Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 22

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Costa Rica honestly did it's darnedest to break me but all ended up going to plan. For those that don't know the in's and out's of the visa I was applying for, I'll give you a brief run down. The E-3 is a two year work visa available only to Aussies and the catch was I had to leave the country to apply for it. The five criteriors I looked for in choosing a destination were; 1. A short wait time for an interview (Scratch Canada) 2. A short wait time for visa processing (Scratch Bermuda) 3. Health and Safety (Scratch Mexico) 4. Close to the US (Scratch Australia) 5. Cheap flights and accommodation (Scratch Europe and Jamaica). Costa Rica fit all of those requirements and after many phonecalls at $10 a pop to arrange an ... read more
Strapped up and ready to rock!
Not for the faint hearted!
Go on.......


On June 11, after a hard day of Spanish class, we took a tour of the capital of Costa Rica, San José. After our lunch at a “soda” we made our way downtown. Our first stop was the National Theater. Once inside, we saw a painting that once was on the 500 colones bill. This painting depicts the culture here in Costa Rica. Also, the government no longer uses the 500 colones bill. Once we sat down in the theater, I tried to picture the beautiful place filled with people and outside surrounded by coffee bean fields. Gold leaflets brought out small but amazing details. (Fun Fact: Costa Rica is famous for gold found in the southern part and jade found in the northern part of the country.) From there we went into another room where ... read more
Lunch
Food at the "Soda"
National Theater


Costa Rica is not in South America, so the blog should really have been "the adventures of TJ and the Beej in Latin America" but you´ll forgive us this poetic licence... So continue our adventures, after a week of Level 2 Spanish courses in Buenos Aires for me and a week at home for her mother´s 60th for Taruna. We arrived in San Jose on the last day of May and managed to arrive within half an hour of each other. One would think that we had planned it all along... I had an uneventful flight from Buenos Aires with a stop over in Lima (the airport was very new but there was a smell of fish permeating the air...) and arrived in 25 degrees of heat and tropical rain. What is there to say about ... read more


22nd MAY 2009 - ARRIVAL IN COSTA RICA!! Loads of taxi men outside the bus station again but after hearing the American girls story we decided to give the taxi a miss. We asked at the bus station for the nearest ATM and luckily it was just up the road. I drew 70,000 colones out!! Love it!! Armed with cash we managed to find a hostel nearby. It wasn’t anything special but much better than the previous night and the hostel couple seemed really nice. I felt loads more relaxed in Costa Rica as it did not have the dangerous vibe going on!! So glad that we had finally arrived!! Once we had dumped our stuff the hostel man walked us to a nearby food place so that we could get some tea. Not a great ... read more


There is lots to see walking in San Jose I have visited monuments, shops, parks and markets walking around San Jose. The weather has been really nice and cool compared to the heat and humidity of the tropical coast. Every day it either rains or threatens to rain and then I come back to the hostel to eat or have a siesta. It gets light a little after 5 am and I have a hard time staying in bed, so I get up and walk or check stuff on the computer. I had planned to study more Spanish but is isn't as fun as chatting with people in English and Spanish or seeing the sites. I have spent some time watching the TV and reading the papers in Spanish. Apparently there has been one confirmed death ... read more
In the Gandhi Room
In the Gandhi Room
My bigger bed


Now in San Jose San Jose is a busy city but it is full of small parks which have nice landscaping and are cool and restful places to sit and enjoy the activity around them. I am surprised at how much I remember about the area from all the walking my group did from the Global and Community Health Field School last year. We spent a lot of time in the Barrio Amon and this time i am looking at Barrio California. These areas appear to be safer in San Jose based on what I read in my guide book. I ended up staying at Casa Ridgeway which is a really humble but clean and comfortable place. The staff is very friendly and helpful and without a reservation all I could get was a 6 bed ... read more
Outside the Dorm Room
Dawn
Dining Room


I will write more here this is just my starting place, the things that stand out the most in my time in Costa Rica. Firstly, Costa Rica is an awesomely beautiful place. Off the beaten path there is still a little of the unexplored in regards to towns, but a plethora of unexplored rainforest.. The pace of life in rural areas is slow and people spend a lot of time socializing with family and friend and in the city most are working very hard to make ends meet. People tend to keep to their own families and can be distrusting of others. I found taxi drivers to be both the best and the worst of the Costa Ricans. In central San Jose and by the beach, many of them are bad. But in smaller towns they ... read more
Samara
500 Meters from My House
san isidro


Awesome country. Infrastructure was well beyond what we expected but shouldn´t have been a surprise for a country that´s a tourist/retirement/tax haven for the US. It has no army and a greater number of teachers than police, so it has attracted a lot of peace-loving folk from its neighbours, including a fair number of US Quakers. Like Panama (who are running their Canal more efficiently and safely in the decade since they secured their property back from the Americans) they haven´t picked up too many bad habits from the Yanks and some very special national characteristics we saw through out the country included... oversized bed sheets that they never stayed on, undersized ´spray-on´clothes worn by women, young and old, presumably so that they never stayed on. And while the food was fantastic it was somewhat limited, ... read more


Mi fekk nokle uventa og uonska dager i San Jose for den store avskjeden. Mi provde aa bruke dagane effektivt saa det mi fekk gjort var litt intens soling, forsok paa handling (som mislykkes) og strikkhopp med sprett (for Cici den toffe:) Bjorgis hadde nok med aa vere paparazzi). Denne byen anbefalast ikkje, styr unna om du kan:) Idag er det seiste dagen mi har i hop, sida Cici lyt heimte og Bjorgis er raatoff og turnerar vidare paa eiga hand. Det er med tungt hjarta vore vegar skillast, men mi har hatt 5 straalande, innhaldsrike, komiske (den interne humoren har naadd nye hogder) og ikkje minst knall gama og uforgloymelege maanader i hop. No ser mi fram til mang ein fest og kaffikalas med mimring naar begge er vel heime:) Cici onsker Bjorg Maren ein ... read more




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