Oct 11, 2006 | Books, Culture Shock, Mail and Shipping, Travel Tips
There’s a lovely, powerful saying by which I live. It goes: "The more you complain, the longer God lets you live."* Poetic, isn’t it? And productive. My complaints about not being able to get my books cheaply to Costa Rica produced many helpful...
Oct 6, 2006 | Culture Shock, Driving, Manuel Antonio, Travel Tips
The first time Jal and I came to Costa Rica, the December ’05 exploratory trip (all of five days) to determine if Costa Rica was The Exotic Place To Spend A Year, we did a 24-hour speed tour of Manuel Antonio. I had heard there were monkeys here and I was going...
Oct 3, 2006 | Company, Culture Shock, Expat
Last night we had our first get-together at the casita here on the finca. Tiny house, big fun! In Key West, we loved having friends to dinner. Just didn’t do it often enough. For the Costa Rica Inaugural Fiesta, we had two families: the Bortmans and the...
Sep 30, 2006 | Criticia Voluptua Right-Right, Culture Shock, Time, Weather
Costa Rica time is GMT -6, what the U.S. calls Central Time without Daylight Savings. So summers we are two hours behind Key West and winters we are only one. Très confusing… Daylight Savings with a twist! On the simple side, Costa Rica is so close to the...
Sep 30, 2006 | Culture Shock, Driving, Renting A Car, Travel Tips
When you make your plane reservations, try to time your arrival so you have plenty of daylight left, particularly if you are renting a car and driving off somewhere your first day. You want to do your driving the first few times (months?) before dark, no later than...
Sep 29, 2006 | Culture Shock, Driving, Renting A Car, Travel Tips
If you are the adventurous type and will be driving yourself around Costa Rica in a rental car, bring a compass (we have the Brunton) and a GPS. Garmin is state of the art. We have a Lowrance Avionics GPS, big screen and expensive. Jal was taking flying lessons before...
Sep 26, 2006 | Amistad Institute, Communications, Culture Shock, Expat, Spanish
In the great landscape of Things To Know When Moving to Costa Rica, you start with Thing 1 and Thing 2. I have heard people say you do not need to learn Spanish to live in Costa Rica. They must be selling real estate. You absolutely DO if you are going to thrive here....
Sep 25, 2006 | Cost of Living, Culture Shock, Real Estate, Recovering REALTOR®
Moving to Costa Rica? I just did and, gosh, I already have a couple of opinions. Surprise, surprise. There is tons to consider, of course, but in the great scheme of Things To Know When Moving to Costa Rica, the two most important are Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 1...
