Lindo - cute, nice, pretty, beautiful

It has been an amazing week!  I really love it here and everyone is so welcoming! 

The past couple of weeks at work I was in touch with a customer who ordered an SD card with the map of Costa Rica on it.  It  had been three weeks and the card still had not arrived so they requested for us to send it again with two day shipping because they were leaving in less than a week.  We resend the card because we understand that Costa Rica mail isn't always the best.  Friday morning I got an email from the same customer saying he had received the package and had few questions about so I called him.  After he informed me that he already had it up and running he asked me what the weather was like in San Jose because he was from Boston and it was cold and rain/snowing.  I told him it was about 75 and then I said I’m sorry because I know what Boston weather is like because I go to school there.  He then asked where and after I said Northeastern he goes “No way!  I am an Alumni of Northeastern!”   Then we had a nice chat about the school and co-op etc. and it was really great to randomly bump into a fellow husky and just to talk about something familiar with a complete stranger ordering from Trackit.  It is such a small world sometimes!

Tico/Brazilian/Japanese wedding!  I was so excited to go to the wedding this week and it went above and beyond my expectations!  It was a two-part wedding because the bride is Costa Rican and the groom is Brazilian so they wanted to have one day be traditional Brazilian style wedding and the other day be Tico style.  The Japanese part comes in because they are a Japanese religion (I can't remember the name and its in spanish so that it wouldn't be helpful any way haha).  Thursday night was the first night and it was the Brazilian part of the wedding.  They had Brazilian dancers come in and dance and their was a little boy who was the best dancer out of anyone in the room!  

Then there was a mariachi band, which is originally Mexican but apparently still traditional in Latino weddings.  After watching the Mariachi band I decided I wanted one at my wedding someday … I think that is mostly because I like their sombreros hahaha!  It is also really cool because the whole point of it is that they “serenade” the bride and groom which makes it kind of cool because it is their day!  I really enjoyed it even though I did not know the traditional songs.  

 Wedding day round two!  Saturday was the second day of the wedding and it was in the mountains outside of San Jose.  It was about an hour and a half drive and I was car sick for about 90% of the ride.  Between the continuous accelerating and braking, potholes, hilly and curvy roads it made it a carsickness nightmare but it was well worth the trip because this was the view from the venue:

The wedding was beautiful.  The weather was perfect and the Bride and Groom were both so happy!  I felt a little bad for basically crashing there wedding but when I met them they did not seem to care one bit which made me feel a little better about being at their wedding. 

I was interested to see what the Tico aspect of the wedding was and then these people came running into the wedding… only pictures can describe it. 

                                                                                 The bride.

                                                                             The Groom.

After we got home from the wedding we went to Susanna's house, Veronica's sister, for her grandmother's 85 birthday!  It was a packed full but GREAT day!  I really feel so luck to be included in so much and welcomed by everyone!  Susanna jokes that my new last name is Arias haha  I even have down the Pavas hand symbol!  (Pavas is the suburb of San Jose that I live in)  

                                                                     My host family! 

                                                          Susanna, Veronica and I.

Cultural Differences

It has been a great week! 

This past week at work was good.  I am finally getting into the grove of everything and it feels good not to have to ask my boss a question every 5 minutes.  This weekend we went to the BEACH!  We went to Jaco Beach, which is the nicer of two beaches near San Jose.  It was about 40 miles away but an hour and thirty minutes drive because speed limits are much slower here because the roads are narrower, curvy, have many pot holes and speed bumps.  Cars also just do not drive as fast here as they do in the Untied States.  On the way to Jaco we went over a bridge and the river underneath was literally INVESTED with crocodiles.  Just standing on one side of the bridge you could see at least 8 crocodiles in the river and they were huge!  I was also lucky enough to see wild horses drinking out of the river too! … I did not want to think about what the crocodiles ate when I saw the horse down the river from the crocodiles… Jaco Beach was beautiful!  It had hilly rainforest surrounding it making it the picture perfect tropical beach.  The sand was really dark and pretty rocky in some places, which I was not a fan of.  The water was probably the warmest ocean water I have ever been it but just as salty as usual! 

                                              Jaco Beach

                                           The bridge over the crocodile invested water.

                                                   Crocodiles

                                              It looks small here but it was huge!

           It is hard to tell in this little picture but there are Wild Ponies by the river!

Cultural Difference.  When people talk about cultural difference they normally only think of the obvious difference like they eat guinea pigs or everything on your body has to be covered except for your eyes etc.  However, there are a lot of things that Americans get upset about that they do not realize is a cultural difference and that they have no reason to be offended by the difference.  For example… Part of my job is communicating with Americans and Canadians that live in Costa Rica.  I had a couple that ordered a GPS with the Costa Rica map on it and they requested to pick it up from our office in San Jose.  As I said before, there are neither addresses nor road signs in Costa Rica so when they asked for directions I was told by my boss to say “One mile North of the US Embassy in Pavas, San Jose” which to the average American would sound like it is straight North past the Embassy but it is not.  You have to take a right before you pass the Embassy if you are coming from San Jose, then you continue on that road (North) for a mile and curve to the left after ¾ a mile and it is at the bottom of the hill but to the average Tico they would have found it with no problem.  Therefore, when the American couple were trying to find our office they had a few problems and called me at least 6 times in an hour and I was helpful the first few calls because I try to familiar myself with the roads here but by the 5^th call they had lost me and they were getting frustrated.  Finally I told my boss that they were getting upset and needed better directions so I transferred the call to him and he just repeated the “one mile north of the embassy,” he couldn’t understand why they could not find it and they could not understand why he was not giving better directions.  After they had finally found it they were heated when they came in the office.  Being the only one who speaks English other than my boss who was in a meeting, I was the lucky one who got to speak to them when they came in the office.  The first thing out of their mouths was “you should give better directions because it is not one mile north” and I continued to tell them well it is kind of a cultural difference here it is just the way it is and Ticos seem to get along fine with it.  They continued to tell me that they had been here 3 times now and that they know what the culture is like here… well maybe they do but people have to understand that there are differences and they have to accept them not get mad at people for it… people like me! haha

Today, Sunday, we went to the LDA futbol game in the morning and then we went over to Veronica’s sisters for a late lunch and hang out for the day.  Next weekend I will be going to Veronica’s cousin wedding which I am extremely excited about, a. because I have not been to a wedding since I was 5 and b. it is a Latino wedding!!!  Until then, ciao!      

There are ups and there are downs.

Reality.  It has been almost a full two weeks since I have been in Costa Rica and the novelty of it is starting to wear off.  This is not to say that I am not amazed every time I see the mountains only a few miles away or see a man holding a chair riding down the highway on his motorcycle, not kidding, but it is starting to get a little lonely.  When I studied abroad before I always knew that there were going to be at least ten other students from my University, I may not have known them but they were still there as my security blanket.  This time around, it just me.  The only person that I see on a daily basis that speaks conversational English is my boss and as great as he has been to me it is a little weird to hangout with your boss outside of work or chatting it up like you are pals, he is still my boss.  Veronica has been absolutely amazing and is one of the happiest and positive people I have ever met but our conversations are pretty limited.  My Spanish is not good enough to understand and respond back with more than the basics.  Recently I have been getting pretty frustrated with myself for not being able to convey my thoughts or feeling.  With this said I have to step up my game and either dedicate more time to learning Spanish or find some where to take classes.  I have learned many things since I have been here but I feel like I am at a stand still and have to work harder to keep improving.  But this is what I wanted.  I wanted to go somewhere with out a security blanket where I would be forced to learn the language and make it completely on my own and I'm Doing It! :)

The upside.  I am getting the real deal.  I really do feel like I am living in Costa Rica.  When I studied abroad before I felt like it was just a temporary thing where I tried to see as much as possible and I never got the real experience of living in the country.  For example, this weekend we went to a fair/festival in a town about an hour away from San Jose.   It is an annual event that last for about two weeks.  It was a little different than a fair/festival in the US.  At this festival there were a bunch of different food venders, a few venders with your typical necklaces, slippers, odds and ends etc., a few rides and what really set it apart was an outside club/bar.  When Veronica described where we were going I didn’t really understand because we do not really have this type of thing in the US.  Before getting in the car I only really knew that it was far away and there were going to be a lot of people because I didn’t really understand the concept of all of these things together… so off I went to a mystery place haha  It was a ton of fun and was a totally different experience that I will never get again.  We went with Veronica’s cousin and her brother and sister and few of their friends met up with us there so it was a good group of people.  Veronica’s brother lived in the New Jersey for an extended period of time (not sure how long) but he was fluent in English so again, it is nice to have someone there to clarify things for me!  While we were at the outside bar/club they attempted to teach me how to dance and I kept telling them that I was a Gringo and I can’t dance. (A Gringo is what many Latin American countries call Americans.  It comes from the Mexican-American war in the 1800’s when the Mexican’s said “green go” because the American uniforms were green.)   They still pushed me to try and I tried, laughing the entire time with a huge smile on my face, while failing miserably!  But it was still fun!  When I do things like this I quickly forget how lonely it is here sometimes and remember how lucky I am!

                                           Attempting to dance with Veronica's Brother.

                                                              Veronica and I

                                             The Outside Club and Stage.

Running in Costa Rica.  As many of you know I am a runner and for the last six months I have not really been able to run because I had plantar fasciitis.  At the end of December I finally got the okay from my physical therapist to run again!  I was so happy, but little did I know.  This was the longest time that I had gone without running in the last 8 years of my life! … Sooo…. I. Am. So. Out. Of. Shape.  … and San Jose is not helping!  Mountains surround San Jose making it a very hilly city!  I thought my road was hilly but it is a whole different level here, nothing is flat.  (Mom don’t hate me…) If I run after work, around 6pm, it is really only safe to run one way on one road.  From Veronica’s house that one route is straight up hill!  With the combination of being out of shape and the hills it makes for very painful and short runs.  But I keep plugging along, making it a little bit farther each time and hoping that the hill may not seem as big the next day.  It will be a great day when I do not feel like a 30 minute run was a long run…

Work has been good and I am finally grasping how to do everything.  Wirlan is very open to any suggestions that I have on how to improve the way things are done.  The work that I do has only been around for 8 months so everything is very new and open for a lot of improvement.  It is kind of cool to see a business grow and see what things work and what does not work.  It is also cool to have the opportunity to help it grow and improve.

I will attempt to update this every Sunday because it seems to be the best time that I can sit down and write it so keep an eye out for a new entry on Sundays.            

RICO- definition: good, delicious, handsome

I lucked out…  At first I was a little uncertain of how things would go living with Veronica and her mother.  When I was in Spain I also lived with a mother and her two daughters and I did not have a very good experience, not that it was a bad experience but it was not great.  The family in Spain was never home and never made the effort to get to know me or introduce me to the culture in Spain.  This time around it is the complete opposite and I love it!  Veronica, my housemate who is 24, has been absolutely amazing.  She is super patient and understanding with helping me with my Spanish and she is so welcoming to me being here.  Anytime she goes somewhere she invites me and genuinely wants me to go with her.  This weekend we were on the go the entire time and it was great!  I am definitely getting the true Tica experience!   On Saturday morning we went to the fruit market that was less than a half a mile down the road!  The fruit was so cheap and I bought two fruit I have never had, water apples and a guanabana!  Both were sweet yet tart and very RICO!  (Rico comes from Costa RICA… it took me a while to pick up on that)  After Veronica, her friend Natalia and I went to downtown San Jose where they signed up for a Math class.  Then we went into a few shops and they showed me the touristy spots in downtown San Jose which included the National Theater and a statue of a fat women. Haha When we left downtown we went to Veronica’s sisters house (which was huge and so nice) where her mother was visiting, see below about her sister Susana.  Saturday night we went to a futbol game with two of her friends!  By Sunday I was surprised she was not sick of me but apparently not because we were off to her sisters house and then out to dinner with her family!   I am so thankful for how welcoming Veronica and her family are!

                                                             A Water Apple:

Veronica and I Next to The Fat Lady Statue aka "La Chola" 

                                                 
                                                 The backside of The National Theater

                                                     
                                                                  The Front

Family-  Veronica’s family is hilarious!  Louisa, Veronica’s mother is super nice, she works at the hospital in San Jose.  Veronica’s sister, Susana, who is married and has a son is a nut!  She is too funny!  She says that Veronica is like her daughter since she doesn’t have one!  She is always cracking jokes and very out going.  Susana, her husband and son all speak a little English so they helped me get a cell phone plan this morning.  Susana’s son, Danny, wants to go to Harvard; he’s eleven.  Veronica’s grandmother is adorable and was so happy to meet me!  She has a Chiwawa that is so fat that its head looks soo awkward on its body; it was so ugly it was cute! Veronica’s brother is married to a Tica who works for IBM and speaks fluent English which was nice to have someone clarify things when we at dinner with her whole family!

The Mountain View Next to Veronica's House

Typical House Colors: Lime Green, Orange... Totally Normal

Culture and Things I have Learned

There are so many American stores and restaurants here it is insane everything from McDonalds, Denny’s, TGIF Fridays, KFC, even Hooters and Taco Bell!  Clothes stores are basically the same as home too, Steve Madden to Areopostale. 

Tico’s eat out for many of their meals and much of that is at fast food restaurants.  This is especially true for small families because it is quicker and cheaper to by food out.  It is typical for them to have their big meal at lunch rather than at dinner like most people in the United States. 

Service is also very different than it is in the United States, most people have a cleaning lady or someone to cook meals for them, depending upon how wealthy they are but even average income family’s have a cleaning lady.  They also have “watch men” or “watchiemen” that literarily help you park and watch traffic when you pull out on to the street.  I have only seen this in busier areas with small parking lots.

The tap water in Costa Rica is drinkable.  However, many westerners are not used the different minerals in the water and get sick the first few times they drink the water.  Being unaware of this I assumed that when Veronica handed me a glass of water from the sink the first night I took that as the water from the tap is okay to drink.  Come to find out two days later (after it being the only thing I drank for 2 days) that is does make many westerners sick.  Luckily, I was not one of those westerners.  So a heads up to anyone coming to Costa Rica, it may make you sick for a day or two until your body gets used to the minerals so you can either suck it up and get used to it or drink bottled water.  

Below is a picture of the San Jose National Stadium.  It was a gift from the Chinese to represent the "permanent monument of the friendship between the people of both countries"... google it to learn more. 

 Left to Right: Veronica, Me, Natalia, Yeimy (Pronounced Jaime)

 We Root for LDA! (The little men in Black)

Although Costa Rica is very developed in terms of having the same restaurants and stores Costa Rica is still an underdeveloped country and there are a few things that are not as advanced.  One of my first days of training at Trackit, Wirlan told me that there is no address system in Costa Rica.  There are also no road signs or street names… I don’t understand how they know where to go.  This makes things a little difficult for a GPS company and for the mailing system in Costa Rica.  Trackit has found a way around this and based their maps off of using points of interest as destination points.  For example, say you were trying to figure out how to get to a friends house, they would tell you its next to a McDonalds in xxx town so you would go to points of interest and find the McDonalds in that town and get the directions to that McDonalds.  There are over 22,000 points of interest so it is a pretty efficient system for the lack of an address system.  In terms of the mailing system there are still many problems and many people lose their packages or letters.  Roads are also very much in need of a make over and I am not just talking about one or two… So many of the roads have massive potholes that Ticos are very aware of for the well being of their cars.  This makes traffic slower and more dangerous when people swerve into other lanes to avoid the potholes.  There are also roads that are so narrow that they should a one-way street but that is NOT the case, I am appreciative that Veronica is a good driver… 

Si, si, si, si… The response to everything I do not really understand…

DAY ONE!  

I arrived into San Jose last night at 9:55pm and made it through customs in about 40 minutes, which was great!  Wirlan, my boss or “jefe” in Spanish, was supposed to meet me at the airport with a sign that said Molly Stevens.   At first we did not see each other but luckily I told him that I run and she spotted my running sneakers and took a guess that it was me.  My housemate, Veronica, was with him and we went straight to her house.  On the way Wirlan informed me that Ticos are terrible drivers and after my 15 minute car ride from the airport… he wasn’t kidding! Hahaha Wirlan speaks really good English but Veronica knows less English than I know Spanish so it was an awkward and difficult conversation after Wirlan dropped me off at Veronica’s house! 

First day of work:  Veronica also works at Trackit so I have a ride to and from work everyday and the commute is a whopping… mile, if that.  We got to work at 9am but I will usually have to be there by 8am, 8-5:30 everyday, woof.  I spent the whole day in training with Wirlan, which made it a long day but the job doesn’t seem too difficult.  We had "typical Costa Rican food" for lunch at a place down the street and I am already fan of the food but I may get sick of beans and rice pretty quickly because they eat it with EVERY meal.   

Below is a picture of my room it is on the smaller side but i have a HUGE bed which is a first for me hahaha

Thank goodness for Wirlan.  Wirlan is in is early 30’s has two kids and a wife, Mary, who I met today.  Wirlan’s bio… Wirlan started a tech support company in 2001 and was extremely successful until he was asked to do an interview on TV in 2006 for a “successful and under 30” story on a local Costa Rican news channel.  Wirlan thought that it would be good to get more clients for his tech support company but really it gave the idea to other people to start tech support companies so he has continuously lost business to competitors since.  He then started Trackit because the tech support company was no longer strong enough to support him.  Along with being a successful entrepreneur he is super nice/helpful!  Last night when I got in, Veronica asked if I need the internet to email/call my family and I said yes figuring she would let me borrow the Ethernet cable for my room or give me the wireless password but that wasn’t the case… she showed me the Ethernet cable in her room and I was like shit… I’m not going to have Internet the entire time I am here or I am going to have to awkwardly ask if I could buy a router and connect it to her cable.  BUT Wirlan saved the day! Today he asked how everything was at Veronica’s and he asked if I had Internet and I nicely said no but Veronica let me use the cable in her room to call my mom on Skype.  He was like “ahhh that’s not going to cut it” reached over grabbed a router behind his desk and went to Veronica… I was pretty grateful that he helped me avoid and awkward conversation.  I know this sounds pathetic but when you do not know anyone, at all, the internet is a pretty big deal.  He also gave me a SIM card for my blackberry which I still have to set up the data on but he is going to help me with that tomorrow, so grateful!  So over all it was a long but good day!