Roads in the Rain

Thanks to Casey from a Dull Roar for posting the pics of the road to our house. It was a mess for weeks and really scarey to drive over! One day we were heading up the mountain behind a really heavy truck and I made Mario stay wayyyyy back because I was sure the truck wouldn't make it and the road would collapse with us right behind him! To see the pics and Casey's post - A Dull Roar: A road by any other name would smell as ...

COWS

This morning I was in the bedroom making the bed when Diego started barking towards the front balcony. I opened the door to see what he was upset about and to my surprise saw 4 cows coming down the driveway! They were calmly eating the grass along the edges. Diego went ballistic and started barking like crazy! The cows looked up and bolted away. I swear Diego puffed up to twice his size, lol, he was so proud that he scared those HUGE dogs off his property!

I can communicate!

After months of people asking if I am living in a tunnel I can finally drop Skype and make calls via a phone card! I have no idea why when I use Skype to call out it sounds like I am in a cavern, but it does. So my conversations consisted of what? what?! WHAT!!! OK I will call you back. ICE, the telephone/electricity company here is government owned and currently the only game in town. For some reason (read $$$ here) they do not let you use Skype on your cell phone to call out. You can forward incoming calls to your cell, but cannot make Skype calls that way. In both of the houses I have lived in there was no internet option save the data card over the airwaves. Because of their gross underestimation of how many people would want to actually use the internet, there is hardly enough bandwidth to have any kind of performance over these cards. I am able to work at a decent speed, well mostly, but trying to use VOIP and run anything else is virtually impossible. So I shut down every application with the exception of Skype and repeat myself incessantly. This makes teleconferencing for work virtually impossible. So if I had a phone meeting I was using an office at Mario's brother's shop or hoping I would not have to share a desktop while on the phone. The nicer folks would call me so I could let the call go to my cell and they would conference me in. Those days are gone - YIPPPPIE!

While we were at the feria I decided to stop at the used books stand in the back corner. I had seen the ad for it on Craigslist and really wanted to read some english. I do miss english here. So I stopped and there is this sign - phone calls to the US 6 cents! Woo hoo - now I had been looking on the internet for phone cards, but couldn't fins any that let you call from CR to the US - only the other way around. So I bought one to try out. I also bought books and cheese, yeah there's always a mixed bag at the feria. I spoke the vendor for a while, what a nice woman. Mario was laughing because he knew I was liking the english for a change of pace. But anyway the card is great! I got 200 minutes for $12 (she takes a little profit on the card). I used the whole 200 minutes over the weekend and in meetings today so I emailed her for more and asked for a card with more than 200 minutes. Within a few hours she had gotten me 2000, well I will have the codes tomorrow, but whew what a relief! Everyone I talked to asked why they could understand me, my dad's really happy cause he was the biggest complainer!

The info for anyone who is interested in these cards is:

http://puravidaconnections.com/
or email 6cents@puravidaconnections.com

I am not selling the cards, just passing the info along. It was a godsend for me so maybe someone else is having the same issues.

What a storm!

OK it was yesterday, but still the effects kind of freaked me out. We weathered it close to our old house in Los Angeles because we were at a soccer game again. It didn't feel that bad there, just a TON of rain and thunder and lightning. When we got home I thought we had been robbed! We had Mario's sister, Maria, and her family over in the morning. It's one of the things I have had to adjust to. She came at 8:30 AM. I don't know about you, but in the states if someone decided 8:30 was a good time to visit I would set them straight! Here we are usually up at 5:30 so it was no big deal.

Anyway, we showed them the house and must not have shut the doors well because we came home to Diego greeting us from the balcony! Both balcony doors had blown open, the 2 bedrooms had the screens wide open, and the trap door for the attic had blown off! It must have been a LOT of wind! All of our valuables were still intact so I am sure we weren't robbed lol. Mario assures me wind can do all of the opening we had experienced. Oh and the upstairs floors were all soaking wet so the wind came with rain. I am kind of glad we weren't home, but I am sure Diego was scared!

Las Quebradas Biological Center

Today we had planned to go to Wilson Biological Center in San Vito but it was POURING this morning and we decided against it. When the day turned out to be beautiful we wound up at Las Quebradas Biological Center across the river from our house. The drive there is pretty, and the gardens are OK. It was only $2 to get in, $2.50 if you don't live in Costa Rica, and you sort of get what you pay for. If you live close it's worth a trip. It seemed like maybe in the tourist season there was more because there were several buildings and a souvenier shop that were all closed. There was a class from Canada volunteering to fix up the butterfly exhibit so that was closed too. The man at the gate said in the morning there are monkeys, but we didn't see any. So these are the cows on the road to the place. I never tire of the cows in the road lol.

The really cool thing about the ride up was that we got to see our house from afar. Being bright orange it really stands out!

OK Maybe you don't find our Diego as cute as we do, but this is new hobby... we call him Señor Busybody.

Clouds for Breakfast

This is breakfast at our house, I wonder why we pay for TV?

Mario enjoying his first cup of Costa Rican coffee. (Johanna notice his FAVORITE mug, we can't believe how big Bianca is now!)

These 3 shots were taken within 15 minutes of each other, the clouds roll in and out in the morning.

Yippee Found the cord - Here's our new home sweet home!

This is the kitchen, we really are not fond of the green but Mario is all painted out since he painted our house in Pa to sell it and then his house in Los Angeles. He just can't face painting this house too and I don't blame him! I am trying to get some stuff for the walls to tone it down. The shelves and counters are all tiled.

The barn doors in the front of the living room go to the front of the house. The side doors go to the garage/car port.

This is the dining area. We finally got the chairs back today. They were easily chipped and it was driving us crazy so we sent them back to Katia and Carlos and they put a coat of poly on them. Lets hope it works.

This is the garage/car port. Mario was going crazy cleaning the orange mud off of the white tiles so we bought some rubber runners to keep it clean. Now the stones they put in are ripping the rubber so he washes the car before he puts it in. Way too much work if you ask me, but he is happy. See the mountains in the backround? That's what makes me happy!

We had bought this table for the other house. There is a place down the road that makes them too (it's not where we bought it). We stopped in to see if they made patio blocks. Not only do they make them but Cristian came to the house and laid them. I had seen the tables tiled at the Mirador restaurant near our house. Turns out Cristian did the work! So we went to the tile place and used some of our credit and he tiled the tops of the table and benches for us! I think it looks great! He also made me 6 hangers for the balcony so that I can hang the plants you see in the garage pic. Since we rent we can't make holes and this works great! He also made a sheppard's hook for the platanos I am using to attract birds. What an inventive guy!

Here some views from the balcony on the second floor. I really am loving it here!

This is a little building below us that the coffee farm in our backyard uses. I think it's kind of cute.