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All is well at the Costa Rica Tennis Club. Especially
the karaoke singers, they were in fine form Wednesday
night until 11PM (and again Thursday until midnight, I
think I need to get some earplugs). Thursday night I
discovered Universal, I was told it was a book store,
but it is SO much more. It's sort of a department
store with toys, kitchenware, camping supplies,
stationery supplies, high end make-up and perfume,
jewelry, some electronics, and of course books. And
it's only 1 block from my hotel, on the way to
McDonalds, not that I go THERE often ... really I
don't. :) I picked up a couple Dean Koontz novels to
keep me occupied.
There is quite a US/Canadian contingency here. I found out that the Canadian Consulate next door has a get together once a month, wine, drinks food, you know, your taxdollars at work. I have asked that when my boss & some of the other Canadians go they bring me along. Because of the strong US influence there are a lot of familiar products in the stores. With at least one exception ... it seems the major bakery here is called Bimbo, yes, that's right, Bimbo. There's nothing more amusing than going to the grocery store and picking up a nice, soft, white Bimbo. As for the culture, SO FAR it has been a relatively mild transition. Luckily I have been cushioned by hanging out with typical working Ticos (that's what they call themselves). I understand that there are around 4 million people in the country, roughly 2 million live in San Jose. Of the 3.6 million, over 1/3 of Canada's population, hmmm, approximately 1 million are Nicaraguans and Colombians. Ticos are very well educated, most go to university, and don't like to take blue collar type jobs, hence they allowed the immigrants. Unfortunately the immigrants are from very poor countries where violence is a way of life and they have had trouble fitting in. Subsequently most Tico homes and businesses are locked up tight with guard fencing, the businesses also have guards, some of the armed. I don't know if this is reassuring or frightening. I am going to go with reassuring, it makes me feel better. The food is great, I have had the traditional Tico lunch several times. It is called casados and consists of rice, chicken or beef, black beans, salad, and fried bananas (I feel like I'm gaining weight just thinking about it). There are lots of restaurants around, Italian, Chinese, Mexican, etc. as well as the Tico ones. The only thing I miss so far is Slurpees, but I am told there are other similar drinks available around here. In fact I was just informed about an AM/PM convenience store, wa-hoo. If you wondering about the company I now work for, there are 3 departments, one manages the server farm (specific to hosting websites for companies from outside of Costa Rica), another is the programming department (the one I work in), the last is a voice over IP service (I hope I can get in on that for cheap, maybe free?, phone calls back home). One interesting thing about the office is that the electricity and water occasionally cut out with no warning. I understand that this was more common a few years ago but the people here are now dealing with North Americans more who demand more consistent service. All I know is that when the water goes, we lose the air-conditioning, yikes it gets warm in a room full of people and computer equipment in a climate like this. Friday was pretty good, I was starting to get deep into their code and actually starting to understand hold 'em poker. I also found out that an apartment has been found for me, I will be moving on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. The second weekend passed without incident, I decided to forgo some exploring that was offered in order to get some laundry done. And how does one do laundry when living in a hotel you ask? I used a trick a friend of mine mentioned after he came back from a trip to Europe after university. I washed them in the sink with shampoo. I now have the loveliest aroma surrounding me, I don't even need perfume. The rest of the weekend was spent trying to find salsa and reading my novels. Difficulty finding salsa you question? Every sauce is called salsa (even soy salsa) here and I wanted the chunky tomato & vegetable kind you eat with nacho chips. In my travels to Yaohan (all the gods bless that place, yes I found my salsa there) I also discovered a ScotiaBank. It's my intention to open an account there so my transactions with my bank in Canada go smoothly, well one can always hope. The following week found me trying to move into my new condominium. First I tried to open a chequing account at ScotiaBank, so I could issue a cheque for rent & deposit. I discovered that I need a utility bill in addition to my passport. Of course I can't get a utility bill until I have a place to live, which I can't move into until I have a chequing account to write a cheque for that I can't get an account until... You get the picture, an infinite loop. We agreed that cash would be OK, so I went back to the ScotiaBank to get cash, in US dollars. Which they didn't have (what the ???). I ended up going to the Bank of San Jose (a very modern and extremely funky building) to get the cash. So I finally got a place to live. If you want to send snail mail the address is: SORRY, IF YOU WANT MY ADDRESS SEND ME AN EMAIL Honest, that's the address, it's really just the same directions I give to the taxi drivers, but that's how they do it here, weird. It's going to take a little getting used to. My phone number is (506) 290-4264, at least I think that's the area code. It's quite a nice place, with 2 bedrooms (so yes I have room for visitors), a living room, kitchen, dining room, somewhat primitive bathroom, and small enclosed back yard space. The landlady put in a brand new bed, fridge, and TV in addition to the stove, washer (no dryer), chesterfield, chairs, shelves, dining room set, coffee maker (a necessity in coffee-centric Costa Rica) and assorted dishes. The bathroom is not too bad, the sink has only cold water, but the shower obviously had had hot water added after as the hot water tap is up beside the shower head and the cold water one is down where you would normally find it. In the mornings I have the joy of discovering the correct proportion before and after showering (turning it off is the most challenging). So on Wednesday evening I moved in. Or I tried. I called a cab to pick me up at the hotel and with the assistance of Norman (the other Canadian) we loaded up my stuff. Unfortunately I didn't have the address with me at the time, it hadn't been written down yet, and we drove past the place twice without knowing where we were. We stopped at a hotel to call my neighbour, she's also one of my office mates, to find out where to go. We got there and dumped all my stuff then proceeded to go out to a disco for drinks with Lynnethe, from work, her husband and friends. She insisted we come out since the next day was a Costa Rica holiday and she wanted to go dancing, even though our office was still working. (We will take those days off later when we want to.) Fortunately Lynnethe's husband Michael is not much of a dancer so we talked about karate most of the night. Michael is from Switzerland and has been here for about 7 years. Thursday was to be a karate night but since it was a holiday I went out to pick up some groceries at ... you guessed it ... Yaohan. I also discovered rather quickly that if you don't have cable, you don't get any English speaking channels on the TV. It's a good thing I had a book to finish. On Friday night I had the best dinner and tour since I got here. Lynnethe, Michael, and their friend Felix (pronounced Feh-lix) took Norman and I out to a traditional Tico restaurant then up the mountain in Esacazu to a small restaurant/pub called Tequicia (pronounced Teh-key-shia, I know it sounds like a black woman's name). It had a fabulous view of the valley with the lights of San Jose wavering in the distance. We tried a drink unique to Costa Rica called a cucaracha, yes ... a cockroach. I was glad to know you ARE supposed to blow out the flames before you drink it. It is made from tequila (big surprise) and coffee liqueur. Nonetheless it put me in a pretty good mood for the rest of the evening. :) I spent the rest of the weekend doing a bit of shopping for household stuff (a pot, rack for the shower, popcorn bowl, etc) at Pali, sort of mini-Safeway. It's a chain store, but the one near me is a bit small. The prices are very good though. I also read the two books I had borrowed from Michael. I ran out of reading material around 6PM Sunday but happened across an English language special on the Beatles on one of the Spanish music channels. On Monday evening I went to karate again, I survived it a little better than the last time, but must remember to bring a bigger bottle of water. Once again this weekend has a CR holiday so there will be no training on Thursday, I better start running or something because all this good food is going to "go straight to my thighs". The plan this weekend is to go to the beach in Jaco (pronounced Ha-ko) with Lynnethe, Michael and Norman (and maybe some others, it seems that plans to do things with people are pretty fluid and can change at any time). I suppose I should give you a little info about San Jose. It's not on the ocean, it's in the central valley of CR and has the majority of the population. CR has coasts on both the Pacific & Atlantic side, little like Canada, but they are closer together. The popular tourist spots are on the Pacific side, including Jaco, and Puntarenas. It's quite nice to be up in the mountains, it's cooler than down by the ocean, but the humidity is still very high. I break out in a sweat walking across the park (15 minutes or so) to work in the morning when it's still reasonably cool. That should take us up to today (Tuesday). As for new observations I have found the people here extremely friendly and honest. But you have to be careful not to end up in the bad parts of town at night (a little like Hastings & Main). Sending mail is a bit hit and miss and if you send a package you should send it registered as the postal people are known for their sticky fingers. It seems that tiles are the flooring of choice here, it makes sense since the weather is so warm here. I was going to comment on the small number of insects I have seen until I moved into my condo, I have since seen 2 cockroaches, both dying thanks to the excellent poison supplied by my landlady. I derived great satisfaction smacking them with the flyswatter. I also forgot to mention the divebombing crow that I keep my eyes out for in the mornings, he seems to lie in wait for me near the entrance to the office complex. One of these days I'm going to hear him coming and lift up my umbrella for him to crash into. :) I better get back to work now. I'll let you all know how things go at the beach. |
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