mklein - The Orchid Lodge Costa Rica

I have been working on my PhD in wildlife conservation, but after completing my Masters degree, I decided the I have been in school for far too long. My wife Rachel, a pediatric nurse, has been sick of her job since the moment she began working. So one day around February 2006 she and I began to discuss the possibility of selling everything we own, picking up our lives, and moving to Costa Rica to open a strictly kosher, "5-star" inn / hotel / bed and breakfast in Costa Rica. Fulfilling our lives' dream without having to wait until we retire.
This is our story as it happens-
Visit Our Website at:
http://www.theorchidlodge.com

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Joined on: July 26th 2006
Last Login: May 5th 2008

Blog Entries: 39
Photos: 0

TB Code: [blogger=21238]
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by mklein, order by Date newest first.

By mklein
May 4th 2008

The Orchid Lodge is For Sale

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

We have decided to sell the business. If you're interested in starting your own adventure, please check us out. http://www.theorchidlodge.com/sale [View Full Entry]

By mklein
September 6th 2007

There are no mops in Costa Rica

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

People often have a hard time understanding that there are basic items that one cannot obtain in Costa Rica. With all that is said about it's modernity, there are countless things that people take for granted living in the US that are not even a part of daily life down here. I am not talking about HDTV or High-Speed internet, (while neither of those are that easy to come by in CR) I am talking about basic necessities of life. There are certain items that our family brings down for us since we cannot get them here, such as nicer baby [View Full Entry]

By mklein
June 3rd 2007

Running at Full Capacity while having a New Baby!

Central America Caribbean

Our new son Yoni Zev was born 2 months ago and he is wonderful. There was a rough patch in there but now he is happy most of the time, laughing and smiling for a fair bit of time that he is awake. That doesn't mean that he is an easy baby, he does not like to be put down very often. He always wants to be held and we try to abide by his request ;) While we were closed to recover from having Yoni over the past two months, we have had an incredible number of reservations coming through. [View Full Entry]

By mklein
May 18th 2007

The Lights Go Back On - The Energy Crisis Ends

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

After living for 2 weeks with power outages lasting from 2-5 hours a day there was sufficient rain in near the dams to allow the hydroelectric plants to start producing again. The power outages are over! It's amazing that even though it was only a couple of hours per day, it impacts you life in so many ways! This week they were working on the lines up the mountain, so not only is Costa Rica's power back on line and running at 100%, we should not be affected by even the worst weather! Thank G-d for small miracles :) [View Full Entry]

By mklein
May 3rd 2007

Costa Rica's Energy Crisis - Living in Darkness

Central America Caribbean

Costa Rica is in the midst of a dire energy shortage. Hydro electric plants are running dry, thermal plants are breaking down, and we are losing power! Costa Rican Paper has the story here Reuters News has the story here This story talks about how it is affecting hotels (us) We have been dealing with rolling blackouts for two weeks, and a massive blackout a couple of weeks ago that left us without power for almost 6 hours two days in a row. With our new schedule being completely dependant upon the baby, blackouts in the middle of the night can [View Full Entry]

By mklein
April 24th 2007

Baby Klein makes his appearance!

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

Baby Klein makes his appearance! Sorry this has taken so long to get online, but it’s been a bit of a crazy couple of weeks. On Sunday April 8th, Rachel gave birth to a beautiful baby boy at hospital CIMA. Everything was wonderful, we were in the hospital over the festival days of the holiday of Passover, where we don’t drive or use electricity which made for an interesting 48 hours. Fortunately my parents were in town, and they stayed across the street at a hotel. They kept a ton of food in their room and we made the holiday as [View Full Entry]

By mklein
March 20th 2007

Our Costa Rica Contacts - Everyone that made our move possible - This is Critical for anyone relocating here

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

Since coming to Costa Rica, we have thankfully fallen into amazing contacts. This is not typical, as most people have horror stories about one person or another. Thankfully for us, everyone from our realtors to our lawyers, contractors, bankers and more have worked out perfectly. I figure it is good for them, and anyone else that may be looking to relocate here to have a list of tried and true contacts here. Without these people our move here would not have been possible. Please don’t add to this in comments, there are others I am sure, this is just my list [View Full Entry]

By mklein
January 29th 2007

A (successful) first month of business, and a handful of happy tourists!

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

Well, we are almost finished with our first month and things have gone well. Obviously we would have loved to have been full the entire month, but we did pretty well considering that we opened our doors less than 30 days ago. We have had 14 guests through the hotel and it seems that all have been thrilled with the results. (I will get some of the thank you notes up as soon as I get permission to release them.) Its interesting running hotel, it’s far more work than we could have ever imagined. Rachel is up at 5:45 cooking for [View Full Entry]

By mklein
January 15th 2007

The Hotel's Pool is up and running - New Pics

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

Pics of the hotel can be found at the following site- CLICK HERE FOR GALLERY Here are some pool pics- Orchid Lodge's Website - http://www.theorchidlodge.com Click here to read our blog - http://blog.theorchidlodge.com [View Full Entry]

By mklein
December 31st 2006

The first Kosher Hotel in Costa Rica opens its doors for business (that’s right we finally made it, and within hours of being on schedule!!!)

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Heredia

We celebrated the opening of our hotel last week. We had our first guests and everything went better than I could have ever imagined. Rachel’s food was spectacular, although it is clear that she’ll need help in the kitchen which I can offer now, and we’ll hire someone to do so in the future. All of the rooms and bathrooms were completely finished and considering what many of the hotels look like here, I am sure that our guests were pleasantly surprised. The first night that our guests were here, we stayed up after dinner playing pictionary. The following day I [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » mklein

mklein | The Orchid Lodge Costa Rica | Travel Blog

mklein - The Orchid Lodge Costa Rica

Blogs & Travel Journals

The Orchid Lodge is For Sale

There are no mops in Costa Rica

Running at Full Capacity while having a New Baby!

The Lights Go Back On - The Energy Crisis Ends

Costa Rica's Energy Crisis - Living in Darkness

Baby Klein makes his appearance!

Our Costa Rica Contacts - Everyone that made our move possible - This is Critical for anyone relocating here

A (successful) first month of business, and a handful of happy tourists!

The Hotel's Pool is up and running - New Pics

The first Kosher Hotel in Costa Rica opens its doors for business (that’s right we finally made it, and within hours of being on schedule!!!)