Orchestra and Sit and Spin

Last Sunday morning Roberta and I went to the Teatro Nacional and saw the Costa Rican Orchestra. There were 100 choir singers on stage behind the orchestra and the sound was awesome. There was a lady sitting around us who was wearing some perfume that smelled like a a fishing tackle box that I had when I was a kid. I have fond memories of that tackle box.

Then after the orchestra we went to this Cultural Craft Fair at the old booze factory which is now the Cultural Center downtown. To get there we walked through the park that we are going to be playing music at next month. Nothing too interesting at the cultural craft fair but I got a great picture of some kids playing on something that was either a toy or an old industrial component.

Check out the pictures for more:

Click here for pictures

How many ways to say rain?

I thought I knew rain. You know living in Oregon my whole life. Nope, you don't know rain until you've lived in the tropics. Today around noon it started pouring down, really pouring down with big huge drops accompanied by thunder and lightning. Rain here is like a little baby: sometimes nice, clean and refreshing but other times screaming bloody mary trying to put out the fires of hell. Rain here is both a noun and verbo with more palabras (words) to describe it. Here's a few that I found:

lluvia - rain
pelo de gato - (cat's fur) a soft drizzle
garau - drizzle or sprinkle
aquacero - downpour
temporal - a storm that can last for days
granizado - hail
llueve a cantaros - raining buckets

Just naming a few. But luckily here it is warm when it's raining so you don't need to worry about hypothermia if you get wet. As I was walking home from school in 'llueve a cantaros' my legs from my hips down were soaking wet. This while using an umbrella for a 15 minute walk. Increible.

Luckily the mornings are the best. I do yoga on the roof, after shooing away the noisy parrots. Parrots here are like loud noisy seagulls.

Adios Roberta

Evening adventure.

We went to see Star Wars III last night. After about 10 minutes into the movie the it stopped. After about a 5 minute wait they got it running again. The after about another 10 minutes it died for good. Then after about another 20 minutes they decided to move everyone from this huge theater into this tiny theater. At that point Roberta and I were like, lets go home and get some dinner.

On the way home we saw some people spinning fire at a stop light on a hugely busy intersection. We rushed home to get the camera and come to find out that the power is out in our neighborhood. We parked the truck out front of the apartment and Roberta ran up to get the camera. I was looking at this park ahead and kept seeing these bright flashes of light coming from within. It looked like someone running around striking a lighter. Then I realized that it was fireflies. Instead of glowing all the time they would flash for a split second. There were a ton of them out there. Too bad I don’t do mushrooms because with a lawn chair and a bottle of water that would be hours of entertainment.

We went and got some pictures of the fire spinners and then decided to go out for dinner since we don’t have power at our house and can’t get the car in the garage since the gate is electric. We went to this Mexican restaurant that still had power and there was the loudest mariachi band playing there that I have ever heard. I think that gets the point of our evening across fairly well.

Here are some pictures of the Fire Spinners. If you look at the top of the picture you will see the stop light. They are in the middle of traffic doing this:

Click for fire

Rockin'

Last night I went up and played music with Mauricio (Claire's Boyfriend) up at their house and had a great time. Leo (Claire's Son) records samples into the computer and makes songs. Then Mauricio on guitar and me on bass were playing over the top of it. It actually works.

We are going to start practicing 3 times per week because we have a show in a park during a French Music festival in about a month. Supposedly we might have a drummer, timbales, congas, trumpet, and maybe keyboards. Sounds like it will be 45 minutes of enjoyable chaos. Hopefully we will get the show recorded and I will post it up here.

The most enjoyable part of the evening was playing traditional Latin songs. Mauricio is very good at playing and singing those types of songs.

Some notes on Catholocism

A few observations.

I was riding a bus to Escazu and two nuns got on and the driver just waived them on. They didn't have to pay their .35 cents. It was funny because that same day I was thinking about how fun it would be to walk around in a nun outfit. See how people treated you and stuff. Now it turns out I have a financial incentive. Free bus fare!! I'm not sure it's worth how hot they look, so many layers. There are a lot of nuns here out in public unlike the states.

Second Observation. Now that I have a TV I watch it. I can't help it. I turn on the TV and say to myself I'm going to watch some spanish novellas (soap operas with good slang) and study spanish. Well I always end up changing it to some dumb English speaking station and watch it. Adam is getting really irritated with me, he hates TV more than big hairy spiders. But the obervation I am offfering is that every time I turn on the dam thing the default station is the Latin Catholic station. So I always end up watching some nun blab on in Spanish for a while. It's really funny in Spanish , it's even funnier when it's English that has been dubbed over in Spanish. Why is the default station spanish? I guess catholocism really is the nation's religion.

Here's my third observation, it's a link to a website with a lot of good content. This guy is an expat from the states in Costa Rica.

Ten derelictions of the late pope

Up up up up... To Volcan Irazu.

We decided to take a small road trip with our slgihtly legal auto. We decided on Volcan Irazu which is about an hour away from our house at 12,000' on the top of a mountain. It is a really amazing drive up this winding road with an incredible view the whole way. Pictures to prove it:

Pictures of the trip

On the way back down we stopped at a farmers market to get some produce. Talk about cheap. There was this guy who was BBQing some chicken on coals that were in a hub cap. There was a line so it must have been some good hub cap chicken. Roberta had just got over some stomach problems so she didn't want to eat it.

Adam

Bribery in Costa Rica

This is Roberta telling you her little exciting story about bribery and not passing a smog check. Adam, fortunately had to work, and did not accompany me.

I've been reading in Tico Times that the government has been trying to crack down on bribery, but luckily that hasn't happened in our case.

So in our previous blogs you may have read that we have successfully purchased a legal vehicle in Costa Rica. All is fun and games until you don't have that last little sticker. Well in Costa Rica there is an equivalent DEQ smog check, which the truck past last December, but never obtained the sticker for some mysterious reason. Here is the crazy scenerio of Thursday afertoon. You have to remember that this is in a foreign country and I don't know spanish that well, the whole time in my head I'm thinking "Midnight Express". Here's how it goes:

- Get picked up by the owner to go get the infamous sticker in Limon, about an hour and a half away. Realize that the sticker was expired.
- Stop by this junkyard where some guy owes somebody some money. Waiting in the car, kind of creepy...
- Head over to Escazu, an hour an a half away, where somebody knows somebody who can get us into the smog check that day because it takes a week to get an appointment at this place.
- Head over to the mechanic who will fix some things to get it to pass.
- Go over to this other guys house, pay him off to get us an 'in'. Paying off, is a quick 10,000 colones (~$20) in a shady like handshake. But, we have to take his cousin.
-So we drive another hour to get the cousin, who also happens to bring another sidekick who just wants to tag along for the ride.
-So there are four people in the car to go get this sticker. At this point I'm drinking Smirnoffs in the back seat with the sidekick.
-We get in, but somehow there is a hole in the muffler and we don't pass. Complete bummer. I guess you can't bribe your entire way here, by that time I was ready to pay. The mechanic friend is going to get this worked out on Monday, because Orlando the guy who was suppose to work this out is heading to Florida for the week.

We'll See...

Discos, cars, lawyers!

This is Roberta bringing in her experiences of the previous weekend.

Well lots have been happening. Last weekend I went to a multi-level disco that was pretty cool. I can go to a club like that maybe once a year. Last year it was a club n Las Vegas. So I went to this club because Clair's son Leon was the opening dj for Anthony Pappas, who is apparently so famous he doesn't even have a website. Ok I guess it was pretty good house music as house music goes, but I don't think I digested enough drugs (any at all, alcohol doesn't count) to enjoy it that much. But luckily since I 'knew' the opening dj they let me back stage were I hung out with all of the cool people. But since I didn't know spanish and the music was blaring through my earplugs I couldn't hear anything anyways. We didn't even show up to the club until midnight and they main performer didn't start until 2:30 am. I guess since they don't have laws telling them when to stop serving that can start and end at any time. Here's the link to the clug website: http://www.vertigocr.com/ But the best part about this club is that everybody is really nice and happy. I accidently bumped into this girl who had a drink, I said I was sorry in broken spanish and she just smiled back, no attitude complete niceness. People give you space to move about and there is none of the ego attitude that you get in american bars and pubs. The girls are not mean and snotty and the guys are gentlemen. Ok that's CR's only club scene, really it is the only disco in the country.

So Adam and I just bought a car. Here's the story: our friend Clair says she knows Pinky who knows a guy who imports cars from the states. I'm thinking in my head, Pinky? This sounds really shady?? But you have to remember in Latin American countries nicknames from childhood sometimes lasts a lifetime. I met a guy in Puerto Rico whose name was Coco because his head as a baby looked like a coconut, his sister didn't know his real name. OK back to Pinky.

Pinky takes a day or two, calls back and says he has something. Adam goes and looks at it cause I'm in spanish class up the street. I get back and the car and price has Adam's OK so we run around town trying to figure out how to wire money into Costa Rica without paying too much. We get that figured out but Adam has to work so I have to go to the lawyer (abogado) and put the truck in my name. !!Yikes!

I'm running around with two guys I just met carrying hundreds of dollars (just the money necessary for the lawyer and paper work signing) going to see a lawyer that was suggested by the seller. Guidebooks say this is not a good idea, we should obtain lawyers seperately. But I say to myself, this guy knows Pinky and Pinky knows Clair, what could go wrong....?

So I'm sitting in this lawyer's office, pretty fancy shmancy lawyers office that looks like a complete dump from the outside. I was really nervous going in. I know nothing about the process of buying cars, this was supposed to be Adam's responsibility. Well nothing went wrong, we got the money transferred, the lawyer paid off, some legal looking stickers in the window and a cherry red four door 91' Izuzu Rodeo for around $4,000 which was about half the price cars are going for in lots.

We got a good deal (for Costa Rica), a solid car and made some new friends. There's still some more stickers and documents to obtain but the keys and the car are in our hands. We were a little worried about getting ripped off but luckily we knew Pinky who knew Clair. It's a small world down here. The seller of the car also drove us around to four differenet mechanics trying to get us a seat belt replacement. He's still going to get one for us, which is better because all of the mechanics will charge us gringo prices but he will get a better deal cause he's Tico.

Spanish Classes, Whoohoo!
They told me to just show up on Monday and they will get me into a group. Well the groups are so small there wasn't one for my level so I have a personal spanish class for four hours a day. It is completely intense. You cannot daze out the window when you are the only student. Cripes the lesson is formed around the points were I have difficulty, which is hard. I'm use to excelling at classes, not having my difficulties pointed out. Oh well I'll get better at this sooner than later at this pace.

Funny things we saw today:
Crazy man dancing in the middle of traffic, slapping his butt and having a good old time in the middle of crazy Costa Rican traffic. I gave him 100 colones (.25 cents) because I couldn't stop laughing. I never give money out the window (cause it's dangerous). Usually people try to sell you something or look pathetic. This guy was dancing hillariously for money. Gotta give props where props are due.

Some guy dressed in a really good Zoro outfit trying to advertise for the bookstore. It was funny because I don't understand the connection between Zoro and the bookstore, and the outfit was really good.

Here a couple crappy pictures of the truck:

Link to picures of truck

And the hunt is on.

We have been searching for a car for the past week and it is a royal pain in the ass. We drove around all weekend and hunted for a car. It was good to get out and see the terain that we will have to be driving over. The Pan American highway is really nice. Everything else is pretty damn intense. We decided that we have to have a small SUV. It doesn't need to be 4x4 it just needs to be high off the ground.

Enjoy these pictures from our weekend trip.

Link to pictures

Screaming like school girls

That is what Roberta and I were doing last night. I came down the stairs to the kitchen to get some fresh squezzed OJ and Roberta wasn't too far behind me. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she lets out this high pitched yelp. I look over and there is this huge cockroach flipped over on its back. I guess Roberta almost stepped on it. We opened the door and swept it outside. Disaster averted.

Then we sit down on the couch and start to study some Spanish/English flashcards. After a couple minutes of this it was my turn to scream like a school girl. I looked over and saw what I would consider a tarantula walking along the floor next to us. The thing was probably 4 or 5 inches across and moving fairly fast. We jumped up and got our wits about us and armed ourselves with a couple brooms.

I poked at it with my broom and it started literally jumping around which made both me and Roberta again scream like school girls. I can't imagine much worse than a large fast moving spider that has the capability to jump. We moved all the furniture away from its path to the door and started to nudge it out. Finally Roberta got her chance and swept it outside. Whew, disaster averted.

This all happened because we left the downstairs patio door open at night cuz Vida likes to go outside. We learned our lesson.

What do the guidebooks know anyway.

Last night we went out to the red light district and did some gambling. All of the guide books say in particular “Don’t wander around the red light district at night.” While walking around down there I had my leatherman in my hand and was fumbling with it so that people could see something metal and shiny. If someone attacked us I would have to ask them kindly to hold on while I open one of the blades into its full locked position. Hey, we made it. I didn’t feel any less safe than being on Burnside at night.

Prostitution is legal here so there was a nice mix of hookers and gambling. Roberta and I only partook in the gambling. We went into this nasty casino called the Horseshoe and hit the slots. We started off with $10 and walked out with about $24. That paid for our cab and dinner. Amazingly the drinks they served in there were really strong. At 9:00pm on a Wednesday the central square by the Grand Hotel Costa Rica was about as packed as Pioneer square during the day but by 9:30 it was dead as a ghost town.

Roberta and I are starting Spanish language classes next week. I am taking one on one lessons at the house and Roberta is taking classes over at the college. Hopefully this will help break down the language barrier. It is actually surprising how few people speak English in and around our neighborhood. That was exactly what we were looking for.

We had a really nice time last Sunday out with some friends from here. They are old time Costa Ricans and own a fair portion of the Costa Rican coffee production. They are potentially the nicest people I have ever met. They had about 12 people over and most people spoke at least 3 languages. People were mixing French and Spanish and English. It was fun to listen to but sometimes hard to understand. At one point I thought that everyone was talking about pasta but it turned out they were talking about the grass in the yard.

Here are some pictures from Sunday and some action photos of the cat:

Click link for pictures

And I present to you..... Pictures.

Here are some pictures of our apartment and various other attractions in our neighborhood. Enjoy.

Link to pictures

Ay de mi.

Two full days down in Costa Rica now. Things are a little different here.

I have never been so scared in my life. Yesteday Roberta and I decided to get a rental car so that we could see the city on our terms and find a place to live. Driving in Costa Rica is like riding a rollercoaster, except that you have a steering wheel and there are busses that will push you out of the way to get where they are going. None of the roads are marked so you are just kind of driving by feel. There typically aren't lines on the road so that means if there is room then go for it. Honking just means that the light is about to turn green.

I am finding it hard to describe driving in Costa Rica because it is so overwhelming. There are motorcycles going full speed between the "lanes" of traffic. Busses stopped in the middle of the road for no reason. Pedestrians playing a nice game of frogger. Nonexistent street signs that were supposed to indicate one way streets. Semi trucks driving towards you in your lane because there was room.

Today we used a map and found our way to an apartment that we were interested in. We drove during the middle of the day and it wasn't that bad. We found the apartment that we want to live in. It is three stories with the third story being a patio on the roof with a small city view and a nice view of the mountains. It is in a nice neighborhood called San Pedro located near the college in a quiet area. The apartment is about five blocks from Claire's cafe and surrounded by many nice restaurants and a large mall. Hopefully we can close the deal tomorrow and move in within the next couple of days.

All in all I love the challenge of living here. It is like relearning how to live. Roberta is kicking butt at speaking spanish. She talks on the phone with people who speak no english and she gets her point across. I am still limited to ordering food and telling people thank you. I did ask the room service lady for another towel and wash cloth though. I was proud of myself.

Wish us luck.

Hola Amigo/as! Que Tal?

The title means Hello friends, what's happening? I'm sure you all know that but for the linquistically challenged I thought I would provide a translation.

Let me tell you a little bit about the Gin and Tonics here. They use so much fresh lemon juice that you think you are drinking a lemonade. MMmmm good...

Ok back to business, finding a place to live. So I spent a good couple of days walking around looking at neighborhoods. On the west end of town I only spent a half a day, but that was enough to know I don't want to live en El Suburbio de los Americanos. For those linquistically challenged that means the west side is for the gringos (kind of like Portland).

Clair, the lady who has been so kindly driving me around (when I'm not walking) took me over to her friend's house who is an architect. She's having a new addition built onto her mother's house. She's going to make it all out of bambo and mud. Needless to say the architect was really excited to do something interesting like this. I guess there was some big earthquake in Central America and the only building left standing was the ones made of bamboo and mud. I think Clair's doing it for the novelty, there isn't one straight line in the plans, all the walls are curvy. But that's OK, Clair doesn't have an art collection but her mother does. I spent an hour or so talking to her mother about Central American art.

Evette, Clair's mother said, in the end she can discern art types and the people who made them and where they came from. She said those geographic lines closely follow the political boundaries that currently exist. She is going to take me to two of her favorite museums and play tour guide for me. She doesn't collect artifacts anymore because she is opposed to collecting art and disturbing ancient places, which I totally agree with. She showed me the two she had and now I'm going to be on the look-out for fakes to add to my collection. Should be a lot cheaper! I'll post another blog to let you in on what Evette shows me at the museums.

But, back to business - apartamentos y casas. I think I've seen over 25 places. The thing that is hard here is that nobody posts 'for rent' (se aquilar) in the newspapers here. They just post a sign outside, you happen by it, and than you just have to call them. Except if you don't have a cell phone or a car you just take down notes and directions to the place. BUT there are no addresses to get directions too. There are no street signs and there aren't any numbers on the houses or buildings.

For instance the address to my aparthotel is 200 meters south of McDonalds in Sabana. Luckily there aren't that many McDonalds here and the one referenced isn't even open. But, regardless of how not-helpful these addresses are to foreigners its really easy to get around. All you do is flag down a taxi, of which there are tons, and tell them 'Quiero ir a La Iglesia Santa Theresita' or some other major known landmark close to where you are going, and then just point to exactly where you want to go. This will cost about as much as a bus fair across two zones in Portland about equal distance as well.

That is the church of St. Theresa. For those of you who know a little bit of Spanish will notice the 'ita' at the end of the word. The Ticos (Costa Ricans) throw this in for everything. For instance Vida the cat would be Vidaita or Vidatica. This really throws your Spanish off if you are beginning. I'm a little better than a beginner and it still throws me off.

I've been hanging out in Cafe Expressivo, mentioned in an earlier blog. Well there is a guy here that is a 'witch doctor'. I said, great maybe he can cure my lingering poison oak, yes lingering poison oak from about a month ago. He thought I was crazy when I started pointing at all these red blotches on my leg. He's not a 'witch doctor' but he does read tarrot cards. So he read my cards. It was really interesting. It pretty much came down to I'm a strong person, I have adventures, I will encounter challenges, I will get through them with somebody close, there will be dancing in the end, and I will be a better person. This is all in broken English/Spanish too. Also interesting, most of my cards had knives or swords in them. I thought that was pretty cool. I'm going to pay for the reading by burning him a bunch of music.

Well kids, you'd think I had nothing better to do, and really I don't. But nevertheless I must say chaio, because everybody else here says chaio and that is just so European cool.

Chaio y 'sta luego

It's me Roberta in Costa Rica

So I'm hacking into Adam's blog to let you know what's up with me. Well first off, American's are the most anal-retentive people. While trying to get to Costa Rica, both airlines that I was travelling with were adament that I needed some additional documentation for the cat to enter. After some heated arguements they let me go through with the USDA approval form, the only form I needed. They were threatening Vida with six months in quarantine. Having taken a dog through quarantine in Hawaii, there is no way a land connected country like CR would be more restrictive than las islas de Hawaii, plus I'd done my research and knew otherwise. When I actually got to Costa Rica the officials didn't even take Vida out of the box, they just stamped the forms and said welcome to Costa Rica.

So I took me and by now stinky Vida to the aparthotel El Sesteo (www.sesteo.com). Here is the vision: me with two bags that each weigh about 100 pounds stacked with my oversized carryons with Vida's stinky box perched on top held in place by the one hand I wasn't using to push the heavy cart. I arrived at 8:00am in the morning and they were very kind and cleaned out a room within thirty minutes. Yes that was an overnight trip, and for the last four days I was frantically packing, cleaning and taking care of business while Adam is living it up with room service in Houston and New Orleans.

Anyway I slept for a day (literally about 16 hours) and than spent a lovely day with Evette and Clair, a mother daughter pair with a big mansion like estate up in the country. I guess they are coffee plantation owners, but I didn't see any coffee trees. They are goat friends of Adam's. We had lunch at their pad which was really high in the mountains about 30 minutes from downtown San Jose. There was also another guest Maurice who was on political assylum from Columbia. I guess the war 'goings-on' where very intense and all his friends and family are dead. He used to be a communications professor but now he helps Clair with their restaurant 'Exressivo'. A cool little restaurant with tons of local art which could have a happy home on Alberta St. as well.

I'm completely out of my home territory, hanging out with somebody with a terrible experience but am able to find commonalities, I'm going to learn a lot here. They were very interested in me and what I do (planning, mapping, etc) hopefully I have something to offer.

We checked out a bunch of apartments on our way back to my aparthotel. I don't think we will have any trouble finding a nice place to stay.

Well that's it, I'm going to spend the next day exploring a couple of new neighborhoods and than hook up with some other local friends that Adam's family know in San Jose. My spanish is improving by the minute, I'm starting to think in Spanish. It's helpful having people who are patient and will speak amazingly slow when asked, very nice people.

New Orleans, Wow.

Made it here today and went for a walk around the French Quarter. This place is pretty damn cool. Lots of really old buildings all with balconies over looking the streets. Tons of cool little shops that sell all sorts of strange crap. It really reminded me a lot of the Country Fair in Oregon but more frat boyish and less hippie. Today was the French Quarter festival which didn't seem all that fratboyish. I loved how you could walk up to a storefront and get a beer in a plastic cup and cruise around and check stuff out. There were bands playing in the streets and such. Bet this place gets crazy at night. We will see.

Flat flat flat.

Just rolled in to New Orleans. The town has a great vibe to start off with. Lots of old historic character preserved. On the drive here I saw my first armadillo road kill. Looks like it would suck to hit one of those buggers. Then I also saw the aftermath of a cattle truck that rolled. They had this hug pile of dead cows and they were digging a hole with a backhoe right next to the highway. Odd to say the least.

Also just got word from Roberta that she made it into Costa Rica. She didn't give me any details but it sounds like it went less than ideal. I was worried about what would happen traveling with Vida. Hopefully Roberta and I can chat tonight about the details.

Well, I am off to the Cafe Du'Mont and Bourbon Street. Wish me luck.

First full week down

You remember in my last post I said that I was eating like a king? Now I know why kings are so fat. I make the relation to a method of quiting smoking. Everyone has heard that a great way to quit smoking is to smoke a couple packs as fast as you can and you will hate it forever. I am beginning to feel the same way about eating. If I can eat enough for these two weeks I will never want to eat again. That will be my diet.

Anyhow, I am driving to New Orleans for the weekend. Never been there so it should be an experience. Everyone is telling me to go to Cafe Dumont. They say something about little cups of coffee and twigs. Hmm.... Sounds interesting. The sad part is that I forgot my camera at home. I will just need to create pictures with words in my blog.

Well I am off to eat a 60 ounce steak dinner and I need to get ready for the gravy pipe. Need to do some Yoga first to stretch out my stomach. Wish me luck.

First full day down

Yesterday was my first full day in Houston working. I am getting my laptop up to speed and having meetings with the people who I will be working with. Seems like a nice group to start with. The NetIQ office here is much nicer than the Portland office. It is well decorated and has all the snacks and drinks that you can consume.

My hotel room is huge here. King size bed, walk in tile shower, living room, etc. All meals are paid for so I have been eating like a king.

Off to go set up a PO box so we can forward our mail.

Post-party reality check.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that we were moving to Costa Rica until we had our Going Away party. It is funny how I still haven't completely come to the realization that we are moving to there yet. In two weeks I hope to be more grounded in the world of reality.

The party was awesome. Nobody broke anything or puked on our moving boxes. The group of people who showed up were the best of the best. I am starting to realize that a good party should start at 8:00 in the morning and go until 2:00 the following moring so that everyone has a chance to fully mingle. I always feel like I only have time for a few words with each person. As usual I forgot to get drunk.