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Visit the new Real Costa Rica

June 10th, 2006

RCRI am not sure what on earth possessed me to do an entire re-write of The Real Costa Rica, but I did and it is now online for your viewing pleasure or displeasure. The most obvious thing you will notice is the new color scheme and menu system. There are also a lot of new pages, new pictures, about 500 new links… ugh. I still have to install the new search engine though the olde one seems to be working perfectly. Go figure!

Thanks to those who tested the site. Reading the same old pages for errors is booooring, but you really helped!

Anyway… here it is: The REAL Costa Rica

Enjoy!

The REAL Costa Rica (redux)

May 23rd, 2006

Every since I published the Real Costa Rica web site, I have received a zillion emails and comments in the Guestbook. Most are complimentary and a few are from people who have really dug into the RCR and found errors (precious few!), typos (a LOT) and have made suggestions on how to better the web site.

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Coming to Live in Costa Rica?

May 16th, 2006

Between three of my websites, The REAL Costa Rica, this Blog, and my personal Blog, I get maybe 200 emails per week. I try to answer them, though this is getting tougher every month, and soon it is gonna get real ugly.

The hands down #1 topic of these emails is people asking me for my advice on moving to Costa Rica. Popular questions are:

* Where are the North American communities?
* Where are the good places to live?
* Constant questions about buying property here…
* Where is the best place to buy? Live?
* Where to visit when coming here to decide about a permanent move
* Where can I get a job?
* Plus a TON of emails from scared baby boomers world-wide who are just now saying to their spouses, “Holy SHIT Martha (or Clyde), there ain’t no way we can live on our social security! We gotta get outta this place!”

So, in this Post I am going to cast some pearls to you folks!

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Where is Christine???

May 11th, 2006

It also appears that Christin has fallen down on the job as well. If anyone knows where be that cute little midwestern gurl… please advise. Besides… she owes me a CD!

Cafe Santa Maria de Dota

March 12th, 2006

My group and I had an obligatory history field trip to a coffee plantation yesterday. We went to a plantation owned by a Cooperative called Coopedota. We took a tour on which we saw all the major stages related to coffee cultivation and production: growing the beans, harvesting the beans, separating the beans into different qualities, drying the beans, and toasting the beans.
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Vúlcan Poas

February 27th, 2006

A friend and I made the day trip from Heredia to Vúlcan Poas (Poas Volcano) this weekend. The bus ride was pretty short, maybe an hour at most including the obligatory reststop at the choosen roadside stand. (I wonder how they choose those stops… friends of friends, relatives?)

We actually didn´t see anything at all of note because a giant cloud had descended on the top, rendering our trip completely pointless. The trails were less than exciting, consisting of short paved loops through forest that left even my young knees in pain. We covered the whole park in about an hour, leaving us with with two more hours to kill until the bus left again. So yeah, that was about it. If you go, check the weather first and figure out a way to get there earlier than the 8:30 bus, that way you can see something besides thick fog.

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

February 22nd, 2006

Upon review of my blog entries, I realized that I’ve been sounding pretty negative lately. Lest that mislead anyone, I’m actually having a really great time. This is especially evident any time I have a few drinks in me, as I’m prone to loudly declaring how much I love this country over a plate of pinto at 1 in the morning. (Where else can you buy a huge plate of pinto and eggs for $1.50 at 1 in the morning?)

Case in point, I spent the weekend relaxing on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen!
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What´d you say mai?

February 17th, 2006

As my second week of classes is coming to an end, I feel as though it’s time to reflect. Before classes had started, I had been feeling confident about my Spanish and wasn´t at all worried about understanding my professors. Well, apparently my confidence had been falsely built up by a supportive family and professors who are accustomed to dealing with non-native students, because understanding the Spanish spoken in my classes is a struggle.
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Death to Rice!

February 9th, 2006

Usually I try to look at the good side of things, but there comes a time when even my high-level of tolerance is breeched. Every day, my family makes me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At first, this seemed like a premium arrangement, as I never have to do any cooking or cleaning. As it turns out, it´s awful. I would rather cook and clean for 5 people 3 times a day than eat rice one more time.
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Dominical, Costa Rica

February 7th, 2006

This weekend 21 of the 29 people from my program decided to take an independent trip to Dominical. It was really obvious that the trip was planned by gringos who don´t fully understand the bus schedules, because we took an unnecessarily long bus ride (6 and a half hours!).
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