Bogota!

Hola mis companeros,

From my last post, I promised a tale about my recent trip to Bogota.

Very interesting place Bogota. I’m not sure what’s more disconcerting. The fact there are more bomb/drug sniffing dogs and military police than people in Costa Rica or the fact those security measures are needed in Bogota. I admit to being pretty open about traveling there as it was the “lesser of two evils”. Either go to Bogota or Mexico City. Both places are challenging from an American perspective. Regardless of what we do, regardless of fluent our Spanish might be or how well we appreciate and know the culture, Americans will always stand out in Latin America. Bogota is no different. However, taking the fact Columbia takes security to the level of an art form aside, I really enjoyed Bogota.

Let’s start with the weather. It was cooler than Costa Rica but not too cold. During the day long sleeves were okay. In the evening, a leather jacket or sweater was definitely needed.

Let’s talk the food. OMG…the food. It was great! Traditional Columbia food is VERY close to what Americans would classify as “comfort food”. It’s creamy soups with big chunks of chicken and vegetables. It’s baked chicken with gravy. It’s absolutely mouth watering steak with baked potatoes with all the fixings. It’s incredible deserts with fresh fruits, whipped cream or the most delicious cakes with intricate frostings.

Then, the buildings. Where I stayed it was a more upscale but older part of town. There were high rise buildings but also many older and more traditional buildings, many of the brick with beautiful and intricate wood trims. Our hotel was one of these buildings. It reminded me of a turn of the century castle with round turrets with stained glass windows.

Now, we shift to the mountains which were all around Bogota. Not sure if they were taller than the mountains circling Costa Rica’s central valley or not. But they were certainly beautiful. From one of the Citi offices in downtown Bogota, the view of those mountains and several of the buildings built along the range illustrated some of the most spectacular sunsets Bogota has to offer.

Finally, the LEATHER. Again, OMG…the leather! Managed to get a little shopping in while we were in town. Well…more like A LOT. J In fact, I did all of our family Christmas shopping with the exception of the kids. It was awesome. A jacket for me, a jacket for James. Wallet for me, belt for James. Plus, wallets, belts, gloves, boots, purses and all sorts of other cool nifty things for our friends and family. The only people I didn’t shop for were the kids. At 3 and 7 they just aren’t that into Columbia leather. LOL!

All in it was a great trip. However, I definitely noticed the difference coming back to Costa Rica, enough of a difference to say, “I missed Costa Rica!” There is no pollution, no bomb/drug sniffing dogs outside of airport security and no military police with sub machine guns every 2 blocks. Yes, Costa Rica has its challenges. However, our challenges don’t involve traveler warnings from the US State Department. Pura Vida!

You are only 7 once...

Hi all,


Two weeks ago we experienced our first Costa Rican birthday party. A little boy in Corwin’s class from school was turning 7 years old. Now, I’ve never really considered turning 7 a significant milestone in one’s life. You can’t drive yet. You can’t operate heavy machinery. You can’t smoke, drink or gamble. At age 7 you can’t even have a credit card or a job. However, for turning just 7 years of age, this was quite the event as birthday parties go.

First, there was the place. “Tesoro de la Pirata” or “The Pirate’s Treasure” is an indoor playground complete with trampoline, zip line and climbing wall among other things. It was fairly large. Had a secure parking lot. Clean and courteous staff. It was a cool place.

Second, the food. There were catered (yes I said catered) appetizers including a chocolate fountain. There was pizza for the kids. There was the custom decorated Lego topped incredible cake. No worries about leaving this soirée the least bit hungry.

Third, the décor. There were custom balloon sculptures hanging from the ceiling. Nifty center pieces on all the tables for the “Indiana Jones” themed party. Treasure chests to put gifts in when you arrived.

Fourth, face painting and the largest piñata I’ve seen yet. All the kids had faces painted with a broad range of designs. Butterflies were our daughter’s theme of choice. For Corwin, snakes. And the piñata in the shape of a Lego soldier was about the largest piñata I’ve seen. It was also full of premium candy. The imported good stuff. Our kids came home with more candy than they did for Halloween in the States.

Fifth, parting gifts. At an American party, there is almost always the ubiquitous “goodie bag” with some candy and small toys. At this party, the parting gifts were Lego kits, Indiana Jones whips (yes, the ones which are quite realistic) and satchel bags like Indiana Jones carried. Here in Costa Rica, those are not inexpensive toys. The Lego kits especially would be in the range of $20-30 US without much effort. Multiply this by the numbers (see the next paragraph) and you're not talking small change.

And finally, the numbers. In the US, parents are always uber sensitive to staying at the party and/or bringing younger siblings. Unless the invitation specifically says you can, most parents won’t bring younger siblings or stay for the duration of the party unless they think it necessary. No such social quandary here. At this party, when we inquired if it was okay if our daughter came to the party, we were met with “Of course! And there are appetizers for all the adults.” There had to be 30 kids and probably 10-12 adults. Easily a group of 40-50 people. I've been to weddings in the US with fewer people.

All in, the kids had the best time. They played for almost 2 hours, ate pizza, played more, ate cake, played more, beat up the world’s largest piñata and played more. We had to practically drag our children out of the place at 5pm (the party started at 2pm!). The food was really good. The cake was really cool. The party place very nifty, clean and secure. It was a great party. A bit over the top perhaps, but after all, you only turn 7 once. :^)



Next post…BOGOTA!

We did our part for the US economy

Hi all!


April has been a very busy month in the Bennett house. We spent a very enjoyable Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Costa Rica. Enjoyed Easter Sunday Mass all in Spanish. Finished up our unpacking and organizing. Spent an awesome weekend at the beach on the Pacific side on a whale watching tour with friends. Pulled out the big suitcases and headed north for 10 days in the US for Corwin’s first communion and our chance to provide a one family economic stimulus package for the US economy.

Whew! I’m tired just from typing all of that.

Oh…and we bought a car! Woo hoo!

Let’s start with the car. It’s a “chick car”. It’s not a fancy brand. It’s a Hyundai. It’s not a turbo. It’s a 1.6L. It’s not black. It’s a wine color (like the color of a cabernet). It’s not a 5 speed. It’s an automatic. Definitely a RARITY in Costa Rica with all of our mountains. It’s not a 4 wheel drive SUV. It’s a small hatchback with 2 doors and about a dozen airbags. I describe it as “cute”. James has other preferred adjectives. :) It gets us from point A to point B without paying off the chart rental car fees. It’s fuel efficient. This is a very good thing as gas is twice as expensive here versus the US. It’s not for long distance or rough driving. It’s just for getting me the 6 minutes on the interstate to work and back. We’re still looking on our Don Quixote quest for the “decently priced small SUV”. But at least now no more rental cars. The irony of this little car was how easy it was to buy. It was a private owner who was a retired public school ENGLISH teacher (there went the language barrier out the door). A friend of ours has a friend who was a mechanic. (easily checked out the car for a fair price). The owner’s daughter in a law was an attorney. (needed an attorney to complete the sale) We picked it up at the Nissan dealership where the owner’s daughter in law leases out her power of attorney for car transactions (avoided an hour long one way trip to Cartago to pick up the car). The whole sale took like a half hour to sign the papers, pay the transfer tax and drive away. It’s taken us longer to buy cars in the States.

We drove our new “cute little car” to Easter Sunday Mass at San Rafael. It was 430 in the afternoon. It was packed standing room only. The Mass was all in Spanish. But we were able to follow along well enough. We were dressed up. No one else really was. So we stuck out more than usual. Everyone wanted to touch Audrey’s hair since it’s blond and feels like spun silk. But I actually understood a good part of the homily. Holy Week is, outside of Christmas, one of the most sacred religious holidays in Costa Rica. This is a country which is like 80% Catholic. There were parades downtown. Specials on TV (all of the classic movies ran on TV). Many people went to the beach for the week (to the tune of 60% of the country). We went out to Rosti Pollo, our favorite restaurant. Look up Rosti Pollo on the web and you’ll understand. It’s all “roasted chicken” and it’s great. I had Thursday and Friday off work. We spent the time together as a family at home. Worked on the house and just enjoyed being together.

The weekend after Easter Sunday, we took our first foray outside the city on a whale watching tour to the Pacific. Whales come to the Pacific side of Costa Rica to calf in March and April. Along with friends of ours (Joel, Lisa and Elena) from Chicago, we jumped in the bus with everyone and headed for the beach! We had a great time. Learned a few things about the coast. Saw dolphins swimming in the wild. Didn’t see any whales (a rarity evidently) but the dolphins more than made up for it. We saw them swimming wild and free. We saw mothers with babies. Our son went snorkeling in the ocean for the first time. The food was the best. The humidity was OFF the chart. We were definitely in the tropics. Everyone enjoyed the beach, the sand, the sun and even a little shopping along the way. Check out Jim's Facebook page for an awesome dolphin video a friend of ours on the tour took from the boat.

Then, three days after coming back, we pulled out the big suitcases. We packed one of them about half full and headed north to the land of St Patrick’s Church, Target and MicroCenter for almost 2 weeks of time with friends, family and doing our part to help the US economy. We had a wonderful trip. We spent quality time with our family including my 90 year old grandmother. We shared pictures from our ocean weekend. The kids played with friends and charmed their grandparents. We enjoyed evenings with friends at familiar places. We laughed, told stories, shared successes and planned for future “good times” in both Kansas City and Costa Rica. Coming back last weekend, we filled up all 5 of those very large suitcases with all of our US bounty and headed back home.

However, while getting through Costa Rica Immigration was almost a non event, Customs would be a different story with 5 very full large suitcases of recently purchased US export products including some significant electronics. The solution? Act like a tourist. Essentially we bullied our way through Costa Rican Customs. When we arrived at Customs, we just started throwing suitcases on the xray machine belt. We didn’t even hand our declaration form to the customs agent. He was busy trying to keep up with the bags on the belt. The only thing which caught their attention was the DVD box in which James had brought a very used and very not working desktop computer. When the agent asked about it, I replied with my best “rude American tourist” voice, “It’s a used computer not a DVD player. It’s for parts and it DOESN’T work. Do you want me to open the box?” Considering it was 9pm at night, we had small children, a lot of bags and with my tone of voice implied, the customs agent wisely said, “No” and let us go in our merry way. I think he realized all of us would be there a lot longer into the night if they opened any one of those 8 pieces of luggage. LOL!

This week is now the week of “unpacking”, reclaiming the house and getting back to our routine. I think it won’t be so difficult with a glass of the MacCallan scotch which made it’s way through Customs, while wearing the new Nikes from other suitcase, mopping with the Swifter mop and staying in touch with our friends and family on our new Nokia N900 cell phone which traveled the distance in its box in the bottom of my back pack. Wish me luck!