Jul 9, 2006 | Schools, Spanish, Teenagers
Finding good schooling for our two teenagers has been a trip. We’ve only lived in Costa Rica for 6 months so are not experts on this topic by any means. But we get asked a lot about schooling so here’s our experience for what it’s worth. First,...
Jun 9, 2006 | Amistad Institute, Cultural Events, Festivals & Holidays, Spanish
Since the day we arrived, we’ve heard about the Copa Mundial (imagine the red-headed announcer from Dave Letterman saying in his booming-est voice "The KO! PA! Muuuuuuuun-Deee-ALLLLLLL! That’s how it sounds on the radio.)The Copa Mundial is the World...
Jun 4, 2006 | Communications, Culture Shock, Farmer's Market, MORGAN, RYAN, Spanish, Teenagers
Wherever we go, everyone assumes the boys are ticos. And wondering why these great looking tico kids are dragging around those dumb old pasty-faced gringos… Pretty amusing. It gets really hysterical when the local doing the assuming speaks rapid-fire Spanish to...
May 4, 2006 | Amistad Institute, Culture Shock, Spanish
We are losing Esther. Life happened – all good life, just unexpected. Crazy. La vida loca. We have that in common, Esther and I. Yesterday, I was reading a passage from The Web That Has No Weaver by Ted Kaptchuk: "In Chinese thought, events and phenomena...
Apr 27, 2006 | Culture Shock, Moving-To, Spanish
This morning, I had my second private Spanish lesson with Esther at the Amistad Institute. Esther is our beauty queen profesora de Español. She is charged with teaching me to speak the language!!! Which I am going to learn come hell or high water. I confess to being...
Apr 6, 2006 | Driving, Spanish
Why? Because we asked for directions three times today and we understood EVERY WORD of the answers!!!!! This is a really really big day. You can’t imagine how happy that makes us. Giddy even. In Costa Rica, roads have no signs, no names (except in the downtown...
Mar 10, 2006 | Amistad Institute, Culture Shock, Spanish
We had high hopes. High in the sky apple pie hopes. Just before leaving Key West, we’d searched the net and found a Spanish language school, Amistad Instutitue, that uses the immersion technique to teach Spanish, along with a thousand other techniques. There are...
