this country) and he offered to introduce us to a good "tipico" place for lunch right across the street.

This adorable place definitely fills you up with their casado. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the place.

After lunch we walked to el parque, admired the beautiful church (every village in Costa Rica has at least one beautiful church to see), wandered through the market, tried to visit the museum (which is closed for repairs), and ate ice cream in the park. A full day's adventure, and then it was time to catch a bus home. After all, we all had new books to read!

Museo de Arte Costarricense

2006-11-26T23:55:00.000-06:00

After watching all the ox carts lumber out of Parque La Sabana and down Paseo Colon today, we spent some time in the park at the booths of the annual Rural Tourism Fair. A lot of interesting businesses were represented, with some good ideas for future trips around the country. The booths were spread out behind the Museum in the sculpture garden, one of the really neat places in San Jose.

The beautiful building on the east side of Parque La Sabana which now houses the Museo de Arte Costarricense (Museum of Costa Rican Art) was originally the terminal for the San Jose international airport. Opened in 1940 and closed in 1955 when the new airport was built in nearby Alejuela, it’s hard to envision an airport in this busy downtown location. Photos of the area on the museum’s web site, however, show an area that probably was thought of as “outside of town” at the time it was built. Today Sabana Park is a huge urban park with walking and running paths, basketball, tennis and volleyball courts, baseball diamond, soccer field and a fish-stocked lake. This in addition to the national stadium, national gymnasium, and of course the museum.
There’s a lot of impressive art inside this building. My favorites though, are outdoors, in an area called el Jardín de Esculturas (Sculpture Garden). Among many interesting sculptures are my friends Tres Mujeres Caminando (Three Women Walking).
The natural flow of their dresses, the gracefulness of their strides, the realness of their expressions fascinate me. The artist is Francisco Zúñiga. Besides the fact that they are so beautiful, maybe part of the reason I feel such an attraction to las mujeres is that they, too are recent arrivals, having only found their home in 2003, the year after our move to Costa Rica.

Desfile de Boyeros

2006-11-26T16:58:00.001-06:00

The Christmas season is officially here. Not only is our neighborhood already being decorated with lights (including the tiny guard shack) but the house two doors down is sporting a house-sized snow man! So to celebrate the season, this morning we bussed into San Jose with our buddies Jon & Emma to view the 10th annual Desfile de Boyeros (parade of ox cart handlers). What a show!
Originally meant to haul coffee beans, the colorfully decorated carts (carretas) have become a major symbol of Costa Rica. No longer needed to take the coffee crop to the Pacific port of Puntarenas, a 10 – 15 day trek over muddy roads, the decoration of the ox carts and wheels has become a national art form.
It was a fun morning. I didn’t try to keep count, but there must have been way over a hundred carts in all sizes and colors. And the oxen, decked out in beautifully decorated yokes, were as colorful and interesting as the traditional carts.
As always in Costa Rica, the kids stole the show!

Ox Cart Parade

*****CLICK ON THE OX'S FACE FOR MORE PHOTOS*****<

Tico Time

2006-11-14T23:48:00.000-06:00

One of the cultural differences that's hard to adjust to here is the concept of "Tico Time." I remember when we first moved here my friend Emma and I were invited by a friend to her 4 year old daughter's birthday party. "A las dos" she told us (at 2 o'clock). At two o'clock we showed up at her house. At four, just as someone arrived with the birthday cake, we apologized that we had to leave because Emma had an appointment she had to keep. The hostess was visibly surprised and disappointed and insisted that we eat a meal before we left! We had heard about "Tico Time," but we just didn't get it.
By last year, after 3 years in Costa Rica, you would think that we would have learned. We were again invited to a birthday party, this one for a gringo friend, hosted by his Costa Rican wife. We arrived at the appointed hour of six. At seven a pretty cake was set on the table to admire. At eight someone started cooking...
Yesterday I was reminded again that I'm still operating on "gringa time." A few neighbors have started getting together 3 mornings a week for an exercise session together. I am very excited to be invited to join in. Not only do I need exercise, but it's an opportunity to get to know my neighbors and to practice my Spanish. Yesterday was the third session and I finally realized that when they said to meet a las ocho (8 o'clock) that, of course means around about 8:30, or as they would say, "A las ocho, mas o menos!"

GDP or The Happiness Index?

2006-11-14T16:01:00.000-06:00

GDP doesn't register, as Robert Kennedy put it, "the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate." GDP measures everything, Kennedy concluded, "except that which makes life worthwhile."

Eric Weiner tells us in the LA Times that there is least one country in this world that takes happiness as seriously as economic growth.

Guy Fawkes Weekend

2006-11-06T16:22:00.000-06:00

OK, so we're not British, have never played darts, tried horseshoes once at summer camp 45 years ago, haven't a clue what cricket is (some kind of bug?) and until moving to Costa Rica had never heard of Guy Fawkes...

The new experiences just never end. Our good friend Dale, who is also not British (does Kiwi count?) invited us to the big weekend party this weekend in Jaco. What a blast!

Talk about feeling like an outsider! You'd think we might be used to that, living in a foreign country and all, but on a day to day basis, this is just my home. I do not feel like an outsider. But toss me into a crowd of people who speak my own language differently than I speak it, people who actually KNOW how to play cricket, darts and horseshoes, and well, no one actually ever asked me if I was from the Colonies, but...

The whole weekend was actually one big party. And yes, the Brits certainly know how to throw one. The local was the beautiful Hotel Club del Mar at Jaco Beach. Great facility. Wonderful service. Excellent food. Right on the beach, which is where the cricket game was played. Now I have no idea if cricket is normally played on the beach, but it sure made it interesting. The darts competition, on the other hand, was held at the end of the pool, with 2 dart boards set up and probably 50 people competing. And no fatalities as far as I know!

Our group of 5 had reserved one of the 2 bedroom 2 bath cabinas. It turned out to be the one right in front of the beach. It was a beautiful little apartment, with ocean view. Go to sleep at night listening to the surf. Yes, I could live there!

Guy Fawkes

Click to see more

Tortuguero

2006-10-23T16:17:00.000-05:00

Tortuguero is one of the places we'd been talking about visiting ever since we made our first trip to Costa Rica some 8 years ago. After a trip to Playa Grande on the Pacific coast a couple of years ago to see the Leatherback turtles nesting, we knew that we had to go to the Caribbean to see the Greens. But getting there seemed difficult - and expensive. It seemed you had to fly there from San Jose, or take an expensive tour. Not our usual traveling style. When we got serious about it last month, we realized how easy it can be. And inexpensive. So we took our favorite bus trip from San Jose over to Cahuita, spent the night with our friends Judy and Bob, who live there, then took the bus up to Limon in the morning. From Limon we took a taxi to the port of Moin, from where we caught a 4 hour boat trip up to Tortuguero! Simple! OK. So maybe not all that simple, but relatively inexpensive. And definitely one of the most beautiful trips to take in this country. For more on Tortuguero, click here. Best place to sleep and eat in Tortuguero? Miss Junie's - we loved it. The people were great, Miss Junie is wonderful, and her food is awesome!

Tortuguero

Click on above photo to view more Tortuguero pics

Quick Trip to El Caribe

2006-09-25T19:27:00.000-05:00

Cahuita & Puerto Viejo

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Not much happening this month. After traveling in North America for 2 months, it's very quiet here. Our friends Judy and Bob are still on their boat in British Columbia. And Emma and Jon have taken off for Malta and Sicily. Our only travel was a quick trip to Hone Creek on the Caribbean to check on Judy and Bob's house.Click on the above photo for more pics.

We're Home!

2006-08-30T13:47:00.000-05:00

What an incredible trip we had this summer! We spent all of July and August in North America. We started with travels throughout Florida, visiting our great family and friends there. Then we flew to Portland, Maine and drove to Union, New Hampshire, where we got to attend the wedding of my sister's son Michael and his beautiful bride Aimee. I had a fabulous time visiting with my sister, and we even got to take a trip up to Sweden, Maine, where we visited our cousin Phyllis, who actually lives in our grandmother's old house up in the wood. It was an incredible experience. What memories! I had thought grandma's old house might not even be there anymore, but it certainly is, and Phyllis has done a beautiful job of remodeling it, without harming the original aura or the place! After a couple of weeks in New Hampshire, visiting and eating and gaining another 10 pounds (!), we flew to Chicago to visit with Ron and Marilyn. Ron is Gene's buddy from all the way back in high school, and we love them both and were so happy to have the opportunity to visit them. From Chicago, we flew on to Seattle, then took a bus over to Spokane, where we visited with my beautiful daughter Angelique and her awesome sons, Jorden and Mark. Mark got to go along with us when we drove over to Missoula, Montana for a few days to see younger son Rob, his incredible wife Polly and their amazing sons Evan and Logan. Wow! What a blast to get to spend time with my grandkids. Made me wish we could be around them all the time. Back to Spokane, then back to the west side of Washington again and a visit with our wonderful friend Madelle, in Olympia. The climax of the trip was getting to spend 10 days boating with our friends Judy and Bob, who live 1/2 the year in Costa Rica (on the Caribbean) and the other half in BC on their boat! Judy instructed me in various boating procedures and promoted me to a new rank each time I successfully accomplished a new goal! At the end, after learning to drop the big balls into the water when we docked, pulling them up when we left the dock, throwing the strings to a waiting person on the dock when we landed, and various other important sea tasks, I believe I was promoted to the rank of Boatswains Mate. Or maybe it was high ballyhoo assistant Boatswains Mate. Something like that anyhow. It was a blast! After a few final days in Seattle, we flew back to San Jose. We had thought that 2 months would seems like a very long trip, but everywhere that we went, I wished that we could spend more time there. To see more about our summer trip, see our summer trip blog.

Volcan Rincon de la Vieja - Girls' Trip with Sue, Natalie & Lynn

2006-05-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

Mud Baths: So Who Needs a Facelift?!

Grand Fun at Jaco

2006-03-21T00:49:00.000-06:00

Great fun in March. Gene's nephews John & Jeff visited us from Florida. They also brought John's Gregarious Girlfriend Jeanna. We met them in Jaco and stayed at an all-inclusive resort where "the boys" have a time-share. Serious pool time. Serious Fun. Serious Drinking. And Jeanna introduced Laurie to that fabulous liquor that tastes like suntan lotion!

We Could Live Here!!!

2005-05-10T12:03:00.000-05:00

Gene looks out over lower Arcos from the wall at the park.

Arcos de la Frontera

2005-05-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

It only took a day to know that this pueblo blanco would be our home for awhile.

Spanish Cooking School

2005-05-10T11:39:00.000-05:00

Almuerzo es listo!
Who Says Spanish cooking lessons are expensive? Francisca & Laurie make dinner.

Mark Visits Costa Rica!

2005-02-17T16:55:00.000-06:00

The Best Coffee in This World!!!

For nearly two years my older son Mark has been saying things like "I definitely need a break at the end of this quarter. I'll be down in about two months." And I always knew he meant it, even though every quarter end turned into "next quarter" due to work commitments that always sound way too stressful. What a fabulous treat to finally get to see him again. The visit was way too short, so we did the shortened version of the waterfall gardens tour, which makes an interesting stop at a coffee farm as well as the waterfalls with the butterflies and the hummingbirds and the "tipico" lunch. We both had a great time.

A long climb-and a little wet!

Aunt Mary Comes to Costa Rica!

2005-02-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

Last summer when she was supposed to be celebrating her birthday, Gene's Aunt Mary was busy doing hurricane preparedness and recovery routines in Florida (remember Charlie, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne?). So her daughter Barb and Barb's husband Chick decided that February would be a great time to get out of Buffalo, NY, stop off in Florida to meet Aunt Mary and bring her to Costa Rica for a belated birthday celebration! We were soooo excited to have them visit!

At Hotel Bougainvilla, a leisurely walk thru the gardens and then conversation in the bar

Aunt Mary Does the Waterfall Gardens

2005-02-12T23:26:00.000-06:00

Busy Week with Aunt Mary, Barb & Chick

2005-02-12T22:35:00.000-06:00

Day at Zoo Ave: Monkeys, Birds and All

Dale joined us for lunch at Teatro Nacional

Adios, Aunt Mary - Please Come Again!

2005-02-12T21:56:00.000-06:00

Picture below is on our patio. Pic on right is at Bougainvilla.

Try as we did, we couldn't talk them into staying! We're just hoping that all of them will come again. But we may need a few months to recover from trying to keep up with Aunt Mary!

Que mujer!

Hurricane Season 2004 - After the Storm

2004-10-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

“I don’t know what we ever would have done without you people. God bless you.”
“It’s hard, but thank God we’re all still alive.”
“We’re doing a little better today, but I don’t know how we’ll ever get this whole mess cleaned up.”
Hey, guys! What’s for dinner today?”
“I just hope Frances hits us instead of somewhere else. We’ve already lost everything anyway. I hate to see anyone else have to go through this.”
“They just condemned my house. I have nowhere to go. I lost my job when the hurricane blew the building away. I don’t know what to do.”
These were some of the comments we heard on our first day working with the Red Cross after Hurricane Charley.
Type rest of the post hereMy friend Gail and I were on Ft Myers Beach, Florida, a long skinny island no more than 2 – 4 blocks wide in most places. Charley had devastated the area 2 weeks before we arrived. Now, with electricity restored to most areas, everyone was trying to clear away the devastation caused by the powerful Friday the 13th hurricane. The residents of this area had thought they were safe. Then, just before making landfall, Charley had made that unexpected “jog to the east,” while strengthening to a category 4. 145 mile an hour winds and a 15 foot wall of water do unimaginable damage. Every house we passed appeared to have most of its contents piled at the edge of the street, and most houses were on stilts, so that the main floor was actually as high off the ground as a normal 2nd floor. Beach sand was everywhere. Downed trees. Waterlogged carpet, furniture, sheetrock. Refrigerators with watermarks half way up. And this in one of the less damaged areas hit by the storm. And everywhere we went, smiling people. Grateful that they had survived. Grateful to see us.
Gail and I were doing duty on an ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle), providing meals, water and snacks twice a day to the people of the area. As the driver carefully maneuvered down each dead-end street in our ambulance type van, one of us ladeled out meals into divided Styrofoam clamshell containers. The other talked to the people who watched for us coming down their street. Serving chicken and dumplings with mixed vegetables, canned peaches and a roll from a vehicle dodging downed trees and miscellaneous debris can be a challenge.
It was the first time for both of us to do this type of volunteer work. Everyone there was so grateful, and so brave, and often, so scared. We were grateful, too. Grateful for the opportunity to help a little. And we were overwhelmed – by the devastation and by the positive attitudes of the people.
We had arrived in the area the afternoon before and had been given a guest room in the home of someone we had never even met before – our online friend Nancy Goodenow. Nancy had been in Costa Rica when Charley had hit. She worried on the group about her beautiful cat, who was weathering the storm without her back in Cape Coral. When I e-mailed Nancy that we were going there to help, she immediately offered us a place to stay. Since we had expected to try to find someplace we could get away with sleeping in the back of Gail’s covered pickup truck, we blessed Nancy many times over. Nancy had worked with the Red Cross before, and was able to give us some pointers and head us in the right direction the next morning.
We were welcomed with open arms by the Red Cross people. There were already over 6,000 volunteers working in the area, and they needed more. There were many jobs to be done. The gigantic mobile kitchens were able to prepare 20,000 meals a day at each of 2 locations. People were needed to work on the ERV’s, delivering the meals. Others were assigned to other trucks, delivering cleanup supplies and water. Others were assigned to Family Services, interviewing people to determine their needs and provide financial assistance. They needed phone people, clerical people, coordinators. There were doctors, nurses, medical and mental health workers. Somehow this massive effort was being done almost completely with volunteers. Only about 5% of Red Cross workers are paid staffers. During a massive crisis like this, I assume the ratio of volunteers to staffers becomes even larger, as many local people become “spontaneous” volunteers. “Regular” volunteers, the ones who have attended the numerous Red Cross volunteer classes and are rushed to the scene when a disaster occurs, had come from as far away as Washington state and Canada. Many of them had driven the ERV’s or other needed vehicles all the way to Florida. We met people from all over the country. Many of them, like us, are retirees, who are able to be away from home when needed. Some are working people, who have an understanding with their employers that when a disaster calls them, they will be gone for 3 weeks, the standard time commitment.
Many of those who were hit by this disaster are elderly. This is, after all, South Florida. “Starting over” at 80 or 90 looks different than when you are 20 or 30. Many had no insurance. Most didn’t know where to start. And no one could find a roofer. Most were still waiting for an insurance adjuster. Some, who had been told the adjuster would call them to schedule a visit, wondered how that would be done without working phones.
During her first week there, before our arrival, Pam, the navigator on our ERV, had noticed one elderly lady who struggled down the stairs of her home to get a meal each time. Pam immediately befriended the lady and carried a meal, water and snacks upstairs to her on each of our twice daily runs. One of our jobs was to keep our eyes out for people who might be in critical need of more assistance than we could provide with a meal. When we came across the woman whose house had been condemned and whose job was gone, Pam immediately realized that she was on the verge of collapse. We quickly turned around and went back to headquarters to get a mental health worker out there to help the young woman. Everyone was working together to do the best they could to provide help for the immediate needs of the victims. The long-range needs are another thing. We all worried about people in their 80s and 90s who were going to have to start over. We worried about young people, jobs gone and running out of money, with young children to care for.
We learned a lot from our experiences after Charley. I learned that soaking one’s hat in ice water and then re-applying it to the head can provide wonderful relief from the Florida heat. We learned that it’s possible for an almost all volunteer group of 6,000+ people (from 48 states, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Canada and Costa Rica) to come together and immediately provide help to those in need. Is this what is meant by “organized chaos?” There were times when it seemed no one knew what was going on. Nevertheless, it all somehow got done, and got done well, and usually it got done with a smile. We learned that people somehow find incredible strength within themselves in times of crisis. And we learned some things about preparing for a hurricane, which turned out to be useful information the following week.
It seemed that just as we got up to speed with our jobs, we had to leave. Hurricane Frances was now threatening us and it looked like this one would be worse than Charley. It was enormous. And it was headed toward the other side of Florida – the east side – where Gail lives. As most of the regular Red Cross people were preparing to leave the area for safety if necessary as Frances headed toward us, Gail and I headed toward this new monster storm, to make her home ready for a potential pounding. Frances got on all our nerves, growing and getting nastier by the day, but slowing down to a crawl. It looked like we were definitely in the path of the storm this time. Lucky for us Frances decided to hit further north, around Stuart, Florida and then across the state toward Tampa and then toward the north. Hollywood, where Gail lives, felt very little effect from the storm, although we were without electricity for 22 hours and many were without for much longer. One massive tree was uprooted across the street. We kept watching the huge mango trees in Gail’s yard, expecting them to end up on her house. We were lucky.
Let me tell you about my friend Gail. Gail is the kind of person who is always there to help those in need. I’ve never known anyone else like her. When someone experiences a personal crisis, Gail doesn’t just say, “Call me if I can help,” or even “Is there anything I can do to help.” She seems to already know what to do, and just proceeds to do it. When her ex-husband, of many years before, had a personal crisis and was about to lose his home, she made sure he got medical care. Then, with her limited funds, she bought a mobile home for him to live in, rent free until he could get his feet on the ground, for a small rent thereafter. And, since he was physically unable to handle the move, she drove the four hours to his area in a U-Haul truck to get him moved in. When her neighborhood was up in arms over a homeless shelter moving into the area, Gail took them used clothes and bedding. So it wasn’t surprising, when I asked if she would go with me to do hurricane relief work, when she answered, “Of course I will.” Everyone should have a friend like Gail. Most people don’t. I’m lucky. I do. By the time Frances finally passed, we were bored. And ready to go back to work.
Workers were now needed further north on the east coast, where Frances had done the most damage. But people were still needed back on the west coast, which had thankfully been spared the worst of Frances’s fury, but was still trying to cope with the destruction of Charley. Gail and I loaded up the truck again and headed back west, across Alligator Alley, and went through Punta Gorda to Port Charlotte (the 2 towns that had been worst hit by Charley). As we drove through Punta Gorda, we couldn’t speak. I thought of describing it as a war zone, but doubted whether war zones looked this bad. It seemed that everything had been destroyed. I had read that 80% of the buildings in the area had sustained some damage. I couldn’t imagine where the 20% were.
We assumed we would have to drive north a long way to find a place to sleep. We stopped at the one hotel we saw which appeared to still be intact and open for business. They told us that there were no rooms available in the area. We stopped at the nearest Red Cross office and by some miracle they knew of a hotel that might still have a room. Someone made a call for us and found that there was one room left at the Veranda Inn in Englewood. They promised to hold it for us and gave us the Red Cross discounted rate. We were thrilled to find that it was only 3 or 4 miles from the place where we would be working, and that there was a great restaurant directly across the street, also still opened. After a great meal of fresh sautéed scallops, we hit the sack.
The next morning, we arrived early at the Red Cross service center, ready to work. But first we stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts along the way for our morning fix of donuts and coffee. Gail swore we would both gain 20 pounds from this experience if we kept eating according to my cravings, but I was determined to take advantage off all the things available that we don’t get in Costa Rica.
Gail was put to work the first day driving trucks around to different locations. Driving was the one job that she really didn’t want, but after all we had said we were willing to do anything that was needed, and Gail is a retired professional truck driver. She was stuck! After the first day, she was given various jobs in the office, including making phone calls to recruit additional workers from the community. I was given the job of “crowd control.” It turned out that my job was not nearly as unpleasant as its name sounded. I spent the rest of the week outside of the service center signing people up to meet with a case worker and making sure there was some semblance of fairness in who got in first. It gave me the opportunity to talk with a lot of really great people, and to hear their incredible stories. People lined up well before we opened in the morning. Some people ended up waiting most of the day. Everyone understood that the workers were doing the best they could to help a lot of people who desperately needed assistance. Patience indeed is helpful at times like this.
One elderly woman sat and talked to me for a long time. Her home was gone and she was hoping to get some help. She had her hair done up in those pink rollers that women wore back in the 50s. Spotting some people around with big camera equipment, she told me she hoped they weren’t from the TV station, because if her daughter in New Jersey saw her out in public in her curlers, she would disown her!
One 75 year old woman and her quadriplegic son talked with me for a while and gave me a copy of the newspaper article which had been written on their family’s survival. Sixteen family members had gathered in the home they thought would be the safest to weather Charley together. In the darkened house, one of the women got everyone into the internal hallway as the worst of the storm hit. The pool cage blew off. The glass doors began to buckle. Then they saw light and felt a breeze. The roof had begun peeling off. The glass doors exploded, knocking one of the men 8 feet backwards, acting as shrapnel as it hit his arm and foot. “That’s when I realized,” he said, “this is the scaredest I’ve ever been in my life!” Miraculously none of the other family members sustained injuries, although the home was destroyed.
In Port Charlotte, as in Fort Myers the week before, we met fascinating people from all over the country. One fun, friendly couple called themselves “Doves.” They are members of a whole group of people, in touch via an internet group, who live aboard their motor homes, moving around the country as the mood hits them. When there is a disaster somewhere, they go where they’re needed, taking their homes with them. When they arrive at the Red Cross site, they’re ready to go to work. Mary and Ernie invited us to their home for a glass of wine, and then out to dinner. What a fascinating lifestyle! They’ve been living “on the road” for four years now, and tell us that there are many more people out there just like them.
As the week went on, I seemed to be talking with younger people, many of them with young children. Many of them were having big problems getting to the Red Cross location to apply for help. They didn’t live near. School had finally started, and their kids were on different shifts. Some of the schools were damaged and couldn’t be used, resulting in doubling up at other schools, with shifts starting very early in the morning and others going late into the evening. People were waiting their turn to see a case worker and afraid they would lose their place, but had to go pick up or drop off children at school. I hated it but I couldn’t tell anyone how long it would be before they got in. There were so many people. Some people had needs which were straightforward and readily addressed. They might be with a case worker, once they got in, for 20 minutes. Others were there for hours.
We were preparing to move out again. The Red Cross administration still had not decided when and where the workers would be moved, but everyone was told to be ready. Hurricane Ivan was coming toward us, and it looked like this could be worse than Charley. Worse than Frances. Everyone was edgy. People were getting really nervous. Toward the end of the week, people weren’t talking about what had happened to them during Charley anymore. Everyone was talking about Ivan, about getting out of the area. “I’ve got to get out of here,” one woman told me. “I can’t go through it again. But my tires have plugs in them from the nails I picked up from the debris. I don’t know if my car will make it out of the state.” Then there was the young father who said that, if it was just him, he could sleep in his car. “But I’ve got three young children. I have to find some place to take them. Our house is gone. My job is gone. I’m out of money.” You could feel the tension rise as the third “big one” moved closer. I asked some people why they hadn’t come for help before, right after Charley hit. They told me that they hadn’t realized they could get help. Or they figured others needed it more than they did. They had a little savings. They could take care of themselves. Now, several weeks later, the savings were gone. Their jobs were gone. For some of them, their homes were gone. Others were just severely damaged. They worried that their homes, many with blue tarps provided by the Army Corps of Engineers on the roofs, would not make it through another storm.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, we were told we would be closing down at noon on Saturday. Most of the workers would be sent to Orlando to weather the next storm. When it was over, they would be back. Some of them would probably be sent to other areas, depending on where Ivan decided to make land. Gail and I would head back across the Everglades again, to make sure all was well at her home. I would finally get a chance to hold the beautiful seven month old grandson I hadn’t seen yet. Then I would be going back home, to Costa Rica.
Just before we closed down, a young woman drove up to the front door and jumped out of her car. There were two babies in the back seat. “I don’t know what to do. I have nowhere to go,” she sobbed. Clearly on the verge of collapse, she had driven to the Red Cross, hoping someone could help her. She didn’t know what to ask for, but she knew she needed help. Gail had just walked up, finished with her job for the day. She stayed with the young woman while I went inside to get a mental health worker to come out front. When Gail put her arm around her, the woman clung to her. Apparently her in-laws had told her that they would not help her, that they took care of their own family and that she should do the same. Just when you think your faith in humanity has been permanently restored, something like this happens. After getting her car safely parked, two Red Cross workers carried her two babies inside. Walking alongside, she appeared frail and young. It was the last we saw of her. I hope she got the help she needed. I hope her life improves.
“Would you do it again?” I asked Gail as we drive back across the Everglades. “Absolutely,” she said. “Yeah, me too.” We were grateful that we had been able to help. We were warmed by the many displays of the durability and compassion of the human spirit. We had made new friends. Our lives had been enriched.
Ivan spared us. Others weren’t as lucky. This, the third big storm to strike Florida this year, pounded up the Gulf of Mexico, striking the Florida panhandle and Alabama with all his fury. There were few areas in Florida which hadn’t been affected by at least one of these three massive storms. Gail got back to her life. I returned to Costa Rica. And we watched, in horror along with everyone else, as Hurricane Jeanne threw her destructive force at Haiti, killing hundreds of people, and then at Florida again, this one making landfall on the east coast, in the same area where Frances had hit, then following Frances’s path west and then north into Georgia. Chances of two major hurricanes making landfall in the same spot in a given season are said to be more than one in a million. Never before had four major hurricanes pummeled one state in a single hurricane season, never mind within six weeks. Our lives had been enriched. Many others will never be the same again.
In response to Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which the Red Cross calls the “largest natural disaster in its history,” over 10 million meals and snacks have now been served (as of October 4th). That’s twice as many meals as were provided after Hurricane Andrew. Seven weeks after Charley, the 1st hurricane, 100,000 meals are still being served each day. 1,733 shelters, serving 415,589 people, have been set up during that period. As of the 27th of September, 491 Emergency Response Vehicles had been in operation. 22,732 health services contacts and 42,858 mental health contacts had been made. This effort was accomplished by 25,578 workers, most of whom were volunteers.
The American Red Cross operates almost completely with volunteers. Not one penny is received from the government. This awesome organization, which helps thousands of people wherever disaster occurs, is funded totally by contributions, which can be made online at www.redcross.org.

Aunt Kay & Uncle Nello Visit Costa Rica!

2004-08-04T21:50:00.000-05:00

We've had the grand honor of a two-week visit from Gene's Aunt Kay & Uncle Nello in celebration of their 55th wedding anniversary! It was soooo much fun having them here, and now that they've left, we feel lost. There are some people that we wish so much that we could get interested in moving down here so that we could see them all the time. Aunt Kay & Uncle Nello are at the top of that list. Unfortunately the are quite happy where they live now and have no thoughts of moving (even if they do like our company, too!) They said they had a wonderful time and really liked Costa Rica a lot. But alas! It's not where they want to live. Que lastima!
We of course tried to show them as much of our new country as possible, and introduced them to many of our good friends. Seems like we just scratched the surface though, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that they enjoyed their trip enough so that they will return - maybe next year.
The highlight of their visit was our trip to the Caribbean...

We had planned a 2 day trip over because we wanted to share our favorite beach places with them. We went over by public bus (as we always do), giving them a great opportunity to ooh and ahh over the enormous number of waterfalls and the unbelievable array of trees and jungle and plants and things that look like way-overgrown versions of things we used to have in miniature versions in pots.
We had made reservations at our favorite place to stay in Cahuita, Kelly Creek Inn. Kelly Creek has just 4 rooms.
The rooms are spacious, beautiful and comfortable, but the really great thing about Kelly Creek is the food, including real paella! Actually the other great thing about Kelly Creek is that it sits right on the edge of Cahuita National Park - and is just a couple blocks from everyplace you might want to visit in the town. Our hosts Marie Cloud and Andre are originally from France and Spain, and they know how to serve up authentic paella
, as well as a lot of other fabulous dishes. After the 1st night in Cahuita, and a taste of the charm of the village as well as the food at Kelly Creek, Aunt Kay & Uncle Nello asked if we could please stay for 4 nites instead of 2, and that they would like to treat for the extra nites! How could we say no to such an offer!
We've always loved the long walk through the jungle path in the national park. Kay & Nello enjoyed it as much as we do, and we walked part of the way back on the beach, rather than the easy path through the forest. Watching our favorite uncle trekking along ahead of us, we hoped that we will be that limber and active when we are his age. Of course he's only 90.

Besides Kelly Creek, we ate at another of our favorite Cahuita restaurants, Cha Cha Cha - incredible dinners - on the expensive side. Robertos's and La Fe are sort of "tipico" places, inexpensive, food that's usually good, but not usually particularly remarkable. In Puerto Viejo we spent most of an afternoon on the water at EZ Times, lunching on a variety of bruschetti and margueritas. Though not cheap, especially if you imbibe in several large margueritas, EZ Times is a really fun place to hang out.

In the Central Valley we did the Cafe Britt tour (where Aunt Kay was selected to enact the part of the "mother of the bride," and on another day visited Zoo Ave, one of my very favorite places here (where birds and other wildlife are rescued and released back into the wild where possible). We also had a leisurely walk one day throught the gorgeous gardens at Hotel Bougainvilla. The Gold Museum was another highlight.
Besides the requisite walk in parque central de Heredia, enjoying ice cream cones from Pop's, we ate at some of our other favorite places near home: Matices in San Rafael, Pan e Vino in Heredia, Don Tito in Heredia.
Of course all of our friends fell in love with Kay & Nello. They are a really cool couple! Our great friends Judy & Bob invited us to their home in Santa Lucia de Barva for dinner, and on another day we were all invited to dinner at the Heredia Centro home of our buddies Emma & Jon. On their final evening here, Aunt Kay & Uncle Nello insisted on hosting a party of their own, entertaining all of us at a dinner at Pan e Vino, to thank all of our friends (and their new friends) for a wonderful time! We're just all hoping that they will return to visit us again soon.

10 Weeks in Europe - Part 8 - Random Thoughts

2004-06-23T14:53:00.000-05:00

1. Favorite activity: Wandering around the streets, especially the little alley streets, just being there. I know I was always either walking around with my mouth hanging open at the sights or just smiling stupidly in my excitement at seeing these places. It was awesome. We did an amazing amount of just walking around. Upon arrival in each new place, one of us would say, “We made it! We’re in .......” We really were like a couple of kids.

2. Other Favorite Activity: Drinking coffee! It was fun to observe the different customs surrounding coffee drinking – and figuring out how to ask for what we wanted. I think our biggest spending item may have been coffee drinking! But what a great way to people watch! We were intrigued to learn that in Spain there is one price for a cup of coffee at the bar (low), another for a coffee at a table, and a third price for coffee at an outside table (highest). The locals walk in, stand at the bar, down their caffeine fix and leave. It appears that they need their fix several times a day, but it has little or nothing to do with socializing. Now that I think about it, the 3-tier system wasn’t just for coffee. It was for everything, including food.
3. Awesome Architecture: I was struck by the difference in the architecture. In Spain and Italy, the buildings were awesomely detailed and artistic. It seemed that their creators simply wanted to impress the world with the most complex, artistic, expensive structures in the world (“Where did they get all that marble?” / “How did they DO that?”). If they were also strong and secure, so much the better. But as we traveled to Austria and Germany, and to some extent the Czech Republic, it seemed that the buildings’ designers had been aiming for big, powerful, and secure. If they were also beautiful, that was o.k. Usually they were. But many in Austria and Germany seemed strictly utilitarian. Interestingly, clothing styles seemed to follow a similar concept! After the classy dressers of Italy, Austria seemed downright homespun.
4. Getting Around: The only way to travel extensively through Europe is by train. Eurail pass in hand, we felt the freedom of being able to go anywhere, although there were additional charges for sleeping cars or reserved seats, and a separate pass was required for the Czech Republic. The trains were (almost) always on time and it was a very relaxed way to travel. There were all different sorts of seats and accommodations on board, but almost all of them were very nice, even luxurious in some instances. Some of our more interesting experiences were related to the train system. In the larger cities we used the Metro systems (not included on the Eurail pass, but very inexpensive) to get around everywhere easily. There were only 3 places we wanted to go where we couldn’t get to by train, but took the bus, which was also enjoyable and convenient.
5. Carrying Stuff: The only way to carry your stuff around Europe is by backpack. We saw many people struggling up stairs in train stations and metro stations (yes, some have escalators, but not all) and in hotels (yes some have elevators, but not all) carrying or dragging suitcases. Smiling, but trying not to gloat, we “bounced” up the stairs with all our stuff on our backs. By the way, the ground floor in Europe is zero, not one, so if they tell you the room is on the second floor, that means there are two flights of stairs to climb!
6. Packing: The only way to backpack for an extended period of time is to drastically limit the amount of stuff you take along. My full backpack weighed 12 pounds when we left home. Any more than that would have been too much for me. Do you really need more than 3 outfits to wear? We won’t discuss what it weighed upon our return, with the cookbooks, art books, flyers and picture postcards, as well as the wine and cheese purchased on the last day, but I have a tip for the next trip: Paper weighs a lot. Take along a few big manila envelopes and mail the accumulated paper back home to yourself every couple of weeks. Wish I had thought of that before.
7. Guidebooks are Heavy: We read numerous guidebooks before we left, then tore out just the parts we thought we needed to take with us. I didn’t want to throw them away once we had been to each area, so I kept carrying them around. Another time, I would mail them back home to myself.
8. Lodging: Spending a lot of money on lodging is not necessary in most places. Also, there is no direct connection between cost and quality. We always took rooms with private baths, and the rooms were always more than acceptable. Most were really nice, and had been recently renovated, with nice modern bathrooms. Our lowest cost room was 39 Euro ($48 US), and that was one of the nicer places we stayed. Although we paid much more in some places, it was mostly because we were too lazy to look around for a better price, or didn’t want to spend the time walking around looking. The lines between hotels, pensiones, and hostels were blurred, with many calling themselves “pension/hotel,” or “hostel/hotel,” although generally speaking, the “hotels” had things we didn’t really need (tv, phone, etc). We didn’t want to be tied to an itinery, so didn’t make advance reservations, except for our first stop, in Madrid, and for semana santa in Rome. There was never a problem finding a good place to stay.
9. Tourist Information Centers: Every town, large and small, seems to have at least one information center, usually in the train station. They can provide a wealth of useful information, as well as help you find a place to stay. Some will call and make a reservation for you (often for a small charge), some will just give you lists, and some, like the wonderful lady in Sorrento, will chat with you about the different hotels, call over and have them hold a room for you at the one that sounds best until you can walk there (at no charge), and just generally make your arrival pleasant.
10. Food: Spending a lot of money on food is not necessary in most places. Our favorite foods in Spain were found in the tapas bars, which I especially adored because even though I don’t have a big appetite, I was able to try lots of little things. And there was always a fabulous variety of delicious things to try. In Austria, we found a wonderful place with various little munchies on small slices of bread. There may have been 3 dozen types to point and choose from, and they were all good!
11. What Time is Dinner?: We found that every town we visited had different customs on meal times. It helps to ask the locals or at the hotel about this when you arrive. More than a few times we found everything was closed at the time that we decided we were hungry. We always carried around snacks (and wine!) but that didn’t help if you were craving pasta! In one town in Spain, we realized that we had to eat early in the evening. Then arriving in the next town at around six in the evening, we decided we were hungry. There was not one eating establishment that opened for dinner before 8:30. Every country and every town in each country seemed to be different on this.
12. Where Shall We Eat?: Asking the locals where they eat is the best way to find good places. Not only will their recommendations be cheaper, but the food will be way better. An effective alternative, and the one we actually usually used, is to wander the streets until something tickles your fancy. Our favorites were always the little hidden away, or hole-in-the-wall places that weren’t mentioned in the guidebooks.
13. Art Education & Audioguides: If I was doing it again, I’d try to do some reading on art and art history before the trip. I loved getting to see so much famous art, but it would have been more interesting if I had understood more. I was overwhelmed by the size and detail of much of the old art. I was also shocked at the deep, vivid paint colors used in some. I had expected them to look dark. I learned that some look dark because of the years of accumulated dirt and grime and stuff that was painted over them, but that the original colors were brilliant. The audioguides available at the larger museums, usually for about 3 euros, were well worth the cost.
14. Tour Busses: The Hop On / Hop Off bus tours available in most large cities were a great way to get a preliminary orientation. They provided headsets with pre-recorded information in several languages. They cost from $13 (Madrid, which also offered ½ price for seniors) to I think about twice that much in Paris. You can spend the day hopping off and then on again at any of the stops along the way.
15. Language: I’ve heard over and over again that it is not necessary to know the languages when traveling Europe because so many people speak English. While it’s true that you can almost always find an English speaker when you need one, there are times when you cannot. Especially away from the major cities, language can be a challenge, whether trying to get information on the trains or simply trying to order some food. My advice would be to learn as much language as possible, and then carry along a good translator, whether a book or electronic. We had enough Spanish to have no problems in Spain, my little bit of Italian helped some, or at least provided amusement for the locals. We didn’t stay long enough in France for me to really try out my bits of French. But in the Czech Republic, I could have starved while trying to read a menu! Austria and Germany also seemed great mysteries to me. If you’re going to stay strictly in tourist areas and eat in tourist places with menus in multiple languages, you can get by with just English, but it’s a lot more interesting when you can communicate at least a little bit, and the “local” places are always more fun than the “tourist” places.
16. Weather: We wanted to beat the hordes of tourists and heat of the summer, so we left on March 24th. On March 26th, after observing what other people were wearing in Madrid, I bought myself a warm black jacket (had to be black to fit in!), along with a big heavy sweater, a long-sleeved undershirt, and a pair of warm tights. A couple of weeks before our return, the weather finally got nice. I still probably wouldn’t want to go in August next time, but maybe would wait until April or so.
17. Money: We took only a small amount of cash in US $’s. We just stopped at an ATM machine every few days and got cash in the local currency. There are ATM machines everywhere. We used money belts to carry our cash, credit cards, plane tickets, eurail pass and passports. The euro makes traveling from country to country ever so much easier. The only country where we had to switch to another currency was in the Czech Republic.
18. Senior Discounts: Many places have senior discounts, even if they don’t advertise them. It’s definitely worthwhile to ask, since some can be as much as 50%. Once in a while the discounts were only for European Union residents, but in most places discounts were available for anyone over 65, or sometimes 60.
19. Meeting People: People most everywhere are friendly. Sometimes the easiest way to start up a conversation is to ask for help. Most people actually like to help strangers, especially if it gives them a chance to talk about their own country. We didn’t, I think, do enough of this. It’s easy when you’re traveling as a couple, to tend to talk to each other, in your own language, and miss some opportunities for new friends.
20. Just Do It!: Traveling Europe is such an amazing experience that I can’t believe neither of us had done it before. Of course there’s always a reason not to go: not enough money, not enough time, when I get that big promotion or that new job, maybe when the kids are grown, maybe when we retire. Or we’re too old, or too something else. We met all kinds of people from many different places, and they were all having fun. We met very young people traveling on their own, we met young couples traveling with as many as four small children. We met people in their 80’s and 90’s. They were all traveling independently and having the time of their lives. Some stayed at hostels with shared bathrooms and bought food at the grocery stores, from street vendors and inexpensive hole-in-the-wall places. Some stayed at upscale high priced hotels and ate in the more expensive restaurants. They were all having their own brand of high adventure. If there were anything I would change, it would be to go much sooner. I would have loved to have taken my kids when they were young. At the time, of course, I thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t have the time, didn’t have the money. Now I know that, if I had it to do over again, I would find a way. One thing that Gene and I realized when we started talking last year about doing this trip, was that we didn’t want either of us to be in Europe for the first time someday saying, “Gee, Gene would have loved this,” or “Wow! Laurie would have loved this.” When we started planning the trip, we thought that this would be the trip of a lifetime, so we’d better do it now. We thought we would go to one or two places so that we would have time to get to know them a little bit. We ended up going to eighteen cities in six countries. Now that we’ve returned home, all we can talk about is where we will go next year!

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 7

2004-06-22T15:07:00.000-05:00

Return to Spain
Upon our arrival in Madrid, we walked to another track and boarded Spain’s AVE high speed train for Seville! Paris to Seville was by far the longest leg of our trip, but we enjoyed it thoroughly. Seville is a beautiful city, another one that we wouldn’t mind revisiting for a longer period. We went to a flamenco performance, did a lot of walking, drank lots of coffee, and of course Sangria, ate tapas to our hearts’ content, discovered a used book store, and generally just had a great time, wandering around the little streets. After Seville, we bussed to Arcos de la Frontera, a beautiful

little white village, hanging off the sides of a cliff. We spent a couple of days wandering around this quaint old village, drinking beer, eating caracoles, being happy. We wandered into this busy little bar one afternoon and saw the signs that we had seen everywhere else that day in Arcos, “Hay Caracoles.” We also noticed that every time the server went to the bar to pick up more orders, he was yelling “Mas caracoles!” We didn’t know what it was, but had to find out, so we ordered “Caracoles Y dos cervezas, por favor.” We were served glasses of tiny snails in a hot liquid. Snails sounded good, but the liquid was, I thought, suspicious. Since it was necessary to drink the liquid in order to get to the snails, I bravely started drinking. Pretty good stuff! We hated to leave this little cliff-hanging village and their wonderful caracoles, but were off next for another cliff-hanger, Ronda. Beautiful Ronda! We had a memorable lunch at a little table sitting cliffside. Except it wasn’t really cliff-side; it was more like our table was on a rock that to extended out over the great ravine, the deepest I had ever seen. Since I’m deathly afraid of heights, I didn’t even think I’d be able to do it, but it was a beautiful day, and a fabulous lunch, and I’m ever so glad we were there! A young American couple at a nearby table heard us talking about the trains and busses and came over to talk. They had rented a car because they had been told it was the only way to get around to the villages of Andalucia. They hated doing all that driving, and didn’t even know about the busses, which go everywhere that the trains don’t go. The last time we saw them, they were off to find out where they could turn their car in.
By now there was a sadness seeping in on us, knowing that our adventure would soon come to an end. But we were excited about our next stop, Granada, and the Alhambra. We briefly discussed skipping it, in order to scale back our last week and relax more. Fortunately we talked ourselves out of that thought and spent two days exploring that magical place. Like Florence, the hillside villages and most of everything else we saw, it’s indescribable. You read about these places, you see pictures, but you can’t believe how incredible they really are.
I don’t know how many times I asked during our trip, “But how did they do that?” Majestic buildings of marble, some of which had taken centuries to build, domed roofs and other details that seemed to defy engineering possibilities, building details and art that had consumed entire lifetimes. And buildings which hung onto the very edges of vast cliffs. So many things that seemed to me unreal. I couldn’t get enough of it, and almost everywhere we visited, I really wanted to stay longer.
After Granada, we returned to Madrid, and it truly felt like a homecoming, returning back to the wonderful city where our adventure had started almost 70 days earlier! We spent our wonderful final trip days relaxing and wandering around seeing and doing a few things we’d missed the first time through, when it had been cold and rainy, and truthfully miserable, although we had tried not to admit that, since we were having so much fun in spite of it. We had lunch and drank sangrias at a cafe in the incredible Plaza Mayor. We strolled the beautiful paseos. We agonized over whether to buy some of that fabulous Spanish ham and hope that we could get through all the checkpoints entering England, the US and Costa Rica returning home. We decided it wasn’t worth the risk, and just bought some wonderful cheese and wine (by the way, did you know you can buy acceptable wine in Spain for as little as $1US a bottle?!). I’ve been regretting it ever since, since unlike our trip going over, we never seemed to get checked on the way back! I bought another tapas cookbook. And then, suddenly, and way too soon, it was time to come home. But we have so many memories, and so many dreams for the next trip. It was an awesome experience, and I can only wish we had done it much sooner. But then, we’ve both said all along that we’re trying to make up for all the things we never got around to doing during our “wasted youth!”

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 6

2004-06-21T15:15:00.000-05:00

France to Revisit a Family Connection
Next we were off to Metz, France for a very special project. Gene’s Uncle Nello had lived in a hotel in Metz during WWII, 60 years ago.

He has often talked about the year he spent there and what a beautiful place it is. He used to talk about taking a trip back one day, but in the past couple of years has been saying the trip would be too much for him, although he’s a very hardy 90 years old, and probably healthier than I am! So we had decided that our trip had to include his town and his hotel in France. Upon our arrival at the beautiful train station in Metz, we walked across the plaza to an outdoor cafe for coffee. We spread our map out on the table and asked the waiter if he could point out where we were on the map. He did so, and asked us where we were going. When we told him the Hotel Royal, he laughed, and said it was right around the corner! We got a room at the hotel, on the same floor that Uncle Nello had lived on, spent a couple of days wandering around the streets of that beautiful little city, stopping to have coffees (!) and taking a ridiculous number of pictures. As we started reporting back to Gene’s uncle via e-mail, he started remembering all sorts of things he had forgotten (like that the hotel was only a block away from the train station), and got very excited about our trip, asking us to report as much detail of our trip as possible! I guess we got him started, because he and Gene’s aunt have now decided to come visit us in Costa Rica (something we could never talk them into before) and will be here for 2 weeks in July! After our amazing stay in Metz, it was time to head back to Spain for the final weeks of our trip. We took the train to Paris, spent an afternoon there, seeing as much of the city as we could from a double-decker bus, then boarded our night hotel-train for Madrid, a delightful trip, with a private berth with our own bathroom, including shower! Our tickets included a pleasant dinner, with wine, in the dining car, as well as breakfast the next morning. We enjoyed a relaxing breakfast as we approached Madrid, talking with an interesting fellow from France, but originally from Colombia. He was on his way to Colombia to work on a documentary film he is producing.

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 5

2004-06-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany – Fairy Tale Land

Traveling by train from Italy to Austria, we found ourselves with a middle of the night train change and really didn’t know where we were. Eventually we found that we needed to order cafe o’lait, rather than cafe con leche or cappuccino. Ahha! We must be in France! It was a scruffy little station with strange procedures for obtaining a cup of coffee, and with stranger bathrooms. We happily continued on

to Austria.
In Austria, we visited Salzburg (which I feel we could have skipped, but everyone else who goes there seems very excited about it; I must be missing something) and Vienna, which was more beautiful than I could have imagined. Gene’s cold was still bothering him and it was still raining a lot of the time, so I spent one day wandering around seeing the sights on my own. The place is beautiful. Fairy tale buildings and parks. Music. And more good food! All in all a beautiful city that we definitely could have spent more time in.
Next on our agenda was Prague! Now I have to tell you that this whole “side trip” through Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany only happened because a zillion people kept telling us, “Oh, you must see Prague.” I’d never even thought of it as a place to go. Thank God for friends with good free advice! Prague is, I believe, the most beautiful city in the world! The beautiful architectural styles were quite different from the other places we visited. But what was fascinating was the fact that while very old, all of the buildings were so pristine that it seemed like they must have been built yesterday. There was music everywhere. And walking back over the Charles Bridge late in the evening, we had the most amazing view of the massive castle perched on the hill above our hotel. I kept thinking, “I thought Disney made this up, but it’s real and it’s enormous, like a whole town!”
We spent close to a week in Prague and would have liked to stay longer, but had other places to see and things we wanted to do, so we next took off for Germany, where we visited Freising, Regensburg, and Munich. Gene had visited these places on business and was anxious to show them to me and see them as a tourist. I had started getting the hang of beer drinking in the Czech Republic (the largest per capita consumers of beer in the world, the guidebooks told us), but refined my skills to another level in Germany, where I discovered that the “small” mug of beer is about a liter. But “it’s o.k.,” our B&B host tells us. “You can drink 10 or 12 of them without ever getting a headache or a bad stomach.” When I look at him questioningly, he says, “Really! It’s true. I’ve proven it!” So we wandered around the beautiful neighborhoods in Germany, visited beer gardens, had dinner at the oldest active brewery in the world (with some new friends from California, one of whom was originally from Germany). Wandering down a tiny alley-like street one afternoon, we noticed that every door step in front of the little houses had beautiful potted plants on and around it. Everywhere in Europe there seemed to be flowers. There may have been no room for a garden, or even a patio, but there was always room for a potted plant hanging off a wall.

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 4

2004-06-19T15:29:00.000-05:00

A Ferry Ride, Sicily & the Ancient Wonders of Florence

From Salerno, we took the ferry out of Naples for Sicily. The overnight ferry trip was fun. Our room was very luxurious, with ensuite bath with shower, and sleeping at sea was relaxing. Eating in the dining room was fun once I got over my irritation that the earliest reservation we could get was for 10:30 because all of the tables at earlier sittings had already been taken by massive numbers of tour group people.

. This after trying to fight my way to the information desk with numerous fast-talking Italian speakers elbowing and pushing their way in front of me, leaning across the desk to get the immediate attention of the desk people, who were certainly not going to bother to tell them that I had been there for 20 minutes before they arrived. (Hey! I didn’t say everything about the trip was perfect!) A couple of late night glasses of wine in the bar up on the top deck after the mobs of vacationing school kids (!) had disappeared was heavenly! Arriving in Palermo early the next morning, the city appeared bedraggled and soiled. I’m sure that if we had stayed longer, or arrived under different conditions (other than lost on the waterfront not knowing where to go so early in the morning), we would have found interesting neighborhoods and things to see. But we finally found somewhere to get coffee, unstrapped our backpacks, and proceeded to figure out where else we could go. After consulting our maps and guidebooks, we headed for the train station, and a few hours later were in Cefalú, a most charming town which exists in the very shadow of the biggest rock I’ve ever seen, seeming like it might consume the town at any moment. Wow! Another wonderful town for wandering through tiny cobblestone streets, eating great food, and drinking lots of wine and cappucino. Another fabulous helpful innkeeper. An invitation to stay at the home of a wonderful Swiss couple whom we met at an outdoor cafe for no more than 10 minutes on the last day of their visit! We both fell in love with Sicily and hope to return for a longer stay.
From Cefalú, we took an overnight train to Florence, definitely the most uncomfortable train trip of our adventure. The fact that we had somehow got ourselves tickets for a compartment with 4 other people, all “sitting/sprawling” in reclining seats all night was somewhat offset by the fact that our traveling companions were friendly, fun people with whom we had some fun conversations about language and food – all of this mind you with hardly a word of common language!
Every city we visited in Italy was a fabulous experience, and I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but Florence was absolutely amazing. I had no idea that so much art existed in the world, or that such awesome, huge, beautifully detailed buildings existed. The concept of all those famous ancient statues just being there outside in public for everyone to see still baffles me! Another city to totally fall in love with! We spent a week in Florence, wandering the charming narrow streets, eating good food, drinking good cappuccino and wine, visiting more museums and cathedrals and listening to music. We stayed at a the B&B Battistero (“Rooms with a View”), directly in front of the Duomo’s Baptistry. It’s a wonderful little place with only 6 rooms, and when you open your windows, you’re looking directly at the Baptistry. Amazing! Wonderful hosts, charming place, and only 3 flights of stairs to climb! An unusual little side benefit: breakfast in bed – including a boiled egg! We were there for a week and were not ready to leave. We definitely had not seen everything we wanted to see.
Florence is absolutely another city that we hated to leave and would like to visit again.
While in Florence, we also took a day trip to Pisa and gawked at the buildings, which lean even more than I had envisioned! We looked at our tentative itinerary and decided that it was more important to us to spend more time in Spain at the end of the trip than it was to spend time in Venice. So Venice ended up being just an afternoon stopover from the train between Italy and Austria. What a fascinating place! Clearly it would have been worth it to stay a couple of days, but it didn’t interest us as much as the other places on our list, so we were happy with our decision. Leaving Italy, however, was sad. We loved it. We could live there. We’ll be back.

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 3

2004-06-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

More Train Experiences & a Bus Ride Along the Very EDGE of the Amalfi Coast!

After Rome we headed south by train to beautiful and charming Sorrento, where we had some great food and wine, stayed in a wonderful small hotel down a tiny cobblestoned alley, took day trips to Pompei and Herculeum, and where I had another interesting train experience.

From Sorrento, I took an afternoon trip to Ercolano to see the ruins at Herculeum, about 30 minutes away via the Circumvesuviana, the local train line. Returning in the late afternoon, I found myself on the green line, instead of the blue line, and ended up in Poggiomarino, a town I’d never heard of before. I calmly got a ticket to backtrack to Trecase, where I knew I could change over to the blue and get to Sorrento. Somehow I ended up all the way back in Napoli, but wasn’t concerned because I knew I could simply take the blue line from Napoli to Sorrento. I asked 3 different people on the platform to make sure I took the right train this time, since there were no signs and no markings on the trains as there were at most stations. I knew I was on the right track, but there was no way to be sure which route I was on until we passed the first “wrong” station. Comfortably settling in with my book, headed home at last, I thought, I suddenly realized we had passed Pompei, which meant I was on the green again. There was nothing to do but stay on it to Poggiomarino, and then start backtracking again. Once back in that station, asking for help in my tiny bit of Italian only helped me to determine that the man at the counter spoke no English. Luckily for me, a very kind man walked up to me and said, “You need to go to Sorrento?” He turned out to be the conductor of the train I needed to take back. He was apparently waiting for his shift to start, and told me that the train I needed to take would be there in 40 minutes. It was now about 8 pm, and of course Gene was back in Sorrento, wondering where I was. I couldn’t call him because, even if I could have figured out the phones, I couldn’t remember the name of our hotel! (And you all thought I was so organized!) The nice conductor watched me and made sure I got on the right train, and then made sure I got off at the right place and knew which train to take from the other side of the track to backtrack to Sorrento! By the time I arrived back at our hotel at about 9:30 at night, Gene said that he was beginning to get a little concerned, and figured that something like that had happened! We went out for a wonderful late dinner and had a great time discussing what fabulous new experiences we were racking up. Sorrento is beautiful. It’s charming. The food is great. The people are nice. We loved it. I could live there. Really!
To get to our next town, Salerno, we took a bus for the first time, rather than a train. We wanted to see the Amalfi Coast that we had heard so much about. I guess when I was reading about it and looking at the pictures, I forgot how terrified I am of heights, especially when the road from on high drops right straight down the cliff to the sea, about a mile below! Especially when the winding road is less than six inches wider than the bus! The trip was every bit as awesome as I had been told. And it was absolutely terrifying. I’m sorry to have to confess that my eyes were closed and my breathing stopped for much of the trip. And that’s the truth! We had been talking with a very charming and friendly family from Ireland while waiting for the bus, a couple and their teenaged daughter and son. We didn’t hear much from him during the bus ride, and when we reached the half-way point, in Amalfi, I found out why. He couldn’t talk while holding his breath either! I realized at this point that Gene does not always take me seriously. I had just finished telling him that we were taking a boat the rest of the way to Salerno because my heart couldn’t take any more of this ride. I then turned to the Irishman to discuss our heart attack problems. While we talked, Gene strolled off to get bus tickets for the rest of the trip to Salerno! Yes, we took the bus.
When we arrived in Salerno, it was cold and raining. We got off the bus and walked a few blocks to the train station and found the information center next door. A helpful attendant told us which hotels in our price range were close by. We started walking and lucked out again, finding a good place to stay about three blocks away. It was a charming old place with a wee balcony, right on the main pedestrian street and near the old quarter. It even had an elevator! We only stayed a couple of days in Salerno, the weather was wet and cold, and we were both now dealing with colds and sore throats. We didn’t see much there, but we did have some incredible food (of course) and wine. It seemed to be a charming and interesting town with lots of wandering and eating opportunities. We loved the old quarter with its charming narrow streets and hidden away restaurants. Our host at the hotel, like many other innkeepers along the way, was amazingly friendly and helpful, wanting to give us lots of advice to make sure our visit was the best it could be. He was a transplanted New Yorker of Italian descent, and both of us thought that his mannerisms made us think of a character that would be played by Dustin Hoffman as a mafia guy! Our first night there, he directed us to a wonderful restaurant in the old quarter where the locals eat. It was great, the food was wonderful, and we heard nothing but Italian being spoken at the other tables. We got there just before the dinner hour rush, and wished we had gone later, because we would have changed our orders if we had seen what other people were getting first! Lots of great-looking stuff we’d never heard of before. Can’t remember it now. Wish I’d stolen a menu. Will have to return someday. Our second night there, our host walked us to a restaurant owned by a friend and ordered for us, to make sure we got the best fish dishes in the house! Again, it was fabulous. The name of the place was “Pinocchio,” and we were waited on by Signor Pinocchio himself! No kidding! We couldn’t help noticing that the Italian couple at the next table seemed to have some problems. He, an older guy, tried to get friendlier and friendlier. Just an affectionate sort of guy, I guess. She, a much younger woman, in turn, kept backing off and looking more and more annoyed. Finally he apparently just got too darned affectionate. She jumped up, grabbed her purse, and walked out, leaving her coat behind. A few minutes later, he sheepishly paid the bill and left. Some interpersonal relationship issues are international. We couldn’t understand a word they said, but had no problem understanding nevertheless! I kind of would have liked to stay longer in Salerno, if only for the food (!), but we decided to continue south to Sicily, in hopes that the weather would be drier and warmer. We didn’t get to see much of Salerno, but we like it. I could live there. Really!

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 2

2004-06-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

Getting to Italy, Trains & Rome

Throughout our grand adventure we were amazed at how well the train system worked. We could get almost anywhere, they almost always left on time, the views in many cases were awesome, and we could just sit back and relax, knowing that we would eventually reach our destination. Some of the trains had sleeping cars, bar cars and dining cars. Some of them had people who came through with snack and drink carts, like on the airlines. There were varied comfortable seating arrangements, from nice little compartments with seats for 6 people to lounge type setups with tables for card playing or eating to airplane type seats, except more spacious and comfortable. Train riding was one of the fun parts of travel. That didn’t, however, mean that all the details always worked out as expected.

. Leaving Spain turned into an interesting experience, as we arrived at the train station in Barcelona an hour ahead of time and learned that our night train had just left. The internet said the train left at 21:30, which we had verified the day before at the station when we reserved our sleeping berth. Now, with full packs on our backs, we were told that “You can’t trust the information on the internet,” and “There’s nothing that can be done. The train leaves at 20:30.” A call back to our hotel determined that they had no rooms for the night, but they knew of a small apartment nearby that we could have for the night at the same price as the hotel. So we spent the night in a charming little apartment and got to have an extra day in Barcelona!
In Italy, we first visited Vernazza, one of five little villages (the Cinque Terre) hanging off the cliff over the sea. I never had the guts to count, but I think there may have been as many as 200 steps up the 7 sets of winding rock stairways between buildings to get to our lodging house. Then we got to climb to our 3rd floor room in the charming old building. The place was awesome, and I would do it again, but I would consider skipping the 3rd and 4th courses at dinner before trekking to our room the first night! Watching the sea beat up the rocks far below made me feel like I was living in a storybook. This couldn’t be real.
After Vernazza, we headed for Rome for Semana Santa, where we got to see more amazing architecture and art and statues living outdoors. We also got to be in St Peter’s Square on Easter, along with several thousand other people, to observe the Pope blessing the world. I’m not Catholic, but nevertheless found it to be fascinating. Even more fascinating was to listen to all the Italians happily talking in little groups with their friends throughout the ceremony. Those who weren’t with friends were on the cell phones talking to their friends. Amazing. I also noticed that, in the Sistine Chapel, with signs and guards everywhere asking people to be quiet and not speak, there was the constant hum of conversation. These people just can’t stop talking! The art, architecture and history! What an experience to get to see all those places we had only read about! We spent an afternoon wandering around the Forum, where, although archaeological excavations continue, we felt we had stepped into the past. We learned that the Coliseum took 10 years to build, and that it was built to hold 50,000 spectators. We also learned that during the 100 days of opening ceremonies in AD 80, hundreds of animals and 2,000 gladiators were killed. Some knowledge you’d prefer not to have, but there’s no denying the grandness of this ancient structure. St Peter’s Basilica, the Roman Forum, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, Trevi Fountain. Ancient statuary in the public streets, everywhere we looked! We spent a fun hour watching a wild woman wading in the Trevi Fountain for coins. We thought the policeman who was trying to get her out was going to end up falling in the fountain with her. He finally threw up his hands and left! Rome was an awesome experience, but after a week there, I wasn’t really unhappy to move on. Our hotel room was more than adequate, and only three flights up, but the innkeeper was a witch. It was still cold and rainy and Gene was suffering with a sore throat. I never did figure out how to say “sore throat” in Italian, but apparently my grabbing of my throat while gasping and wheezing got the point across at the farmacia, and gave them a good laugh for the day as well. We found a favorite eating spot, with great, cheap food and friendly waiters, but most of the restaurants seemed overpriced. We barely caught a thief (actually a team of two) attempting to steal my handheld PDA directly off a restaurant table in front of me. These guys were good. One of them put some kind of flyer on the table to show us, while the other one talked. Suddenly we realized we didn’t know where the PDA was. It was under the flyer, with his hand ready to take both as they walked away! Although Rome offers some of the most awesome art and architecture in the world, most of the city was dirty. If we were planning our first trip again, we would definitely go to Rome because it was a great opportunity to see all the historic sites. But it’s probably not one of the places we’ll travel to again.

The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 1

2004-06-16T14:39:00.000-05:00

Falling in Love with Spain
Although our homecoming from 70 days wandering around Europe is a few weeks old now, it seems that we are just now settling into some semblance of routine and beginning to catch up on projects like reporting on our travels. It was wonderful being back home and seeing all of our “hometown” friends, including Dale who helped take care of our house, Bob and Judy, who had returned earlier from their travels to various points in North America, Jim and Flora, who had returned from their latest world travels, and Jon and Emma, who have now returned from their trip to New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Washington state, Virginia and various points in between. I saw a picture of Flora playing in her first snow, and I’m sure she was more excited than any little kid in snow for the first time! “Tell me everything,” one friend said upon our return. “What was the most interesting thing about your trip?” another asked. Both queries left me speechless, a condition not normal for me. Where does one begin? For me, it was my very first trip to Europe, a life-long dream. For Gene, it was his first time, except for a few brief business trips a few years back. We were both so excited and had so much fun that we were talking about where we want to go for our next trip long before we returned. And now that we are back in our wonderful home and familiar surroundings, we’re still having that conversation! We have clearly been bitten by the travel bug!
Our Adventure Begins
The countries we visited were Spain, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and France.

The vast majority of our time was spent in Italy and Spain. We both fell in love with Madrid, where we started, but then loved Barcelona, too. The art, the architecture, wonderful old neighborhoods to walk, the tapas, the wine, the cafes, the coffee, the chocolaterias! We were surprised at how inexpensive it was to eat and drink (we did lots of it). In Madrid, we stayed at a beautifully renovated old hotel right on Plaza del Sol. We could open the french doors at night and listen the music in the plaza and the sounds of nighttime in Madrid. These people never ever sleep! In Barcelona, we stayed right on La Rambla
and had a wonderful time wandering and watching the mimes, the people, the flower vendors and bird sellers, the constant activity.
One man insisted on teaching me how and where to shop for antelope leather and wanted to make sure that, if I bought leather, I knew to buy antelope, not cow. It’s the most beautiful soft, light-weight stuff, and doesn’t become water-spotted when caught in the rain. Alas! There was no room in my back pack, and I didn’t think I’d get enough use out of it in Costa Rica to justify the purchase! Another man who we met while sitting on a bench on La Rambla wanted to discuss his urinary tract problems and his efforts to go to Florida for treatment! In both cities, we took the double-decker “Hop on the Bus” tours for overviews of the cities and a good look at the neighborhoods and architecture. Then we took off on our own to see the places we wanted to see more of, the museums, cathedrals,
etc. Once, trying to exit the Metro train in a crowd, I got caught when the doors started to close. Suddenly there were two big guys helping Gene pry the doors open so that I could get out. Another interesting experience! Our first train experience was on a hotel train to Barcelona, and we loved it! I could live in Madrid. I loved everything about it. Of course I could live in Barcelona, too! We left by night train for Italy, grateful that we would be returning to Spain at the end of our trip to see more. Spain had stolen our hearts.
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Barb & Chick Visit Costa Rica

2004-02-12T14:51:00.000-06:00

When Gene's cousin Barb emailed that their cruise would be making a port call in Limon, we decided, along with our friends Emma & Jon, that it was the perfect excuse (like since when do we need one!) to spend a few days on the Caribbean. So we booked rooms at our favorite Caribbean get-away spot, Kelly Creek Inn, right on the edge of Cahuita National Park. After spending the first night there, falling asleep to the sound of the surf and the howling of the monkeys, Gene and Jon drive to Limon to pick up Barb and Chick at their cruise boat. We spent the day walking through the park and along the beach, watching the animals, lunching at EZ Times in Puerto Viejo. At the end of the day, they all surprised me with a birthday cake back at Kelly Creek! Chocolate cake and wine at a Caribbean Beach - tough to beat that one for a birthday celebration! We were all sad that their stopover was for only one day, but everyone had a great time, and we're hoping that Barb and Chick will get back to see us soon for a much longer stay.

Bye Bye Barb & Chick! Hope to See You Again Soon!

Gail Comes to Costa Rica

2003-10-25T10:05:00.000-05:00

My best buddy Gail from Hollywood, Florida (where we lived before Costa Rica) actually came to visit us! She had promised when we moved here that she would be down - and Gail is always good for her promises. What a great time we've had!

Bienvenida! Welcome Party for Gail on the patio

Zarcero-
famous for the topiaries in every size and shape in front of the church
Topiaries shaped like a cat riding a motorcycle, an elephant, a bullring with matador, charging bull, and spectators. That's what I've read. You coulda fooled me. Interesting, but mostly I thought it looked like mis-shapen shrubbery!

And a morning at Zoo Ave - not only is it beautiful but it's one of the most relaxing and fun places to visit in the area, as well as being filled with educational information about all the birds and animals that are rescued and bred there. A Costa Rica must see!

They say that all good things must come to an end, but I've never understood why. We did a few days on the Caribbean in Puerto Viejo and Cahuita, some more day trips, a lot of sitting around and talking. And suddenly it was time for my good friend Gail to leave. I just hope that she had such a good time that she will want to come visit us again soon. I miss her already!

Groceries

2003-02-11T23:12:00.000-06:00

The regular grocery stores that most Ticos use are much smaller than what we were accustomed to in the US . “Pali” is the lowest price grocery store, but the merchandise is very limited. Good for laundry supplies and staples, but not much for fresh merchandise. “Mas por Menos” is a step up in price and also in variety of product availability. You could probably get everything you need there, but not necessarily everything you want. They have a decent fresh produce department as well as fish and meat. They also carry the local coffee that we like and our favorite “vino collapso.” Another store, “MegaSuper,” is similar. Depending on the neighborhood, both “Mas por Menos” and “MegaSuper” may have a greater or lesser selection. There are also “Hipermas” and “Auto Mercado,” which are almost like the big stores you are accustomed to in the US , and offer many imported products at very high prices. Next, my favorite stores are the little neighborhood stores, the "pulperias". It’s amazing. Every little neighborhood has one. There are two in easy walking distance of our house. Their size ranges from teensy to very small, but they cram an amazing amount of varied products into the space available, everything from a few fresh vegetables and fruits to school supplies, zippers, bread and milk and gift wrapping paper. Many also carry meats. Recently, on the corner of our street, someone opened a small meat market (carniceria). If figure if I wanted to, I could get by without ever leaving “the hill.” Many neighborhoods also have nice little fruit and vegetable stands, but we don’t have one - yet. Also, downtown there are many open fruit and veggie stands on the street, and in some areas, people just selling peppers, cilantro, or whatever from the sidewalk. Another of my favorites is the Mercado, the big rambling area downtown with many vendors of fruits and vegetables as well as meat, fish, herbs, fabric, kitchen ware, clothing, baskets and God knows what else. Going to the market is always fun, the produce is fresher and cheaper. Last and least expensive for fresh stuff is the Saturday morning feria, or farmers’ market. The one in our town, Heredia, is huge. It’s about 4 blocks long, with vendors’ stands selling every sort of vegetable and fruit. There are also a few stalls with meats, cheeses and other stuff. But mostly it’s fresh produce. A great way to buy good fresh stuff at great prices, but also great entertainment on Saturday mornings. Some towns have their ferias on Sunday mornings. On a recent trip to the feria, we bought:
Kilo of potatoes
Kilo of carrots
4 Red peppers
½ Kilo of onions
Bunch of radishes
Large squash
3 Small cauliflower
4 Large tomatoes
4 Ears of corn
4 Small cucumbers
Kilo of avocados
Small pineapple
Small watermelon
Cantaloupe
Strawberries
½ Kilo of cheese
All told, the above, which more than filled my super oversized market shopping bag, cost about $8 US. It’s possible to eat very well on a very small amount of money. It’s also possible to spend a lot, if you need specific imported or prepackaged things.

Christmas Nite Lites

2002-12-25T22:23:00.000-06:00

Great Christmas afternoon eating, drinking good wine, and having good conversation on a great variety of subjects with our new friends Linda & Chuck (hosts) and Emma & Jon. The lights out over the valley as we rode down over the mountains coming home tonight were awesome.
It’s Christmas. It’s different from any other Christmas we’ve ever had. We miss our family. We miss our long term, loyal, forever friends. We miss shopping for fun presents and wrapping them and watching them get opened. But we are enormously grateful for our newly adopted home, for the opportunity to live in such an awesomely beautiful and fascinating place, for the amazingly warm and friendly people, the opportunity to learn and live in a new culture, and for the wonderful new friends we are making, who, while adding a whole new dimension to our lives, will never be able to replace the old friends and family we left behind. Hopefully all of them will eventually find their way down here to visit us.

Holiday Customs

2002-12-25T11:08:00.000-06:00

There are some odd combinations of customs here. Of course it's a very Catholic country. Throughout the evening and late into the night on Christmas Eve, we heard church bells ringing. Beautiful. There are so many beautiful old churches, and several are close enough for us to hear the bells toll. But we also listened to the fireworks late into the night. How did fireworks ever get to be part of Christmas? Some of them sounded like bombs going off in front of our house!

Every house in Costa Rica, as near as I can tell, has a crèche in, or in front of, the house. Many of them are huge, and very detailed. Apparently historically, in keeping with the private celebration of Christmas, the crèches were inside the house. In recent years, the Ticos have started decorating outside, and the displays of lights and huge crèches and other decorations are fantastic. I wonder how some of them can afford the electricity bills.
I suspect that the stores sell more during December than they do the entire remainder of the year. This is largely because every Tico worker, by law, must be paid a full month's salary as a bonus during the first week in December. Rather civilized idea, don't you think?
And of course the food. It's a big tradition here to have tamales for Christmas. Apparently every woman in Costa Rica has her own recipe for tamales, and prepares large batches of them. They are fabulous. I don't know what other things they cook for the Holidays, but I can tell you that the aromas coming from my next door neighbor's kitchen last night were so incredible, I thought of going over and standing at the door looking hungry. This morning there are more aromatic foods being prepared over there.
Speaking of food, we have been invited to Christmas dinner this afternoon at the home of our friends Linda and Chuck, who I had met when I was down here two years ago. They live further up the mountains from us, real country, with a fabulous view. It will be fun!

Feliz Navidad de Costa Rica

2002-12-25T10:01:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas morning at our casa in Siboney de San Pablo de Heredia de Costa Rica. As I sat in the courtyard peeling onions for our traditional creamed boiled onions, I daydreamed about all the Christmases past. Has there ever been a Christmas when I haven't made boiled onions? I don't think so. Are my kids making boiled onions today? I doubt it. Funny. I always thought I was raising them to be totally independent. But now I think I failed to teach them the most basic of important things. Creamed boiled onions on Christmas day.
Today is very different from our Christmases past. In some ways it may be like Christmas forty years ago or more in the U.S. Especially if you were Catholic. Which I wasn't.

Last night we went downtown to go to mass at the beautiful old church by el parque central in downtown Heredia. We didn't know what time the service was, so we got there at almost seven, just in time to hear the end of the Ave Maria, which was incredibly beautiful. There weren't as many people there as I had expected. But then we realized that almost everyone goes to the midnight mass. After the mass, they go home for dinner. We enjoyed walking downtown on Christmas eve. There were a lot of people out and about, but not nearly as many as the night before, when it appeared that absolutely everyone was downtown doing last minute shopping. Buying a few gifts for our friends, I thought this must be like Christmas in New York, with all the hustle and bustle, street vendors selling everything, and bubbly young women cheerfully wrapping gifts for their customers. It was fun.
Speaking of view, it is the most glorious Christmas day in Costa Rica. I'm sitting barefoot in the courtyard writing this. It's warm and sunny and beautiful. Our house is enclosed by this beautiful private courtyard downstairs, so there's no view. But from upstairs, we see out over the valley and to the mountains on the other side. It is so beautiful. I really can't believe we live in a place like this. We’re so lucky. At night the lights all across the valley and into the hills are absolutely indescribable.

Unfurnished

2002-12-22T22:49:00.000-06:00

As I’ve mentioned, the house we’ve rented is unfurnished. I probably should describe what that means in Costa Rica. Generally speaking an unfurnished Tico house has nothing in it. I mean it has no appliances, no kitchen cabinets, no closets, no medicine cabinets or shelving or mirrors in the bathroom. Emma was relieved when the landlady told her that, unlike most Tico houses, hers already had light fixtures. She was excited that she wouldn't have to shop for light fixtures to cover all the bare light bulbs. Then she found out that what the landlady meant was that it comes equipped with light bulbs! So we're all out shopping for light fixtures, among other things. We've done a lot of shopping together, and have lent and shared and got by and laughed a lot! By the time we moved in, we had a mattress, fridge, stove, washing machine, beautiful rattan table and chairs for courtyard, some cooking pans and a set of dishes for 4. We also had a few odds and ends like some drinking glasses, wine glasses (priorities, you know), "silverware," and a few other little things for the kitchen. We keep acquiring more stuff, but as I mentioned before, shopping can be a challenge. We have been known to spend days shopping for sheets and towels and a blender for Jon, which he apparently could not live without! A set of bed sheets can cost $60 - $80. The locally made ones aren't made quite big enough to keep the bottom sheet on the mattress. Some of them have fabric that is close to burlap! If I'm ever in a Target store in my life again, I'll probably buy every set of plain white percale sheets on the shelf! But life is good. On Monday we found a bathroom mirror. It is framed in bamboo and I'm in 7th heaven. Of course I got to see myself for the first time in 3 weeks, which was kind of frightening!
No matter what else it is, it's always an adventure!

Christmas Gifts

2002-12-22T21:44:00.000-06:00

I miss buying presents for everyone, wrapping them on the kitchen table, delivering them up to my friends and family. But there are so many wonderful things about Christmas here. Historically Christmas is a family thing here. All the family gathers for Christmas Eve and Christmas day and many other parties during the season. The entire family participates, and in that way, it reminds me of Christmas many years ago in the U.S., a time when life was simpler. I always think of Christmas as a kid when we all went to Gramma's house! Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, old, young, everyone. And presents under the tree for everyone. Of course most of the presents were handmade. Not because we were so arty and creative and individualistic, but because there was no money to buy lots of store-bought things. For some reason, I always remember making pin cushions out of walnut shells! Every adult in the family must have had a huge collection of walnut shell pin cushions accumulating in a drawer somewhere! But it was important to have a gift for each person. A lot of aprons got made. My mother worked on her knitting year round. We all had the most beautiful sweaters. And every kid in town had a pair of my mother's mittens! My grandmother crocheted beautiful things. Everybody made something.

Self Service - Not

2002-12-20T21:04:00.000-06:00

Self service has not come to Costa Rica yet! Having someone wait on you can be very nice. Sometimes it’s aggravating having a “helpful” clerk follow you around while you shop. In many places, like the hardware store or the pharmacy, the merchandise is not out for you to see and touch. It is thus necessary to explain to the clerk, in Spanish, what you would like to purchase. The clerk then goes to the back to find the item for you. Once the item has been located and you have agreed to buy it, the clerk writes up a sales slip, which you take to the caja (cashier) and pay. The cashier takes your colones, gives you change, stamps the sales slip paid. You then take the paid sales slip back to the sales clerk, who packages your merchandise and gives it to you. Sometimes instead of going back to the sales clerk, you go to the paquette desk to retrieve your stuff. In the case of the Christmas gifts I bought today, after returning to my sales clerk, I found that I was supposed to go to the line at the paquette and wait while the sales clerk looked in the back for the boxes. While standing in line, I saw that other customers were getting their purchases gift wrapped and asked if I could get mine wrapped too. Just like any big store in any big city during Christmas week, I thought. When it was my turn, one of the bubbly young women spent about fifteen minutes meticulously wrapping my four gifts with beautiful paper and fancy ribbons. When she was finished, they were a work of art. I said yes to the gift tags, she smiled appreciatively when I told her they were muy bonito, and wrote me up another sales slip, for the wrapping, which I then took to the caja, paid 300 colones ($.80), obtained my stamped slip, returned to the paquette, and obtained my gifts. When you're accustomed to self service, it all seems a bit awkward and time consuming. But here it's the way it's done, you get a lot of service, you learn patience, people smile and say friendly things, and it doesn't cost much.

Every Day Another Incredible Experience!

2002-12-16T21:37:00.000-06:00

We were downtown at Mas por Menos, a medium sized grocery store. The pre-Christmas crowds were huge everywhere we went. Suddenly we heard beautiful Christmas music and wound our way through the aisles to see where it was coming from. There was a whole choir singing by the checkout counters. We learned that they were a project of the University, although some of the singers were way under university age. It was an wonderful full professional choir, with a conductor and the whole thing. Some of the most beautiful Christmas music I've ever heard, in a straggly little downtown grocery store with street vendors outside crying out about their wares to the crowds. I love this place!

We've Rented a House!

2002-12-10T22:45:00.000-06:00

We found a great 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in a nice area up on a hill near downtown Heredia. From upstairs we can see all the way across the valley to the hills on the other side. The view at night with the lights is awesome. Upstairs we have a big master bedroom with vaulted ceiling and a window seat. There are also 2 small bedrooms with windows overlooking the coffee fields and the valley below. All of the upstairs floors are wood, except for the bathroom, which is tiled and has a suicide shower. Downstairs there is a long narrow living / dining room, a kitchen, and another bathroom. At the back there are French doors from both the living room and the kitchen out onto a beautiful small tiled courtyard with high vine covered walls. Off the courtyard there is a "pila" (laundry room) and a storage room. From the front of the house, you enter directly from the sidewalk (no front yard) to an extra large double garage. The garage has big double metal car doors plus the pedestrian door, so it's totally closed in from the street. But there's a break in the high roof toward the front and one side so that lots of light gets in. The garage ceiling is wood and the floor is ceramic tile. There's a pretty tropical garden area on one side. Of course we don't have a car and it's very nice out there, so Gene is going to set up his studio out there. It's much more house than we had planned to rent, but it was so fantastic compared to the other few places we'd seen in the same price range that we grabbed it. We're paying $425 per month, unfurnished. Actually we weren’t even thinking about looking at houses for probably another 6 months, but Emma and Jon invited us to go look with them and the rest just sort of happened! The landlady had 2 houses for rent and Emma and Jon have rented the other one. So we already had friends for neighbors before we even moved in. We've spent a lot of time together, out looking for the things we need to live here and just visiting. They are very friendly.

Back to the Pacific: Tamarindo!

2002-10-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

In our ongoing attempt to see as much of the country as possible before "settling down" somewhere, we're now in Tamarindo. The trip to the beach took an hour more than expected, about 6 ½ hours. Bus was hot and uncomfortable; no room to move legs. One stop along the way to pee, etc. Got let off right in front of the Villas Amarillas, where we are staying. Certainly not a fancy place, but everything we need. A/C and hot shower, too. Right directly on the beach. And the beach is absolutely gorgeous! On-site outdoor restaurant. Outdoor kitchen for the use of the guests. There’s a balcony outside our room with a great view out over the beach and the ocean. The cost is $25 per nite (+ 7% if charged on Visa). Had a good lunch from the bus station; took it aboard and ate on the bus. Had dinner at a nice place on the beach in middle of town, Restaurante ZullyMar.

La Caja Continued Again

2002-10-02T22:01:00.000-05:00

To Caja. Try in another 22 days, mas o menos! Great excuse anyhow for another trip to our new favorite restaurant, Matices. Dale went with us. We all had a great meal. Very friendly and consciencious waiter, Caesar. Went to Azzurra’s for coffee.

I'm beginning to understand that everything is in 22 days, mas o menos (more or less)!

The Little Theater: Chase Me Comrade

2002-09-28T23:53:00.000-05:00

Dale and I fixed pasta with spinach and sautéed garlic for lunch. Very nice. Enjoyed it with some red wine. In the evening we finally got to see “Chase Me Comrade.” It was Dale’s first acting part, and she was great! The play was hysterically funny. We were invited to the after-play party at Stephani & Kevin Glass’s home next to the theater. A very large group of fascinating people. Kept trying to figure out why one of the actors seemed so familiar. Finally realized why. Harry Towne used to live on San Juan Island, and was active in the theater there! By the time I had figured this out, he had left the party. I’ve asked Dale to ask him when she sees him at the Sunday matinee, how he liked living on San Juan Island! Stayed at the party til 2 am!

Theatre People

2002-09-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

Went to a very nice soda in Santa Ana for delicious arroz con pollo (Gene & me) and pollo asado for Dale. That’s about all they serve at that particular place. Then stopped at Pali for a few supplies and got a box of wine at the liquor store. Ann and a couple of other people from the theater stopped in for drinks after the play, so we ended up staying up too late talking! Dell (who’s in the play) and his visiting friend are from Toronto. Ann was her usual entertaining self and was telling us about the theater that she had back in Toronto years ago.

We Have Malls in Costa Rica too!

2002-09-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

My first trip to Multiplaza – just like any mall in South Florida. Felt for all the world that I was in Aventura Mall, except that the prices had gone up! Dale needed tea. I wandered through 2 bookstores. Gene bought a pair of “Dockers” pants! We stopped in the mall for desserts and coffees and laughed about the fact that we’d spent more than we would for a whole meal at a soda! Went to an art supply store and got Gene a few things to do some drawings. By the time we came out, it was pouring! Got totally drenched getting a bus. Stopped later on and picked up some dinner pastries at Musmannis so we wouldn’t have to go back out in the rain for dinner.

Return to Civilization

2002-09-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

Chad drove us to Carrillo to catch our 8:30 am flight. Hung out on the beach waiting for our plane. It is a gorgeous beach. Nowhere to stay right on the beach here, but there are a few places fairly close by up on the hill, and of course a lot of places in Samara, some of which are right on the beach and many others right across the street from the beach. Also there are several good places to eat in Samara. Looks like it could be a good place to hang out for a month or more, although I suspect that when we go back we will want to check out some other places we haven’t been to yet. The flight back over the mountains was beautiful. A nice clear morning. Stopped at ARCR. The lawyer said that our residency application was indeed submitted before they changed all the rules, so we are o.k. with that. Great news! Called Dale and arranged to meet her at Tex-Mex around noon. Bussed to Santa Ana. Dale is letting us stay at her place for a few days so we can get to the play on Saturday nite and to Sharon’s party on Sunday. In the evening, Ann picked us up in her car and we all went for pizza at Ginos. Dale brought wine along. Good wine; good pizza. Great conversation. Neat, fun friends. Pizza for 4 of us was less than $10.

The Flying Crocodile

2002-09-25T21:37:00.000-05:00

The “Flying Crocodile” is a beautiful place, hidden away in the Rain Forest, feeling very remote. There was only 1 other couple staying there, a young couple from Germany, friends of the owner. The owners are away in Germany (for 6 months I believe). The staff, with a little help from Chad, apparently keep the show running without them. Chad flies the ultralights and takes customers up in them as well. Other than that, he seems to just be hanging out and doing a little overseeing and making trips to the airstrip and such. He apparently wandered out there one day a year or so ago, wanting to find out about the ultralights. He learned to fly them well enough that the owner, Gaido, trusts him to take others up for rides, so he hangs out and helps out from time to time. He was in the Marines for 6 years and has been out for 10 years, so I put him at about Mark’s age. He likes to wander and has lived in a lot of different places.
We had good meals, breakfasts of fresh fruit, toast and cold cuts, cheese etc. Dinners different every night but seeming rather “German,” with meat cooked well and other things on the dry side, except for the salads, which were over-sauced. Nevertheless, generally the meals that the Tica cooks turned out were fairly impressive. The veggies were good.
We walked down to the beach the first day, 15-20 minutes over a muddy, rutted road, and made it back almost before the rains came. The beach area is beautiful and we went for a nice walk down the length of it. There’s a lot of driftwood and some trash on the beach. Not terrible, but not the beautiful immense stretch of pristine beaches that you see in the pictures. Since there was usually only a short stretch of sun time each day in between the rains, we spent the rest of the week sunning at the beautiful pool area at the Crocodile when the sun came out. It was steps from our cabina. The rest of the time we read, took naps, played cards or rummitile.
One day we spent the better part of the afternoon watching about a dozen howler monkeys in the trees outside our cabina. They are amazing – and amazingly loud! It was fun and we took many photos, but although we could see them all well enough running around in the trees, it is hard to see them in the photos. There were 2 fabulously beautiful macaws in a large cage by the dining area. The blue and yellow one was often allowed to fly free around the area, and even sat on my shoulder. He can talk, but his vocabulary seems to be limited to “Hola.” I think his Spanish is coming along about as well as mine! There were peacocks – a male, female and 2 babies. They were fun to watch. There were 3 dogs and several cats. There were a few squirrels around in the trees.
The sounds of the rain in the trees and the crickets at night. Relaxing and calming. Very good sleeping weather. Our cabina was a beautiful “Moorish” décor thing, with 2 big beautiful beds made of some sort of gorgeous wood. The building itself was sort of “rounded,” with seven or so sides, the floor on 3 levels, with a couple of steps down between each level. The bathroom was all tile, with exquisite designs made with different color tiles. The step down in the bathroom was rounded, everything free-form. There was a snake-like red light stream, like a neon thing, built into the tiles on the counter-top and up the walls. Fabulous open shower, with all the hot water you wanted!!! Above were different colored glass insets in the tall rounded ceiling.
The paths and gardens throughout the property were fabulous, with a real “hidden away in the rain forest” feeling. Probably my favorite part of the property was the kitchen and eating area. I seem to really be into kitchens – especially when they are “outdoors.” This was beautiful with lots of open shelving of gorgeous woods, beautiful European appliances, tile, and big serving areas. Although it could all be closed up like a smallish room, and was actually the bottom floor of the owners’ house, it led out onto the tiled eating area, and felt totally open and outdoors. The large eating area was covered with bamboo roof and also contained a turtle pond (2 big turtles), the macaw cage, and a hammock. Everything about the place was designed for total relaxation.
A big fun part of the week was catching a ride with Chad into town a couple of times. Each time he would check to see if we could cross the river to go the short way and decide it was too high. So we would take the long way around (about an hour to town), crossing 3 rivers along the way, one of which was pretty big. We stopped once to pull another vehicle out of the middle of the river, and another time to make sure that the smaller truck we had passed along the road made it across o.k. Chad always stopped to pick people up along the road. The Ticos walk for long distances all the time, but are very appreciative when they get a ride! There were a lot of dogs everywhere we went, and they were all skinny as hell. Also there were a lot of cows in pastures and they were all skinny. We saw a few horses and they were not fat either. It was about an hour into Samara and the beach there was wide, long, and beautiful. It was also virtually empty, this being the green season. I could live here.
Got an e-mail from son Mark, who said he “couldn’t help worrying a little,” when he doesn’t hear from us for a few days! Couldn’t help remembering trying to track him down back in his college days. Don’t you just love it. Paybacks are hell!

Flight to Playa Samara, Flying Crocodile

2002-09-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

Early morning flight to Samara (Carrillo) was fabulous. Flying over the mountains and beaches in a small plane was truly incredible. The pilot decided not to land in Nosara because it was raining and there was no visibility. There was an older woman and a couple with a 9 month old baby who were left on the airstrip in Carrillo trying to decide how to get home to Nosara. The pilot had given them a choice. They could fly back to San Jose with him or get off at Carrillo. Apparently the couple with the baby were coming back from a trip to the States with massive amounts of luggage and stuff, definitely more than could be fit into a taxi! Hope they made it! They looked to be at least mid to late 30’s and said their baby had been born in San Jose and therefore had her first flight at the grand old age of 2 weeks, flying home to Nosara. Since then she has flown several times, including a couple of trips to the States to see her grandparents! All 3 of them seemed pretty casual about it all.
Chad was waiting for us at the air strip with a 4-wheel drive truck. The drive out to the Flying Crocodile took about an hour. We checked out the main river on the short route and he decided not to try it, although he “thought” we probably could have made it. The current looked pretty strong, the river was fairly wide, and I couldn’t tell how deep, but definitely not shallow. The “Crocodile” is definitely out in the wilderness. There certainly are no restaurants within walking distance. Supposedly the beach is in walking distance, but I don’t know if I believe it. I think it’s a good thing we have an “all-inclusive” package, which includes breakfast and dinner at the Crocodile.

Matices & San Rafael

2002-09-17T20:29:00.000-05:00

Got ready for our trip to the Peninsula tomorrow and then walked downtown and messed around for the rest of the day. Had lunch at Azzurra and dinner at Matices in San Rafael de Heredia. Really like that place a lot and also like San Rafael a lot. I ordered a “boca” for something like 700 c, expecting a little bite to eat, and got a whole plateful of dinner! I definitely could live in San Rafael.