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
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 5th 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!
