It is hard to believe that it has been over a week since the last time I blogged. Every night when I layed down in bed to go to sleep I would think, "Damn! I forgot to blog again!" and then I would promise myself that I would blog tomorrow. And then tomorrow would come and go and I would once again be in bed going...."Sheesh! Not again!" Well no more! I am going to blog today if it kills me!
****Well not if it kills me because then I won't be able to blog.....because I'm dead....anyway....****
So much has happened since the last time I blogged so this may be a long one. Hang on.....I need a milky way if I'm going to do this..............................
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Sorry that took so long....I needed a cold glass of milk to go with the refrigerated milky way bar! Now where was I???? Oh yeah, my week!
Well, after going to Jake's school, Friday, for orientation we, of course, went to the street market, on Saturday, and got a lovely palm to put in our house. Bob and I had looked at one outside the local pulperia but we decided not to buy it when the man told us it would be 35, 000 colones....about $65.00.....we thought that was a little much and started to walk off when he called us back. Thinking he was about to make us a really good deal we walked back to his truck. Much to our surprise he counter offered us with the lovely price of......$100.00. I'm guessing he is not very good at this thing we call "negotiating". LOL! To say the least, we didn't buy it for $100.00.....or $65.00 for that matter. That was a good thing because when we went to the market on Saturday we got a palm, with a container/pot to put it in, plus the man put it together and packed it with dirt, for 5000.00 colones....about $8.35. We liked that price much better. Of course, once we got back to our apartment it took us a couple days to figure out where to put our 7 foot tall tree! LOL!
Then Jake started school on Monday. He seemed a little excited to finally be getting out of the house and meeting kids his own age. He didn't get his schedule until the first day of school so we were pretty surprised when we saw what classes he had for the first semester. He has Physics, Math, Chemistry, Computers, American Literature (English), SSL (Spanish as a Second Language), and US History. That's a pretty tough semester. Next semester will be better when he switches classes and drops Physics, Computers, and Chemistry and they are replaced with Biology, Digital Photograhy, Phys Ed, and something called Pers. Proy. (yeah...we don't know what that is either).
You would think that now that Jake is in school we would have all of this extra time on our hands but that has not been the case! Aside from the fact that I am up at 5:15or 5:30 every morning to make Jake breakfast and see that he gets up and makes the bus, once he was gone we spent the day getting our paperwork together for Immigration. We got the papers back from Ivania on Monday, after she translated them into Spanish for us, and then we had to take them to Casa Amarilla to pay the last little bit we owed to get them to stamp them. That is a job and a half! You have to take a number and wait for the only person working to call you....out of the crowd of at least 40 or 50 people. Of course it takes twice as long when you realize that the papers you thought needed to be authenticated don't but the English set (Which you LUCKILY brought with you) does. So then it is over to the bank to pay and then back to Casa Amarilla to take another number. We were smart though....we saw that huge line....and took a number BEFORE we went to the bank. When we got back....a good 45 minutes later....we were up in 3 numbers! Yay! Of course it never got to our number because the English speaking lady saw us and came right out to us and took our papers back for us and got them stamped. Have I told you how incredibly friendly they are here? Even if you do have to stand in some really long lines!
So now we have all of our papers, translations, authentications, and stamps. All we need to do is get photocopies of them for our records. After realizing that our copier has gone Kaput, the next big decision is should we fix it, buy a new one, or go to a copy place, where they will probably not speak the best English (if any at all) and try to get them to copy 60+ pages hoping they don't take the staples out to do it....because if the staples come out, the papers are no longer any good. You guessed it....we decided to try to fix the printer first. After walking up to the American Embassy....well actually to the little store next to it where we needed to go to get 8 passport size photo's (each) for all of the paper work we were turning in.....and after my flip flop completely came apart in that store, and after we walked across the main road....me with only one shoe....and bought a new pair of flip flops at the grocery store (FYI: they have little feet so these didn't quite fit...too small), we decided to catch a bus to the top of town....because it was now raining! We are looking for a computer store through a bus crammed full of people, both sitting and standing, through fog covered windows for a store whose name we don't know. The bus stops, lets someone off and that is when I see a computer store right there. We go to get off, since the doors are open because the other person just got off, and as we do, the bus starts to pull off with me half on and half off and Bob standing on the curb in a terrible rainstorm! People yell for the driver to stop and I am able to exit the bus with no injuries!
Now we are trying to cross a 6 lane road in a terrible storm with my printer tucked into a bag under my arm and under the umbrella. We make it to the other side to only find a lake floating down the road that we need to cross to make it to the safety of the sidewalk. So through the lake we wade, my jeans now soaked half way up to my knees, and make it to the safety of the computer store, only to find out that they speak no English and unless I have the receipt (which I don't) there is nothing they can do. Grrrr!
Back out to the street we go where we flag down a cab and head to Hyper Mas to buy a new printer. That part of the trip was easy, the printer/scanner/copier was really cheap so the day made a quick turn around. We went home and I spent the rest of the day making copies. When Jake got home, we took him up to the passport place and got his 8 passport size pictures. Now we are ready to go to Immigration....and the police department to get finger printed for Interpol.
After Jake gets his pictures, we start to head home and come across a mattress place that has a little foam sofa (see the pictures on my Facebook page) that will fit perfectly in his room. Not only can he use it for his friends to sit on when they are over and playing games, but it folds out into a full size mattress that we can use when people come to visit. I decide to negotiate the price....remember my luck with the tree guy?..... and ask the man on the phone, (the woman in the shop spoke no English) if he would discount the price since it was a floor model. After quite a while, and after him asking me if I wanted to pick out a new pattern, and after he said, "So you'll take it?" I finally took matters into my own hands and suggested a price that was 8000.00 colones less than what he was asking. Then, after he goes off about what type of material and will we take it home with us our conversation is finally on the same page about it being a floor model. I told him we would even take it with us so he didn't have to deliver it if he would lower the price. He finally agreed and offered to lower it 15,000.00 colones. Didn't I suggest 8000.00 colones? Apparently I did better negotiating with him thatn with the tree guy!
So after a much larger discount than I had suggested, I paid for the sofa and we took it outsdie to take it home. Did I mention we were on our bicycles? :-)
Now the tricky decision on how to get it home. We tried to put it on the bicycle and push it home but that didn't work. Jake finally tells me to push my bike and his bike and he will carry the sofa home....which he did.....about two miles!
That night I am getting the papers ready to take to Immigration after we go to the police station and get our finger prints. Of course, I can't find an address for the Immigration department until 11:30pm when I also see that we have to have a cover letter....in Spanish....to go with all of our paper work. I am soooooo not staying up and typing a letter in Spanish! Immigration will have to wait until Monday. So we get up Friday and catch a taxi to the police station, and wait fro them to open at 7am. They finally let us in and we discover that they don't speak English in the police station. ***Sigh*** So we Spanglish our way through the whole ordeal, get our receipt, and head back outside. We flag down a taxi who doesn't know where Jake's school is. We tell him to wait and ask the next taxi if he knows where it is. He does! So we put Jake in the taxi, tell him we love him and to have a good day and send him on his way. Then we go back to the first taxi and luckily he knows where Rohrmoser and Final de bulevard are so we crawl into his taxi and he takes us home. We then get our bikes and bike over to Hyper Mas and are still back at the house by 10am. I spend the next 2 plus hours typing our cover letter in Spanish. I am finally done, make my copy of it and put all of the papers into an envelope and place them in the closet. We are now ready for the Immigration Department tomorrow. Please God, let me have all of the necessary papers!! All I want is that receipt from Immigration saying they have started our application and we will not be required to leave the country every 90 days!!
So then Saturday rolls around and we start out for our weekly trip to the street market. Not even a block away from our house we find a cellphone in the road. We come back to the house, look through the contacts, find a sisters house # and call it. We actually get the woman who lost the phone and give her directions to our house so she can come pick it up today....still haven't seem her. Then we head back out and go to the market. Now while we are there I notice a young man, late 20's early 30's, who is watching us the whole time. Everytime we approach him he is staring right at us and says hello...every time! I point this out to Bob and he starts to notice it too. I'm not talking once or twice...I'm talking 8 or 9 times. And he watches us through the crowd as we make our way up and down the row of vendors. Just when we are about to get creeped out, he says hello again and then asks if we are American. Asks us if we are visiting and when we say that we have moved here he asks where we live. (Of course we only give a vague...in the neighborhood answer) and he says he lives a couple blocks away and then asks if I speak Spanish. I tell him some and he asks how we can shop here when no one speaks English. I explain that I know amounts and how to communicate enough to shop here. Then he chats for a few more minutes. Finally we are ready to make our escape and he says nice meeting you. If we see him there again next week....he may qualify as a stalker! LOL!
Today we spent the day doing the usual....laundry, cleaning, de-veing shrimp. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! On the way back from the market Saturday, there was a couple outside our neighbors house with their trunk open. As we start up our road they flag us down and want to sell us shrimp and fish and something that looks like beef from the trunk of their car. I am trying to make a gentle escape when our neighbor comes out to get her purchase and starts raving about how good his shrimp is. She tells us she bought some last week and sauteed it in butter with some spices and it was wonderful. Mmmmm....that is sounding good! I ask what kind of fish it is and she asks him in Spanish then tells us Koby. Not sure what that is so I will look it up on line. We decide to get a kilo of shrimp....yes I bought seafood out of the back of someones car....but only because the neighbor said it was good! As he is bagging up our shrimp, he grabs the pacage of what I think is beef and asks again if I want some. At this point the husband is outside because the wife has gone inside to get her money. I ask what the red stuff is....the husband can't tell me in english so he goes to get his wife. She comes out and says...."Oh it is so good, it is called...ummmm... " then she makes a gesture with her hand like she is going to squeeze a litle kid on the head and says...."ummmmm....oh yeah.....octopus!" Um...I don't think so!!!! I kindly decline....:-).....and the neighbor says he comes around every week and that they have bought from him for years. Guess we won't have to make that trip to the ocean to get our seafood after all!!
I came home and we had shrimp for dinner and it was absolutely wonderful!! Froze the rest of it in two batches....so I guess there is more shrimp in our future!
Well. I think I have bored you enough so I will stop for now. Need to rest before our big trip to Immigration tomorrow. Wish us luck!
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