OMG I have the INTERNET!!!

Finally! Now I can post some updates. We will be here 2 weeks tomorrow. More work than fun! We have finished the primer coat in the living, kitchen/dining room, and our bedroom. It looks waaaayyyy better than before. Cheery. So here's some before and after pics:

The house when I saw it in June:

The house now:

We are going to paint the window and door trim white again I think.

The living room in June:

The living room now:

It still needs stuff on the wall and some tables but we are getting there. The floor is the red ochre that I wrote about last time. If we stay here we will tile it but we aren't sure what we are doing yet.






I will post more pics tomorrow and as we get stuff done.

So let me tell you what was involved with getting the internet. First of all we don't have internet in the barrio where we live. They say it is coming in two months. Right. So they told me to get internet on my phone and use it as a modem. Sounds good, works for 5 minutes at 4 am and works slowly. A really nice guy at I.C.E. (eesay) the government run communications distributor (i.e., the only game in town) told us we can get a data card and then subscribe to a service for the card. They get 200 cards at I.C.E. approximately once a week. They come in with little notice, and sell out within a half hour. Needless to say we are not one of the lottery winners. So the girl at I.C.E. says why don't we just buy one in the city? Oh, this is an option? sure! OK so we go to the 1 store that sells them and lo and behold Mario knows the guy who sells them. Shoot, just sold the last one. So he says there is a shipment that is coming on Friday at 4:30 and he will hold one for us. Whoopie! Friday at 5 we go to the store just to make sure. Yup the shipment came, but they are not in inventory, come back in 15 minutes. No problem! I am so close to internet access I can taste it! We come back in 15 and bad news. The truck could not fit all of the boxes so they left one and you guessed it, it was the cards. But they will be in tomorrow first thing. OK I can wait!  Next morning, this morning, we go into the city at 8:30 and wooo hooo there are the cards! But they are more expensive, seems everything was repriced last night since the dollar is so low. Regardless we buy one. Wait, you need to activate it, and they don't do it here. So they send us to Alex Cellulars across town. Alex Cells says they can't activate data cards, only I.C.E. can do it. Luckily they are open until 12 on Saturdays, because Costa Rica closes on Sunday. So off we go and find the I.C.E. office close by. Take our number, everything here has a number machine so you know how long you will need to wait before it is your turn. Our number? 61, what are they on? 25. sigh. Finally we get our turn and I have my precious internet access!!!