A New Life In Costa Rica

Internet issues

There other day we had a heck of a lighting storm. Our cleaing lady, Bill and I all jumped when a stike was a little close for comfort. We surveyed the house and property for damage. No damage here but it must've hit something causing problems for ICE, the phone company.

My dial-up connection is supposed to be 56K. Yeah, right! I usually connect somewhere around 44k not great but it is what it is. Since Monday's storm I've only been connecting between 7k and 12k. AWFUL! I was able to get into my gmail account but not my msn email account. Not enough juice behind the connection.

We've passed the ICE workers on our road the past couple of days. They smiled when I asked about fixing my internet. Today I'm happily connected at 32K...lightning speed compared to the last few days.

Cedula Update

I'm thrilled, thrilled to report Callista and I are now proud, card carrying citizens once again...resident pensionados with conditions. YEAH! Everything went just as we'd hoped...almost.

Picking up our cards was so easy. We didn't even call the day before as instructed. Instead, we walked in on the designated date, went right to the back office, waited for her to finish with the person ahead of us then signed, got finger printed and walked out. Easy, peasy!

What didn't go as planned was trying to get Bill's renewal done yesterday as well. His cedula expires in December so we figured it was worth a shot. He wasn't able to go through the process but they did set an appointment for him in December. Remember when I made appointments for Callista & I they were for August 09. We were told to return on a Tues or Thurs instead, which we did and had no problems. I asked if Bill could return on a Tues or Thurs and was told no this time. See things change day by day.

So it looks like we'll be heading back to Ciudad Quesada in December for Bill's renewal and perhaps another relaxing afternoon at the hot springs.

Loofa anyone?

 Loofa's are great. I've used them for years. In the states you can buy them anywhere, here too. We've seen them for sale in stores as well as in booths at different festivals. I love them! The possiblity of growing them was intriging. I never found seeds so I kind of forgot about it until recently.

My friend has them. What a thrill it was to see this vine we'd been watching and wondering about set on loofa gourds. We checked and double checked and yep, they're loofas.

My friend is now back in the states for a few months. I've been entrusted to care for and harvest the loofas. I'm looking forward to the harvest and getting seeds for my garden. The cleaning looked easy from what I read but we'll see. Thank-you my friend for your confidence and yes, I'm missing you already!

   

Chocolate

 

Chocolate makes one happy. It's a fact, everyone knows it. Suffice it to say that working in a chocolate shoppe one would expect to encounter happy people.  We LOVE chocolate shops. We regularly attended the Glendale Chocolate Affair in Arizona. It was like any other holiday to us. We planned to attend, tour the chocolate factory and make a day of it each year. Great fun had by all. Chocolate and good times go together.

We've seen this chocolate store for a few years now but had never stopped. It's not in a good location for entering and exiting traffic in Escazu. The other day I was in town with a friend who had business in the area. We had time to kill so we decided to check it out. A mistake in my opinion.

Slander laws in this country are a big deal so all I will say is that we did not have a pleasant experience. People working in chocolate stores are not all happy! Some don't even care to serve a client.(Nothing new in CR where customer service is severly lacking)

I asked for permission to take photos upon entering and was told to go ahead, no problem. The wooden chocolate case was beautiful! 

 Photographing the chocolates and molds was forbidden. I might have been a spy from Slugworth, flash back to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Are there chocolate spies in Costa Rica?

If you're wanting a chocolate fix, stop into this shop and see if you can put a smile on the workers faces. Maybe they were grumpy cuz they aren't used to customers? The boss was there when we were so maybe that had something to do with it. Who knows?

Hauling in the harvest

Yep, that's my harvest all right. The fruit of six months labor. At least the carrots show some kind of edible substance. The radishes have huge root systems, some over two feet long but nothing that resembles a radish. We've eaten the roots, similar taste but not. Broccoli and green onions never came up. If they did sprout the birds ate them before we realized what they were. That's not unlikely. We don't know what most of the things are sprouting in our yard. It's always fun walking around and seeing new stuff or finding something has flowered.

As for vegetables, Bill may be right...it's easier to just buy them. I'm not giving up yet. My hope is to get some more carrots planted and see how they do in the dry season. There's also trying them in another location before I give up all together. Wish me luck.

I'm looking forward to trying an experiment with lettuce. We saw kids at the science fair growing it in bamboo stalks. They had lechuga growing in sand and regular soil. I don't remember which they proved was better but I do know I saw good heads in both. It's worth a try. Maybe the carrots would like sand?