New Family!

Our Tico Family is huge!

We live in Rosemary's house. She is still marrie, and her husband is in the US working for Wells Fargo. He actually lives near our house in Mesa, near Country Club and University. She is a mother of I believe 5 children and a few grandchildren. Her children are adults, 3 of which are around frequently.

Gabriela is a lawyer in San Jose and lives on the other side of San Jose. She has a 4year old daughter, Montse. She is adorable, requires constant attention (like most women), and is great source of practice, both listening and speaking.

Francisco is a business administrator, I think for Delta Airlines. He lives at home right now, because I believe he was divorced recently.

Marcela lives in a house on the same property as Rosemary's house. Marcela has two sons. They are not around often, and I have met them briefly but do not remember their names. I think one of them is Adrian.

The house next door is Rosemary's sister. Behind our house, are Rosemary's cousins! From what Rosemary told me, her parents once owned a gas station just down the street and all the houses between there and here. Which is 4 different houses! Not sure what or how they did it, but this is a very successful/wealthy family! Rosemary's children are all bilingual or at least close to it and the whole family has traveled to the US often, mainly Utah and Arizona.

Final cool factor!!! They have the best last names!!! Chinchilla and Sandoval!! In the Latin American culture they keep the maiden name as well as the man's name. Anyways those are my favorite Hispanic/Latin American names! And it just so happens to be the fixture of family names of the family we are staying with!! I thought it was sweet and had to share!

Mi cerebro esta llenado

My brain is full! Seriously, we are overwhelmed in the amount of new vocabulary and bombardment of new verbs and expressions! It is so rewarding and yet very tiring! We are begginning to see the benefit of practicing with the new words we learn! It cannot be underestimated how much one can do or far one can go when one commits the time and effort to practicing! Practice makes perfect! This is so true. Regardless of the material that one is trying to learn, pratice is what makes it stick! My (Jordan) favorite spanish teacher in high school, Mrs. Shaffer, use to say, "repetition over spaced-intervals for best retention"! She is so right! Even when writing emails, this blog, or journaling I find myself spelling words wrong because I want to write the spanish word despite the fact I am writing in English-Love it!!!!!

We are having the time of our lives here!

I need to tell you guys about the friends we have made; the large family we are living with; and what a life without worldly distractions is like (I should keep our stuff in storage forever)!! Stay tuned!!!

Buenas noche!

Homestay

Here are some pictures of the bedroom we are staying in and the kitchen table! We have had 2 meals so far with freshly squeezed orange juice and blackberry juice! A-Mazing!

We are staying at the house of Sandoval-Chinchilla family. Rosemary, our Costa Rican hostess, is a homemaker. She lives with her son Francisco (1970), a business administrator. Grandchildren Julian (1998) and Adrian (1997) live behind this house. They live in Sabanilla, a short bus ride from our school.

language school

So it begins! Krystle and I head off to our homestay today! We are living with a Costa Rican family for a month and attending a language school starting on Monday!

The equator...

...is really hot!!!!! And seriously, it's deceiving! We were in the sun for no more than 30 minutes and it fried us! Krystle, the pale beautiful lady that she is, was fried bright red in less time than it take to cook a deep dish pizza at Oregano's, which take around 45-60 minutes to cook, and is sadly one of the only American restaurants not here in Costa Rica! (Kyle they have TGIF's here).

We drove along the West coast of Costa Rica and it is gorgeous. There are multiple farms of pineapple, coconut, and other fruits not common in the U.S. of A.

The beauty of the beach was shocking when considering the lack of hotels and people covering it. They must have been tops of 12 people on the beach, including Krystle and I. Maybe the off-season or just a beach underdeveloped to this point. Anyone interested in investing in it?! Joint venture?!

We visited Escazu today, the Foreigner City as I have now dubbed it. Most of it's buildings are similar to American design and it has an Americanized feeling to the streets and layout of the city. Despite the fact that Costa Rica has around 30,000 foreigners living in it, the majority of that must be in Escazu or wishing it were for a taste of home. We visited the International Baptist Church, the largest English speaking church in Costa Rica.

Staying at a new hotel tonight and a train travels nearby that will undoubtly keep Krystle up!

The Misty Mountains

This is the Pan-American highway between San Jose and San Isidro de El General! It was out of this world. The roads and mountains were completely engulfed by clouds and misty winds!

Driver's Ed 101

I do not even know where to begin about the adventures of today.

We rented a car today and boy, that was either an enormous mistake or challenge for greatness. I'm still not sure which. Driving here put driving anywhere to shame. It's truly insane, chaotic, and demonic! Granted, I am at a disadvantage for not knowing the roadways, social standards for driving, and was lacking confidence in order to protect my first rental car- still though, the Ticos are the worst drivers in the world!

To prepare you mentally for the roadways here for when you guys come to visit imagine this. You are on a 2 lane highway (4 total lanes, 2 each direction), a sign tells you that the lane ends-ends in 50 meters! Ceda el paso! Yield the way is the only warning, usually on the street itself and a sign, but literally less than 50 meters to combine the lanes. Another issue!- many times a 2 lane road (1 lane each direction) comes to a narrow bridge that goes down to one lane!- which in turn has the same "Ceda el paso" sign, where one direction of vehicles must yield the road to incoming traffic! As we were driving between mountains 2 vehicles in front of us met in the middle of a bridge, honestly- words do not express the drama that we witnessed! Craziness!

Beyond the insanity that is driving in Costa Rica, the country is gorgeous! Oh my! The landscape has no ugliness (the cities horde ugly so the countryside gets none) and is so refreshing to see natural forests, blue skies, and clouds that encourage napping! Pura Vida! This place really is the pure life! Having walked around San Jose for multiple days we were becoming a little disenchanted in Costa Rica, the countryside redeemed our hopes and rejunvenated our ambitions! Beautiful!

We visited the towns of San Ramon, Greica, and Atenas. The cities of Puntarenas, Heredia, and Alajuela.

Tour

Krystle and I took a tour today that was extremely helpful. Check out therealcostarica.com!

It was usually a 2 day tour for people looking to retire here, but we were able to use him to explain major questions we had about living here! It was very useful in bouncing off ideas and having reality dropped on us about some of our plans. Here are some pretty pictures of the countryside and wild flowers!

Santo Domingo (Day of Rest)

Krystle and I awoke early this morning, 9am, and planned on seeing what time the church services were. We walked out of our unit and the streets which were usually packed with cars, taxis, and supply vehicles were completely empty. It was quite ominous, and initially we were hesitant to go any further. However, we pushed on as we had a busy day ahead of us.

We explored a new region of San Jose, a subdivision/community called San Pedro. We were looking for a company called Viva Network (Viva.org) an organization that Krystle and I were hoping to find more information about in order to voluteer some time. We did not find it and retreated back to the large mall and saw El dia de Enamorados (Valentine's day). We really enjoyed the the movie's emphasis on communicating love and taking the opportunity to truly express how one feels!

Afterward we went to a catholic church called Saint Teresita. It was a beautiful church and great reminder to us that Jesus is alive and active regardless of language, country, and denomination: in other words serve others and honor Jesus. It really is that simple.

Downtown and Maps

Krystle and I walked through downtown San Jose today and walked by a galore of bazaars and shops. We bought some tamales for dinner and survived another ankle scare as Krystle almost rolled here ankle. Here are some pictures of the city and the mountains that surround San Jose. It's in a valley similar to Phoenix.

Confession: I love maps! For those of you that have been in my house, you have seen my large world map by National Geographic dated 1984 or so. I saw a map of Costa Rica in the Holiday Inn here in Costa Rica. I forgot to take a picture, but have no fear, I will go back tomorrow and get a picture! Words cannot give justice to the beauty of this map, as it had 3D terran! As I enjoy history deeply I also hold a special place in my heart for maps, especially old ones!

Fire damage?! Call AZ Fire and Water

This house was burned up! Not sure how long ago or even what has been done about it but this house was found in the Sabana Sur portion of San Jose.

Father, I found some business for you! Time to relocate here!!

For sale! Done!

Skype!!!

Having just successfully skyped with my sister and parents, I highly recommend the experience! Very cool! Let me know if you have Skype and Krystle and I will definitely make time to do it with you!

Side note.. while telling a story about one of our adventures today I was reminded of a very salient truth. Learning is best when one's life is in danger! Seriously, think about it!

Example from today; Krystle and I followed some local Ticos across a busy street. They were nonchalant in getting across this street, they were walking! Well when they went, we went-under the impression this was a safe time to cross! Wrong- a delivery truck rips around the slow car that had given us the opportunity to cross and was coming straight at us! We sprinted at this sight to the sidewalk, and I mentally vowed not to dilly-dally across anymore streets!

Also, I do not condone risking death in order to learn valuable life lessons. Instead listen to your parents, wives, teachers, and Jordan!

Apple store, bees, and el hombre lobo

Krystle and I set out today to find the Universidad de Costa Rica... without a reliable map! The map provided by all the hotels near us had only the southern portion of San Jose, and even that is being generous. So looking online with the belief I had memorized where it was and how to get there we were on our way.. and ended up at a mall!

There we found an apple store! A movie theatre, which we watched el hombre lobo (the wolfman), on opening day mind you, with about 15 other people in a movie theatre at quarter capacity for $3 each!!! Incredible!!! Then asked for directions to the universidad and set back out on our journey. On this new journey we discovered a tree with branches out over the sidewalk swarming with bees! And no one seemed to mind or pay any attention to the fact that bees were everywhere!!!! Needless to say, I was beside myself!!! Tengo miedo!!!!

take a walk today

Cars are so overrated! haha

So Krystle and I walked around the subdivision of Aranjuez this morning and found ourselves a supermercado (super market). We bought some food for meals and found a subtle difference already in the way Ticos(Costa Rican native) store certain food. They do not refrigerate eggs! Crazy!

We're planning on renting a car for saturday and sunday to drive around the city and country side when there is hopefully less traffic, which has given rush hour traffic a whole new meaning.

We are going to head to la Universidad de Costa Rica and check out the car rental companies!

COSTA RICA!!!

It has begun!

Enormous mountains masked in beautiful clouds greeted Krystle and I early this morning as we landed in San Jose, Costa Rica!

After walking around a portion of San Jose, Krystle is asleep on the lobby couch and I'm starting the blog!