Ivania's Guesthouse

On Sunday I switched from my swank hotel to the guesthouse provided by Aliarse/Skills for Life. The driver called me enroute from the airport, where he was picking up Patti from DC - nice surprise for me. We drove through San Jose to a suburb or adjoining community called San Pedro.

After experiencing small (from US perspective) apartments in Europe, this house is mucho grande with 3 big lounge areas and two dining areas. One dining room is in an outside courtyard, which has a tin roof and a spiral staircase to the roof for smokers. Owned and run by Ivania, the guesthouse hosts 8 university students in private rooms and has two bunk rooms for other guests. Our program uses this house (and two others) for the new teacher orientation. Also in residence at our house are two chihuahuas - Mostacho (for his mustache - he's 8 and kinda cranky for the most part) and Coco (the son of Mostacho and very sweet and playful).

Later in the evening we're joined by Amy from NYC, Arnelle from Atlanta, and Kristy from Melbourne.

Patti is fluent in Spanish so becomes our unofficial translator, and Ivania and some students begin to tell us about real life in Costa Rica.

Ivania owns a restaurant nearby called Chicago. When she bought it she considered changing the name to something more relevant to CR -- but since CR doesn't have house numbers and street addresses and mail is delivered based on references to the buildings around, changing the name would have impacted the deliveries of perhaps hundreds of people. So she left it. Needless to say, our dinner is delicious and plentiful.

Sunday in San Jose

Sunday dawned bright and sunny with high white clouds -- nothing like the last two days of grey overcast so close you could touch it.

Breakfast today had cantalopes and pineapple, which were not nearly as perfect as the mango and papaya from yesterday.

And the American accented-English of yesterday has been replaced with German.

Today I head to my sponsored accommodations for my week of training.

Muy tuanis 6: city market

Muy tuanis 5: Hippie haven

I was too grooved out to take lots of photos at the organic market.

Hand made pasta

Crystals

Muy Tuanis 4

Muy Tuanis 3

I’m immediately struck by the comparison to the Italian outdoor markets, where only the vendor is allowed to touch the produce before you buy it… You point, he picks…. Here Rodry and Catalina are all over the fruit, picking out the ones that they want.

Muy Tuanis 2: Neighborhood Market

Sadly I cannot remember everything I was told. There are dozens of varieties of mango. December - January is mango season. CR imports fruits from cooler climates (apples, etc.) as “Christmas fruit”.

I was able to try, fresh, things I’d only ever seen in cans or bottles in Compare… sugar cane juice, aloe. To the left of the server is a juice containing chunks of mango and papaya.

This fruit to the right is not as forbidding as it seems. You bite through the leathery hull and remove the top half. Inside you’ll find grape-like flesh surrounding a large pit. Yum.

Muy Tuanis 1

When I read the AirBNB reviews about Catalina and Rodry's Muy Tuanis tour, a very recent commenter said he'd gotten a private tour because it was rainy season. I immediately hoped "Magari! if only!"... and that's exactly what a got!

While the tour itself was fabulously enlightening and an adventure for the senses, the conversation was just as illuminating and interesting!

First, when Rodry was learning English he had a 6-month immersion experience working as a car washer in Greenville, SC. Bam what?! Yep. He became buddies with his boss, the owner of the dealership, who then took him to "a museum of the KKK", warning him "do not say a word while we're there". You can't make this up, folks!! He now owns a hamburger joint near the university, where he sells his patented ice cream + liquor.

Catalina is a champion river rafter architect, currently pregnant, who is building an AirBNB empire. Once a month she takes foreign female students on a week-long bus tour of CR, teaching about culture and entrepreneurship.

They are global travelers and plan to raise their baby, Marcus Aurelius, to be a citizen of the world.

We hit three "street markets". The first an outdoor market near their house where they do their personal shopping. We tasted fruits - many of which I'd never seen before -- and talked about typical CR cooking.

The second is an "organic market" (in quotes because it cannot be verified and there is no governmental testing to ensure it is truly organic) where the produce is triple the cost of the street market. This was a way cool place, filled with tat-covered hippies in rastas where retired Germans and Americans ran little booths selling North Atlantic salmon or hemp clothing or jewelry made from antique silverware. We sat in a light rain while Catalina had a mini-meal to feed the baby , I had coffee, and Rodry tried to corral their tough guy poodle who didn't want to be on his leash.

The last was in a building downtown where there were meat markets and tiny restaurants. We stopped for a bite, where I had red beans, rice and pico... delish. I bought some CR mountain coffee for my host family and we parted ways in the afternoon rain. It was a great day and I came home exhausted.

First CR Brekkie

The Autentico Hotel lays out a fabulous breakfast spread! It was my first experience with the typical breakfast dish of last night's rice and beans stir fried together. Yum! I also had eggs, plantains, and amazingly sweet and juicy fresh fruit. No cardboard watermelon in CR! Fresh squeezed juice... and CR coffee. I was hoping I'd lose my US-10-lbs in CR (as I did in Italy and Poland), but now I'm not so sure!

While at breakfast I overheard American accents talking about how they've lived in CR forever... hmmmmm. I’m gonna be exploring this later in my trip.

This morning I start my first adventure, taking an AirBNB CR street food cooking experience. More later.

Mmm Mmm Mmm!

The rain isn't stopping so I went to the onsite restaurant / bar for a very early dinner where I started with Costa Rican beer.. I wanted something typically Costa Rican and this was actually the cheapest dinner on the menu. Tilapia, rice, tortillas, plantains, salad, cheese and bread. Deelish! Couldn't finish it all.

And, since I'm in Costa Rica, I had a coffee. Jeesh! I had grown to love coffee in Italy and wow I'd say it's even better in Costa Rica... I mean, this is only my first cup in my first night here... so there's plenty of room and time for change in either direction... but if it gets better than this... speechless.

My server Juan Carlos brought me a complementary rice pudding for dessert.

And my bill was a whopping $17.

In Country

My driver wasn't waiting at the airport for me, holding the sign with my name on it as promised. And dang it all I was really looking forward to that guy with the sign.... And I'd already paid for the ride. So I called the hotel and they sent him right over, so no harm no foul.

His name was Arturo and he speaks more English than he thinks he does (as do most people!) so between my restaurant Spanish, my Italian, and his English we had a nice conversation on the ride to the hotel. He gave me lots of suggestions for food to have while here.

The afternoon rain started during our ride at about 3pm (Mountain Daylight Time) and while I got checked in and found my room a girl was swimming laps in the pool in courtyard around which the Autentico Hotel is built. The rain kept falling and she kept swimming back and forth and I actually had this crazy flash that she was the entertainment... The hotel suggesting that "hey, so what if this is the rainy season, you're in Costa Rica!". She eventually left -- I'll wait to see if she shows up tomorrow.

My hotel is great! The rooms are newly up-fitted. The wifi is strong. The linens are high thread count cotton. There are plenty of electrical outlets (which take American plugs). And there are two English channels (CNN) in the cable TV.

Yay Jet Blue

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this Jet Blue flight to San Jose was one of the best I've ever experienced. First -- wow, the seats! Wide and comfortable with actual legroom. Then, the flight was almost empty and most of us passengers had the entire row to ourselves. Fabulous!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Until I actually tried to check in at Jet Blue in Ft Lauderdale where the kiosk also declined my check in attempts.

I found the customer service desk and was lucky enough to be helped by a lovely woman from the Bahamas named Keyon, who went above and beyond in her attempts to help me. She spoke with the school reps about program and my documentation. She sent my documentation to some Jet Blue "General Manager" who attempted to contact the Costa Rican officials for verification.

All this time I'm standing at her window, talking about the critters I should watch out for while in Central America. ("Check in your shoes and in your sheets for the scorpions.") And letting my 2.5 hour window between my arrival in Ft Lauderdale and my departure to San Jose tick tick tick away.

Finally Jet Blue decided that they couldn't reach the proper authorities to override the visa requirement and therefore I would have to change my return flight to <90 days out, or just fuggetaboutit...

The school offered to reimburse me if I chose to take a BUS from Ft Lauderdale to Nicaragua but I couldn't even envision myself sitting on a bus for that length of time and distance, nevermind the environs I'd be riding through all alone... And like, doesn't Nicaragua have some maximum amount of days check at their borders.... Not really sure what this would have done for me.... and besides here I was just trying to do something nice, give back for all the abundance I've received, and these are the hurtles I have to jump? Yeah, no.

So I agreed to change my return date, and Keyon then spent another 30 minutes on the phone and keyboard trying to get this modification done (tick tick tick), because since this is a volunteer gig which I financed myself I had bought the absolute cheapest flights -- which turned out to be non-refundable. So (only!) $35 later I finally left my 20lbs overweight bag with Keyon and hustled through the airport, terrified that the line at TSA was going to make me so late that the only way I'd make it to my plane would be to run through FLL like OJ (too soon?), leaping over shriveled old ladies in hot pink skinny pants and CFMs.

But wow, TSA-PreCheck actually worked its magic for me for the first time since 2016 and I made it to my gate with time to pee and grab a pre-made sammy for the flight. Whew.

And you know what? My ambivalence about this trip must really be pervasive because I didn't get upset or freak out over these glitches. I didn't feel this enormous weight of commitment on my shoulders screaming in my ear that I'm a totally worthless POS if I can't make this work (like I would have if it had been my flight to Milan). I just thought "Meh, I ain't taking a bus, I'll just get a hotel in Ft Lauderdale and hang on the beach for a week or so while I come up with Plan B. I choose not to get stressed."

And then I found $10 on the floor in the airport. So bonus. (Unless it's infected with some bio-hazard -- but that's another Netflix drama...)

1 night

Thursday was my day to run last minute errands, repack, and complete online check-in to the airlines.

When attempting to checking online for the Ft Lauderdale to San Jose leg of the flight, I was blocked because I didn't have a visa. Restated, because my return date was more than 90 days out, Jet Blue blocked me from checking in without a visa. So all in a lather I WhatsApped my school, and I learned that this happens frequently. It's no problem once you get to the airport with your document from the Jefe Programa Nacional de Empleo, Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (Chief of the National Employment Program at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security).

I'd been given the document with an electronic signature stating en espangnol that I am coming to Costa Rica as a volunteer to teach English as part of a government program, and therefore I would be issued a special volunteer visa after I started work on Monday... I was assured on several occasions that this was not a problem.

So I heaved a sigh and forgot about it.

5 nights

As part of this volunteer gig I'm not being paid, but I am receiving room, board, transportation and laundry. And I'm being boarded with a host family, which will be a cultural adventure in and of itself. Lukewarm water in the bathroom... Rice and beans for breakfast... But more on that at a later date.

As part of the comprehensive preparation Skills 4 Life is giving me, they sent me a packing list -- like I got when I went away to camp. Underwear, bathing suits, raincoat, shoes... I was told to bring a nice dress, because I might be meeting the President of Costa Rica. And I was cautioned not to wear tube tops or ripped jeans in the classroom. As if. Not even sure if a tube top would stay up anymore!!! It might end up as a cumerbund.

I'll spend the first week in a training session, and at least one of the others I'll meet there is retired. Not sure if they will assigned be in Limon or some other location.

While I'm still really sad that I can't be in Milan now, I know this assignment will be good on my resume and will, more importantly, open my eyes to new cultures and new experiences. So, chin up, stiff upper lip old bean. And counting down to liftoff.

Time is wasting time is walking

Costa Rica is basically Mountain Daylight time, 2 zones behind Eastern Daylight time. But Costa Rica doesn't make the Daylight to Standard time change, so that after (most of the) US switches to Standard time on November 3 CR will only be 1 hour behind East Coast.

Last year we had a series of posts watching sunset time in Poland. We can do that again for Costa Rica, but it's gonna get pretty boring because there won't be much variance. The reason, latitude. Latitude is a measurement that locates a point on a planet in relation to its distance from the equator. Higher latitudes are closer to the poles, while 0 latitude is the equator itself.

At the equator, there are 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness - the day is split in half. Because the distance from the sun never changes.

Poland is basically latitude 50-55. So, in the winter Poland is tilted away from the sun and the rays of the sun reach it for much fewer hours -- while in the summer Poland is pointed toward the sun and gets many more hours of sun. Same as in Charlotte (to a lesser extent). Same as in Boston, Chicago, Toronto.

Costa Rica is latitude 9-10, and greater than the equator at 0, there's not gonna be much change in the distance from the sun, not much change in the degrees of tilt away, not much change in the hours of sunlight. We'll watch this over the next four months.

Rainy and Hot

Costa Rica apparently has two seasons -- Rainy and Hot.

While the places I'll be in Costa Rica are only 600-700 miles from the equator, the current weather in those locales don't scream tropical paradise, but that's because it's currently Rainy season. I'm told that "rainy" doesn't mean constant monsoon-style rain... but actually means there's a fairly constant overcast and a deluge once a day.

This "rainy" season is so extreme that I've been told to bring Wellies as footwear.

The rainy season should temper off in December, and then I'm expecting 85F daily average for the remainder of my stay. I'm expecting tons of beachtime, and I'll keep you posted on that.

Speaking of beachtime — all documentation warns that the sun’s rays are waaaaay more intense than we’re used to in the US, so I’m told to bring industrial strength sunscreen.

Enjoy the winter, suckers!

Costa Rica - Retirement Haven

Costa Rica has long been touted as a great place to retire, and it actually has an active ex-pat (and American) community.

Those who know me know that I would prefer to head to Europe to retire, my #1 choice is Italy, because of the history, culture, food, and wine... But Costa Rica rates high on all the lists you find online, and I'm definitely open to be convinced to change my mind.

What we see here is that, of my top picks in Europe, Italy ranks lowest. And of my top picks of the Americas, Costa Rica is a high second. We’ll be exploring the reasons why over the next few months.

Big Winter Adventure

One week from today I fly to Costa Rica to begin my Big Winter Adventure!

I'm headed there to teach English as part of a joint effort by Aliarse and Skills 4 Life.

ALIARSE (Foundation for Sustainability and Equality) is an initiative promoted by public institutions and private companies which have joined forces to contribute to national development, social justice, and sustainability. Since its creation in 2006, ALIARSE became a catalytic agent for public and private interaction in the search for the common good.

The Skills for Life program has a goal of training English to 1000 students in 2019, 600 of which are in the port city of Limón.

After a one week training session in the capital city of San Jose, I'll be settled with a host family Limon, and then I'll be teaching local adults until the end of February.

While in Costa Rica I'll also have time to hang on the beach, travel, and appraise Costa Rica as a retirement locale.

Hurricane

My students - adults and teens - told me this story... of Polish fighter pilots of the RAF's 303 Squadron, escaping from Nazi-invaded Poland and fighting in the Battle of Britain. The 2018 movie is available on Netflix.