Spanish Classes in the Barrio

About a year ago, John started taking Spanish classes with a group of about 20 expats. They met once a week and their instructor, a local Tica, who is a native Spanish speaker. Wouldn't you know it, this past February, just as everyone was getting in the grove, their teacher up and quits because she accepted a job out of town.

We were at FUF one afternoon, enjoying a beer, and several of John's classmates and friends were bemoaning the loss of their teacher. Everyone was disappointed and they weren't sure what to do to continue taking lessons. Before I knew it, I opened my mouth and volunteered to step up to try to fill their learning gap.

Mind you, I am NOT a teacher, I never studied Spanish, but I am pretty fluent, with a strong grasp of the language. I picked up my Spanish back in my 20's via the school of hard knocks. Consequently, my Spanish is full of colloquialisms, or "dichos," as we say in Costa Rica.

In March, I started teaching Spanish to a small group of 6 students in our Rancho, on Tuesday afternoons. The group has now grown to 12 students, and I've limited the class size due to table & chair space, and the size of my PC's monitor. The class is informal and everyone brings their beverage of choice, and sometimes snacks to share.

I'm spending several hours a week preparing lessons and finding new material to teach. The stuff available online is amazing. I've found some terrific websites, some with downloadable PowerPoint presentations, and games to help reinforce the lessons.

Folks appear to be learning and the feedback has been good. No matter how hard I try to keep it interesting, not everyone is into homework. My goal is not to get them to speak perfect Spanish. I just want them to understand what they hear and be able to participate in the conversation. Half the battle at our age is just not being afraid to speak. It doesn't matter if it's wrong. It's the effort that counts.

We have a 22" PC monitor that hadn't been used in the 5 years we've been here. We figured out how to use a number of connectors to attach the monitor's 9-pin VGA port to the HDMI port on my laptop. It works pretty well, but it's still hard for everyone to see from a distance. We've talked about getting a true video projector, but they are so expensive. Anything decent will run a least $400-$500.

Several folks have heard about my class and have asked to join, but there just isn't any room. I've started a waiting list for a second class and we'll see if there is enough interest in the community to make it worth my time.

On Wednesdays, when I'm not teaching Spanish, I switch gears and help a local doctor with her English pronunciation. Wow, is that an eye opener. I never realized how many English sounds simply do not exist in a native Spanish speaker's diction. Trying to explain how to use the muscles of the tongue to produce English sounds has been an interesting challenge.

I kid you not, being retired is hard work and we are busy all the time. I use my appointment calendar more now than I ever did in my working career, and maybe part of that is because my memory isn't what it used to be.

¡Pura vida, mae!
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Today we are celebrating our 2nd anniversary living the good life in Costa Rica

Two years ago today, we said our goodbyes to loved ones and flew from Houston, Texas, to start our new life in Atenas, Costa Rica. What a wonderful time we have are having. Everyday we have to pinch ourselves and ask, "are we really here... are we really living this dream?"

Everyday we wake early up to the sounds of birds singing in the trees. Some mornings you can hear the howler monkeys down by the river below our property. At certain times of the year we get large flocks of parrots in trees picking the seeds mother nature has provided. They cause quite a ruckus with all their squawking.

Upon our arrival in 2011, we moved into our little 300 square foot Casita and immediately started the process of building our Rancho to give us some outdoor living space. This was completed in November, and then it was time to start construction on our new home. The Casa took about 6 months to complete. In June of 2012, we moved all our furniture and personal belongings from the Casita's garage to the Casa Grande.

We are loving our new home and this wonderful town of Atenas. We have made many new friends and I think we have more of a social life here than we ever did back in the States. The culture just lends it's self to socializing. So unlike the big city we came from. There everyone is always in a rush and has no time to stop and just enjoy life. Just today, we went to the local farmers' market to pick up the week's fruits and vegetables, and I thought we'd never finish with the shopping. We kept running into both old and new friends at the different vendor stalls, and of course we had to stop and chat with everyone for a few minutes.

A few months ago we decided it was time to turn our little Casita into a vacation rental. This has worked out very well. We have met some great folks and picked up enough extra income to cover the expenses of maintaining the Casita and the main Casa.

Do we have any regrets about moving to Costa Rica?

Absolutely none!

Do we miss family and friends from back in the old country?

You betcha!!! No one can ever replace them and we miss them everyday. We just hope they will come visit us soon and see this wonderful place we now call home.
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Day-to-day living in the land of Pura Vida!

I came up with a new saying recently that sort of sums up our day-to-day life:  "Retirado es la belleza de hacer lo que quieras, o nada en absoluto!" For our non-Spanish speaking family and friends, it translates to:  "Retired is the beauty of doing whatever you want, or nothing at all!"

I thought it might be fun to tell you a little about our daily life around here. So here goes...

We share Casa Wegner with our two boyz, Randy the Jack Russell Terrorist and Gustavo (The Gooooose for short) the rescued street dog. Gooooose holds no pedigree that we know of, but our best guess is a Miniature Pinscher with some Terrier thrown in for good measure. Da boyz, as they are affectionately referred to, let us live here in exchange for their daily rations, treats, and, or course, the daily belly rub and ear scratching.

Da boyz, get to do exactly as they please, whether it's running across the roof top of the casa, or fighting each other over a stick. 

Chasing black stripped iguanas is a favorite pastime and once they spot one in a wood pile, they will be entertained for hours, and sometimes days, long after the iguana has made it's escape over the wall.  Randy now has 2 kills to his name.  We always try to rescue the iguana and remove him from the property, but we are not always successful.  Here is one of Randy's victims.

Our days start early around here.  The birds start singing around 4:30 AM, but we have an obnoxious rooster in the neighborhood that is known to start his cock-a-doodle-do as early as 3 AM.  If we ever find out exactly where he lives we might have us some nice chicken and dumplings one of these days.

We also have a neighborhood boy we have dubbed, "Calvin", that loves to get up with the birds.  Calvin is an annoying child that whines about everything and he is incapable of speaking unless it is in an ear-piercing shriek.  He screams at his mom, she screams back, et cetera.... you get the picture.

Generally, we love waking up to the birds, but then there is the local coo coo bird with a two note song.  This little guy is out to make me crazy and now John has taken to imitating him for fun.  Ha ha, I've got a nightstand full of a lifetime supply of excellent ear plugs in defense of Calvin and coo coo bird.

About 5:30 AM, the Goooose wakes up and jumps on the bed ready to play with Randy.  Randy will growl at him until he settles back down and then we all try to get another hour of sleep.  When we are ready to face another day in paradise, John makes the coffee, while I whip up something yummy for breakfast.  We almost always enjoy breakfast on the Terraza, looking out over the valley below and mountain range in the distance.  There is this one mountain formation call the "Sleeping Woman".  She can be seen from all over the central valley on a clear day.  From where we sit, it is easy to visualize her hair, eyelids & lashes, neck, breasts and belly.

After breakfast, it's time to catch up with what is going on in the rest of the world, so we log on to the laptops to read the news, answer email and catch up with family and friends on Facebook.  Later on, John will water the potted plants on the Terraza and in the Rancho and let the daily afternoon rains take care of the rest of the trees, bushes and lawn.  Right now, in the middle of the rainy season, everything is a luscious green.

Around 10 AM, I start planning something for our main meal for lunchtime.  We eat very light in the evening, maybe some fruit & cheese, or a lighter portion of lunch leftovers.

Friday mornings we try to make it to the local Feria del Agricultor (Farmers' Market) in the park in front of the local high school.  They start selling fresh fruits and veggies around 7 AM and start taking down the stalls around noon.  You can find all sort of goodies here, including fresh meat, poultry, eggs and cheese.  We even have a couple of expats selling baked goods, like sweet rolls, coffee cakes, and breads.  We usually spend between $25 - $30 U.S. for a week worth of fruit and veggies.  We buy our meats at a local meat market or at the super market, Coopeatenas, and we make all of our baked goods at home.

About once a month we make a morning trip into the big city to stock up on staples and bulk food items at PriceSmart, Costa Rica's version of Costco or Sam's Club.

We eat out at a restaurant at least once a week and frequently meet with friends to share a meal. Lately we've started playing a fun card game with two other couples that are also retired expats from the States.

We continue to work around the house, doing some landscaping, unpacking, and still re-arranging things. This is an ongoing process and we are in no hurry to finish. After all, we are retired.

Lazy afternoons may find us in a hammock reading our Kindles, or snoozing, with the ever persistent coo coo singing, and Calvin's whining adding to our background noise.

We have a plaza in front of our place where soccer games are played regularly. There are community teams playing excellent soccer on Sundays, and then there are pick-up games all during the week in the late afternoons. Some of these Ticos are very talented. I really love it when the dads are out there kicking the ball around with their little kids. It is so much better than having the kids parked in front of the universal babysitter; a TV or PC.

Compared to the geocaching we did when we were in the old country, we've done very little of this fun outdoor activity since we've been here. Now, with the construction of the new casa finished, we will be able to get out and about a lot more. There is still much of this country I want to show John, so I expect we will be taking more and more day trips with a little geocaching thrown in for good measure.

Life is good, and we are so glad we made the move to Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!
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Retirement - Days 7 & 8: The first harvest from our Mango tree

A little over a year ago, we planted lots of fruit trees and here is the first harvest from our Mango tree. It is amazing how fast everything grows here in the tropics.


 
The boys have settled into life in the tropics, as you can see in this photo of John and his pack. Randy is just a little jealous, but he will always be top dog. Gus is doing well, we just need to get him to stop chewing everything in sight.

Yesterday, I got a little creative and cooked a meatloaf in the electric skillet. It actually came out pretty amazing and much better than I expected. It takes longer and you have to turn it over about half way through the cooking time to brown it on both sides. Since meatloaf always needs a tomato sauce topping, I decided to experiment and try my hand at some homemade tomato ketchup. I used some fresh limes from a friend's tree, garlic, wine vinegar, tomato paste and splenda. I think I like it better than any store bought brand I've had. Heinz, better watch out, you may have to make room for some new competition.

Last nights dinner with meatloaf, rice and a salad was delicious. Today we need to pick up some bread at the bakery so we can enjoy some leftover meatloaf sandwiches for lunch.

Cooking in the little casita has certainly been challenge with the lack of space and tools. I have to use all my inventive skills to create interesting meals. I can't wait for our 40' container to arrive next month. Then I'll have a real gas range with a real oven. I'm more than ready to activate my sourdough starter and get back to bread baking.
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Retirement +5 days: Enjoying ourselves and expanding the family

It's been 5 days since we arrived and we have been on the go since we got here. We finally got to meet some new friends we have been exchanging emails with for months. They are from Kentucky and retired to Atenas a couple of week before we did. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together and finally put some faces with the names. We hope to get together frequently.

This past week, we've had lots of miscellaneous business matters to take care of; paying for trash pickup, paying our annual property taxes (they were due back in January,) and getting a new P.O. Box (the physical address is a little complicated.)

We also expanded our little family by adopting a little brother for Randy.

We've named him Gus. He is a mini-pin/terrier mix, about 9 or 10 months old. He was rescued from the highway 10 weeks ago. Ever since we brought him home, he and Randy have been romping through the yard and the casita, barking at anyone, or anything that moves.

We heard from our shipping company and our 40' sea container should be here by August 12th. Now we have to put some flooring in the attic of the casita so we will have enough room to store all our stuff until the we build the house. We met with friends today that will be here tomorrow morning to help us build out the attic.

Before we build the house, we want to build a "ranchito" so we will have a large area for socializing with an outdoor kitchen and barbeque. John started working on the drawings for it today and hopefully we can get started on it very soon.
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Grand Canyon Road Trip - June, 2011

We scheduled a quick road trip to the Grand Canyon to scratch one more item off our bucket list before the move to Costa Rica. We drove out west from Houston and visited a number of places in New Mexico and Arizona. I sure am glad we live in a humid climate now and we are moving to a humid climate next month. We both suffered with sinus and nasal problems the entire trip. We got so tired of hearing, "But, it's a dry heat." I'll tell you what they can do with that "dry heat."

Here'a a slide show of some of the photos we took. (Hint: You can click on the slideshow to enlarge to full screen.)
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Countdown to Retirement: 12 Days to go and we just sold the house!

Woo Hoo!!! The plan is quickly coming together.  We listed the house for sale on May 2nd, and here we are, 30 days later, with a signed agreement and a closing date on July 8th.  Costa Rica, here we come!

We just booked a 40' sea container for all the stuff we are shipping from the Port of Houston to Costa Rica.  We will have a few hours to load up on the morning of July 6th.  Then, we have another day to clean up the house for the buyer's walk-through and closing on the 8th.  I guess we're going to have to call a cleaning service to help us, since all the cleaning tools (vacuum, mops, brooms, etc.) will be long gone in the container.  It's just as well, since we will probably both be too exhausted from packing to actually clean the house too.

We are so ready to start our next adventure together in Costa Rica.
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Countdown to Retirement: 100 Days to go!

Hard to believe John will finally retire in just 100 days. I received my first Social Security Retirement Benefit payment last month. I haven't worked (except around the house) in more than 2 years, but now I'm officially retired and getting paid for it. John submitted his application for Social Security Benefits today and it should become effective in July.

This past month we finished fixing up the inside of the house. Wallpaper has been pealed off the walls, sheet rock has been repaired, ceiling damage has been fixed from the water pipe break we had last summer, and all the rooms have a fresh coat of paint. This afternoon John replaced all the old door knobs on all the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets. Now, if I can just get him to fix the spot light over the kitchen sink, we'll be done indoors. The inside of the house really looks great and I think a potential buyer will be pleased with all the nice touches we have added.

This week, work will start on the outside. We have some minor stuff to fix outside, then everything will be power washed. We removed a 50' pine tree from the front yard that had finally succumbed to disease and now we will get started on some landscaping to improve the curb appeal.

In the middle of all of this, we are also trying to cull through stuff, packing what we can and setting aside what will be going to the kids. Then, there is all the stuff that will either to donated or trashed. It amazing how much stuff you can get rid of, stuff we really don't need, when you make up your mind to downsize.
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Countdown to Retirement: 145 Days to go!

Everything for our retirement is starting to fall into place!

While on vacation in Costa Rica this past December, we got our Costa Rica Drivers Licenses and wrapped up a number of details for my Residency application. I was fingerprinted and photographed at the Fuerza Publica (National Police) for Interpol and then we meet with our immigration attorney to sign some paperwork.

All of the documents have now been certified by the Costa Rican Consulates and officially translated into Spanish. I received a confirmation this week stating my application for residency has now been submitted to Migracíon (Immigration). Once my application is approved, we will start the same process for John.

We have a number of things we need to do before we can sell the house. We need to paint a couple of bedrooms, replace some carpet and fix some minor stuff. We've started taken bids for the painting and repairs and hope to have the house ready to go on the market this Spring.

This weekend, the agent from the shipping company will come by and take a look at the furniture and personal belongings we plan to ship. He will give us a quote on the shipping cost, Costa Rica import duty and delivery to our home in Atenas.

We're hoping our kids will come soon to take away a lot of the furniture we don't want. We have way too much stuff and downsizing is a real challenge.

Hard to believe, in just 145 days John will officially retire!
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Social Security, Pension and Costa Rican Residency

It's official, I've applied for my Social Security benefits and should receive my first check beginning in 2011. As part of the process, Social Security Administration found an old pension I forgot I had.

Years ago, I worked for a division of ADP that was sold off to some investors and several years after that, it was bought by the company that eventually laid me off. It turns out I had worked at ADP long enough to qualify for a pension, albeit a small pension, it is guaranteed income for life. When I talked to the HR rep at ADP, she said they tried to contact me at the old address they had on record. I have moved 4 times since I worked for ADP, and changed my last name too. Anyway, ADP is sending me a packet of information to apply for the pension. I thank Social Security for checking their records and finding this for me.

Two years ago my half Tico (Costa Rican) son, Donald, went with me to Costa Rica to get his "Cedula", the Costa Rican national identity card. Now that he has this, I can apply for unrestricted residency as the mother of a Costa Rican citizen.

After much research, and many recommendation from other expats, we have decided to use the consulting company called "Residency in Costa Rica" (RCR) to handle our residency applications and all the supporting documentation required by the Costa Rican Government. This week I mailed RCR all of the initial documentation to get the process started. This included my birth certificate and a letter of good conduct from the local police department. All of the documents have to be authenticated by the various States where they were issued, then the Costa Rica Consulate has to authenticate the States' signatures. After that the Consulates signatures get authenticated by the officials in Costa Rica. Then, all of the documents have to be officially translated into Spanish before the application is finally submitted.

When we go back to Costa Rica later this year, I will be fingerprinted and photographed. Then RCR will be ready to submit the residency application to Immigration for approval. RCR anticipates it will take from 4 to 6 months for my residency to be approved and the government to issue me my cedula (the equivalent of a "Green Card" issued to legal immigrants to the U.S). Once I'm approved, we will start the application process for John. He will be entitled to residency as my spouse.

We'll keep you posted on the process.

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A Change in Lifestyle...

We've decided we need to get in better shape. We plan to have an active lifestyle once we make the move to Costa Rica and we want to be fit. This means we intend to eat healthier. In January we changed our diet and started cutting out a few of our favorite things: sugar, white flour, potatoes, pineapple, bananas, tortilla chips and junk food in general. We've both lost 15+ lbs, but its slow going. They say slow is better. It will take us more than a year to get to where we want to be weight wise.

The second part of the plan is to get more exercise. We started out by walking the trails along Buffalo Bayou. This is a series of both paved and dirt trails stretching across 15 miles here in West Houston. There is an entrance to the trails about a ½ mile from the house. This is a favorite haunt for walkers and bikers. Since John's favorite form of exercise is cycling, we decided to buy me a bike so we could both ride.

Four days after we bought my bike, John tripped! He didn't trip exercising, he tripped over the handicapped curb at lunch one day. The x-rays showed a hair line fracture at the tip of the leg bone, where it joins the ankle. I suspect he also cracked the orbital socket bone of his right eye too. But my "tough guy" John, passed on getting medical attention for it. (See John's eye in photo with granddaughter Cali)

Needless to say, this put a crimp in the exercise plan for a short time. After 3 weeks of rest and being chauffeured to and from work, the doctor gave him the go ahead to get rid of the Velcro leg brace. The plan is to get back on the bike and ride with me this week.
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Our own little piece of paradise

Well, its official, we now own a little piece of Costa Rica. We met with our attorney yesterday evening and Carolina signed the documents to transfer title to us. It will take about 2 weeks for the property to appear in our name in the "Registro Nacional de Costa Rica".

While we were with the attorney we went ahead and set up a Sociadad Anonima (the equivalent of a corporation) in the name of "Heger y Wegner S.A." This will make it easier for Vinicio to act on our behalf until we actually make the move.
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Altitude 2300', Latitude 84.27.728 W, Longitude 9.59.275 N

We had an uneventful flight down to Costa Rica yesterday. Once we arrived we picked up a rental SUV and a Garmin GPS with maps of Costa Rica. This morning we went up to our lot in Atenas and using GPS we were able to plot our exact location as follows: Altitude 2300', Latitude 84.27.728 North, Longitude 9.59.275 West. The exact altitude may be a little off, but its as close as we can calculate with the tools we have.

Costa Rica has a very interesting way of giving directions and addresses. Most streets don't have names and you almost never see house numbers. All addresses are given in measurements from known landmarks. So, using the Tico method our address will be something like this:

100M Este de la Escuela Fatima

Costado Oeste de la Plaza de Futbol

El Cajon de Atenas, Costa Rica

Once the house is constructed we will have a south easterly vista of the surrounding hilltops.

After our visit to Atenas, we took a drive to the Pacific coast to see Playa Jaco. Along the way, we stopped at the Rio Tarcoles to see the crocks.

Playa Jaco turned out to be a big disappointment from the beach it was many years ago. Now it's a dirty little tourist trap with lots of grandious plans to build big hotels, golf courses and condos for the tourist industry.

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Learning to speak Spanish

Yesterday John installed RosettaStone's language learning software for Spanish (Levels 1 & 2) on his laptop. This is supposed to be the best language learning course on the market. This should help him learn to speak, read and write in Spanish in a relatively short period of time. Even though I'm fully conversant, I'm hoping I'll be able to use the program to "bone up" on my writing skills.
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February Trip

We are headed back to Costa Rica on February 5th to handle the title transfer on the property we bought in Atenas.

We recently found out a company called SmartWays has teamed up with Garmin to provide GPS navigation in Costa Rica. We plan to test their system while we are there. If it provides decent routing, we will see how we can license the software for our own Garmin StreetPilot.

We plan to visit some of the local nurseies to see about planting fruit and shade trees while we are there. We are in the middle of the dry season, so we may have to wait until the rains pick up again in April or May. It'll be nice to have the trees in the ground and producing fruit by the time we build the house.

This trip will be longer than our last visit, so I'll have time to show John some of the other areas of Costa Rica he didn't get a chance to see last time. We'll be headed home on Valentine's Day.
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Starting the Transfer Process

We just received an email from Marco stating he has an appointment with the Abogado (Attornery) today to discuss the requirements for the title transfer on the lot in Atenas (Athens in English). It looks like we are on our way to being property owners in Costa Rica.
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