The Top 10 Things Americans must get used to in Costa Rica...

Hola mis companeros!



It's soon to be Friday again. The week has absolutely flown by. In fact, a whole MONTH has flown by. Exactly a month ago tomorrow we landed on the ground at the airport with 5 suitcases, 3 carry ons, 1 briefcase, 1 backpack, 2 kids and 2 crazy adults. Hmmm...that also means my rental car is due back Saturday. Remember the "dude...a Nissan Tida isn't going to work..." post? LOL! See my very first post for a refresher on the dynamics of a Nissan Tida versus 5 suitcases, 3 carry ons, 1 briefcase, 1 backpack, 2 kids and 2 adults. :)


Now the real topic of my post tonight. After spending a month in Costa Rica, we have seen only a sliver of the country. However, based on what we have seen, I have more than enough fodder to put my own "Top 10" right up there with Dave. Here goes...


"The Top 10 Things Americans must get used to in Costa Rica"


10. No noise ordinances. It's 9pm on a week night. My neighbor outside our gated community has decided to run his power saw, repeatedly. Naturally, his house is about 20 feet from ours, literally right across the street. The power saw siren song while effective at resolving my neighbor's home improvement dilemma, does not help me get a good nights sleep. Oh, the neighbor directly next door to us is also remodeling. So nice to hear him banging away on his walls at 9pm. It's like a cacophony of home improvement.


9. Extremely good and reasonably priced health care. Another expat I know recently took a trip to the ER at the newest and nicest private hospital in San Jose (CIMA). He thought he might have broken his ankle. X-rays, doctor's review, medication later, without insurance, he spent a whopping $100. He has the x-rays to prove it.


8. Absolutely no street signs. This is where I recommend every expat buy a GPS if you are even thinking of driving anywhere in Costa Rica. Now, don't get me wrong. The streets have names. But no SIGNS. My GPS tells me specifically which street I'm driving on. But only the GPS knows and it's not sharing.


7. In accordance with #8, no normal street addresses. Without street signs, what do you think would be a standard mailing address? Well, something which of course involves landmarks. All addresses here are "200 meters east of the Church of the Sacred Blood, Right of the Spoon restaurant". Yes, it's specific. But hope like the dickens the Church of the Sacred Blood never falls down in an earthquake or the Spoon restaurant never goes out of business. Your address is forever etched in stone even if those landmarks disappeared 50 years ago.


6. Earthquakes. Joy. Now if you're from California, this really doesn't count. So if you're from California, your #6 is getting used to the sun coming up EVERY morning at 5AM. Forget sleeping in until noon. Unless you're living in a cave or a drug induced coma, it's not going to happen. You'll be up like a dart by 6am since it feels like it's 10am. If you're not from California, your #6 is earthquakes. I'm originally from the upper Midwest where there are scads of tornadoes and snow. But no earthquakes. Our first week in country, there was an earthquake at 5.0 on the Richter scale in an area of Costa Rica far away from where we live. I felt the earthquake. My full coffee cup wiggled. I felt the earth move. Okay, the only time I want to feel the earth move is well...when...well, you know. Not LITERALLY feel the earth move while having my morning coffee!


5. Extremely excellent chicken. Seriously, KFC here is stinkin' good. Trust me on this.


4. Extremely SMALL cars. Remember the Nissan Tida?!


3. Colons, the local Costa Rican currency. Generally the colon fluctuates somewhere between 500 to 600 to the 1 US dollar. When shopping, you have to get used to seeing price tags in the 1000s and even 100,000s of colons. And don't even get me started about having to know numbers in SPANISH at those levels. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.


2. "Gringo pricing". This is why you need good friends in Costa Rica who are natively from here and speak flawless Spanish. If I call about something, as my Spanish is not flawless, I'm immediately tagged as not from Costa Rica and American. This automatically doubles or triples the price of anything. It's like an unofficial tax. However, if one of my Tico friends makes the call after me, incredibly there is a massive and immediate sale. The price has miraculously fallen to never before heard of levels. Never before heard by Americans that is...!



And the #1 Thing Americans have to get used to in Costa Rica is...



1. BUS STOPS, pedestrians, professional cyclists, back hoes and a few cars on the interstate (known as the AutoPista). Seriously, there is no posted minimum speed for most of the AutoPista. Anywhere a group of people gather becomes a bus stop in the right lane if there isn't room to pull over (which for a bus the size of a Greyhound is the usual situation). Pedestrians literally walk across the interstate all the time. Cyclists (and based on their gear some of them are VERY good cyclists) ride their expensive or not so expensive bikes on the side of the road while cars go by at 60 mph or more. Construction equipment is also evidently not banned from the Pista. The other day on my way home from work, there was a huge long line of cars going like 20 mph. I'm thinking "what on earth...?" and it turns out to be a back hoe driving on the interstate. Now in the US, the back hoe would be put on a tractor trailer truck and trucked at 60-70 mph on the interstate to wherever it needs to go. Not here by golly. Just drive that sucker up the ramp and save yourself the trouble. As a result, I no longer drive in the right hand lane of the interstate unless I have to. I'm petrified I'm going to be gawking at a cyclist, dodging a pedestrian, cussing at heavy machinery and plow right into the back of a bus.


So there you have it. Jaci's Top 10. Dave Letterman...eat your heart out! :)