I am sitting on the roof of our new house on a tiny little square of concrete accessible via a steep set of stairs which up until a few moments ago was safety locked with a gate.
I’ve climbed up here because it is the only place I feel safe from the cockroaches.
My escape to the roof came just [...]
Archive for August, 2008
La Cucaracha
Posted in Costa Rica, critters, housing, tagged ants, cockroaches, santo domingo, spiders on August 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Cleaning up after the maid
Posted in Uncategorized on August 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
When I was a kid I had a maid.
Every week she would enter my room, ground zero, carefully stepping along the path from the door to the bed, searching for life under the pile of rubble that often included soiled dishes and green food.
The maid doubled as my nanny and she loved me despite my messy ways, [...]
Caribbean treasures
Posted in Costa Rica, Self discovery, tagged Costa Rica, paradise, monkeys, Tortuguero, La Casona, Rocky Mountains, Green turtle, Caribbean on August 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
After a crazy first three weeks trying to settle into our new life in Costa Rica we took a much-needed vacation to the beach.
The oft-used term pura vida, pure life, surely applies to Tortuguero, a hidden gem on the Caribbean coast that’s only reachable by boat and features the richest forest in Central and South America, [...]
Disconnecting
Posted in Uncategorized on August 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Gone on vacation . . . check back in a few days.
Meantime, some photos from our week.
A bad day in paradise
Posted in Costa Rica, Self discovery, tagged bakery, china, coffee plantation, cranky, farmer's market, garlic, headache, san rafael, sewage, starbucks, tica on August 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This is what it looks like:
Wake up with a headache and cranky after a night of bad dreams. Out of coffee. No Starbucks or even a poor equivalent despite having a coffee plantation for a backyard.
After years of being married to a Catholic, decide for the first time ever to attend a Sunday mass only [...]
A millionaire’s mistake
Posted in Costa Rica, Self discovery, tagged Calgary, Costa Rica economy, Escazu, expats, foreigners, humble pie, millionaire, Multiplaza, panhandlers, san rafael, Tico Times on August 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The moment the words tumbled from my mouth I wished to take them back, collect them like scattered coins spilled from an emptied pocket.
It happened during a meeting at the bank, where I was opening a Costa Rican account and making my first deposit.
“I’m a millionaire here,” I stupidly joked.
Friends and colleagues have often remarked [...]
Cooking up a new hobby
Posted in Costa Rica, Self discovery, tagged brown eggs, central valley, cilantro, Costa Rica, farmer's market, green beans on August 12, 2008 | 2 Comments »
If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, it’s a miracle that I ended up with a fantastic husband.
In the past decade we’ve been together he’s never complained about the meals I’ve cooked — a rotating schedule of staples such as spaghetti and meat sauce, plain grilled chicken and french fries with the odd steamed vegetable [...]
Children are the best teachers
Posted in kids on August 9, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Some days my children make me cry. Some days they make me laugh.
But most days they make me wonder how I ever lived without them.
These two little people have been dragged around for the last five days in a foreign country, looking at houses in areas far flung, being spoken to in Spanish and manhandled [...]
A leap of faith
Posted in housing, tagged Costa Rica, Escazu, Multiplaza, san rafael on August 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
After three days of searching and much time spent in cabs criss-crossing the central valley we found a place to settle for the next year, or as long as we like it. In Costa Rica it seems people do the midnight move if they don’t like their accommodations despite signing the requisite one-year lease.
But like [...]
