First, in response to some e-mails: The address of our apartment is: del Automercado Heredia, 100m al sur, 25 este, portones blancos, apt #4 (i.e. from the Automercado in Heredia, 1 block south, a little bit east, white garage doors, apartment #4). The Automercado is the nicest (and most expensive) supermarket in Heredia -- if we ever get a hankering for a certain food from America, we most likely can find it there. Now you know how to get here, but please don’t send us anything, we’ll never get it. We found out yesterday the only way to receive mail is [View Full Entry]

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Since we are woefully behind, I am going to have to skip ahead to fill you in on some important developments. Tomorrow afternoon we are off to the jungle/mountains to study Spanish and do some volunteer work at Instituto Asis (www.institutoasis.com). We are really looking forward to it. They do have an internet connection there, so we will try to keep up to date. We are really hoping that this will jumpstart the kids’ Spanish and give them a good base as they head in to school. We are going to be there for 1 or 2 weeks -- we'll see [View Full Entry]

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So with the help of lots of buses and helpful Ticos (and despite no street signs or good maps), we figured out how to get around. Last Thursday (yes, I know I'm way behind -- I don't want to skip ahead because, as evidenced by the entry before the last one, no one wants to hear about old news) we got up and out early and headed for The European School in Heredia. Before heading out, Dara had done some research and had arrived at the conclusion that this was the best option for continuing Ari's education while in Costa Rica. [View Full Entry]

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So, back to Costa Rica. As per our second journal entry, our intrepid adventurers have made it to Costa Rica and are comfortably ensconced (is that redundant) at la casa Figuer in San Jose, a big, bustling, noisy, traffic-filled city. There is really nothing great about San Jose except that it is in the middle of Costa Rica so it serves as a nexus to get to all the different parts of the country. We did get an excellent briefing by Vernon Bell the morning after we arrived - everything from how to get to the center of town by bus [View Full Entry]

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As I mentioned before, I had some stuff written but saved on my computer and couldn't get it on to the site. Well now I can. Sorry if this seems like ancient history, but I wasn't going to let it go to waste. I will try to get more current soon. On November 18, we moved out of our house and a very nice family moved in. Even though they are renting the house furnished, the weeks leading up to the move were a frenzy of activity. Pretty much all we had to do was clean out our closets and kitchen [View Full Entry]

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Hello all, Sorry we haven´t had an update in a while '' I have some entries saved on my computer, but no way to connect my computer to the internet to post them. There are many internet cafes around (and cheap, too) but hard to find the time with the kids around. (As an aside, the keyboards here are different so it is hard to find some keys sometimes... where I am now, the keyboard is like at home, but some of the keys I hit don´t match what is on the key). Before I forget, Dara has posted some pictures [View Full Entry]

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How we came up with Costa Rica But first, a quick aside - thank you everyone for you great outpouring of support after our first travel blog entry. It really shows us how lucky we are to have such great friends and family. Please keep the comments coming. On a technical note, it seems that the comments you post on the web-site need to be accepted by us before they appear for all to see. Even after our acceptance, they do not appear for a while (I am not sure how long it takes, but it is more than an hour [View Full Entry]

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Why and How So, we have rented out our house, I have quit my job and we are moving to Costa Rica for seven months. Surprised? Jealous? Concerned? Well, you’re not alone. At this point, I think we’ve heard it all. The two most common questions we’re asked (and two most difficult to answer concisely - the way I usually answer questions) seem to be “Why are you going?” and “How did you come up with that idea?” Of course, the questions aren’t usually phrased like that. They’ve ranged from “What, are you crazy?” and [View Full Entry]

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