Expats in Costa Rica: Eat, Pray, Love to Eat

June, 2015.

At last!

We are here in Costa Rica, land of the coffee, home of the gallo pinto!

Gallo pinto translates loosely to "spotted rooster," and is the national dish.  It's mostly beans and rice, and it's served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  (Not sure what the rooster has to do with it.)

I'm no stranger to rice and beans. As a single mom and vegetarian for many years, beans and rice was a staple in our home.  Just … not necessarily the tastiest one.  But, ok.  If this is what's for breakfast, I'll … adapt.   The research I'd done into Costa Rica said the food was bland, boring, and repetitive… so, ok, whatever.  If it's beans and rice for breakfast, I'll just … buckle down and eat it.

Husband and I were hungry and wandered into a tiny soda - a small, mom-and-pop restaurant where food is prepared from scratch.  There was no ham, bacon, or biscuits and gravy on the menu.  Everything was a variation of gallo pinto.  His came with eggs; mine with cheese - plus toast, plantains, and coffee.

Dude.

Gallo pinto is DELICIOUS!

HOW COME NOBODY SAID SO?!  Expat food bloggers???  I don't know why gallo pinto is so scrumptious, but now I'm on a mission to find out.*

The servings were huge but the price was not.  We got two full breakfasts, the best coffee I've ever had, and the satisfaction of doing business with real people instead of a corporation.  Total cost: less than 8 dollars, and that's with the tip.

You heard me.  LESS THAN 8 DOLLARS TOTAL, WITH THE TIP.

And we were full ALL DAY.

Cue the choir!  Let the church say, "Amen!"

And somebody please give me the secret of gallo pinto***!

*UPDATE: The secret is lard.  Beans and rice are prepared normally, and then sort of stir-fried in a light coating of lard, until the edges become a little bit crispy.  The Lard cooks in mysterious ways.

** UPDATED UPDATE: The secret is also Salsa Lizano, also known as my new favorite beverage.

Expats in Costa Rica: Lighten Up!

Seattle, May 2015.

The decision is made.

We fly away on June first, and the house must be dealt with.

Burning it down is not an option.

We rented a large home to accommodate our blended family of 4 daughters, but it wasn't long before all 4 chicks left the nest.  Now, there's just a big house, a tiny yard, an obscene heating bill, and loads of stuff.  

Honeymoon in Costa Rica, or, We Live Here Now

January, 2015.

My first look at Costa Rica was through honeymoon-tinted sunglasses.

I was in love, and ready to fall in love with the country.

The road out of San Jose was curvy, shockingly green, and filled with mom-and-pop stores.

Notably absent: big box retailers and road rage.

Our destination was a 107-mile straight shot from the airport to the coast, a little jewel of a spot, and I was ready to plop my behind into the warm Caribbean water.

What I wasn't ready for was the 5-hour drive it took to get there.

Costa Rica does not have huge interstate highways.  

In fact, the roads are notorious for being in poor repair, and barely marked.

What IS this even?!

But the tradeoff?  More than made up for it.

We drove through a twisty mountain pass and a cloud forest that looked like it came straight out of the Jurassic.

We skimmed the sides of mountains, and looked out over lush valleys.

Everywhere we turned, something was fruiting or flowering or both.

Those tropical plants from the garden store were there, in their native habitat, and they were HUMONGUS.  I mean SERIOUSLY. Who knew that the variegated croton is actually a TREE?!

"This feels good.  I could live here," I said to Husband, as we inched along behind a truck carrying a load of coffee cherries.

"I could too," he said.  "This reminds me of home when I was a little boy."

And so it came to pass, two future expats in Costa Rica started asking questions and hatching ideas.

We had been in the country a grand total of 20 minutes.

Honeymoon in Costa Rica, or The Adventure Begins

Seattle,  2014.

We are planning OUR WEDDING!

Fancy dresses for me and our four daughters!  My hot husband in a dashing tuxedo, looking like a magazine cover!  An epic party with all our friends and families!

Fancy food!  Fancy drinks served in fancy glasses!

FLOWERS EVERYWHERE!

And it only costs a bazillion dollars and your first born child!  Um, no.

Ahem.

Planning, shall we say, is not my strong suit.

As I started investigating All The Things, the first thing I noticed was the expense.

It was … sobering.

Thousands of dollars for a poofy dress to wear ONCE?  Most of these dresses cost more than my first car!  Matter of fact, most of them cost more than my CURRENT car, and I wear her every day!

And I have to buy four more dresses for our bridesmaid daughters?  Seriously?  Four girls, four different personalities, opinions, and complexions -  united only in the guarantee to hate anything I pick.

A VENUE.  We didn't reserve a venue a year in advance, and it would be $900 just to get a room at the library for a few hours.  And the park?  Nuh-uh.  All the spaces are already reserved!  Shoulda booked last year!

The stuff!  Flowers and centerpieces and gifts and photography and accessories and invitations and postage and a quadrillion other things I've never heard of or thought about.  To this day, I STILL don't understand "chair swag."  Or why a table might wear a skirt.

It would make a saint cuss.  And I ain't a saint.

As my fiancé and I looked over the budget, nausea rose and my eyes started to gently cross.

"To hell with this," I said, "Let's spend the money on our honeymoon!"

"Works for me," he said.

Costa Rica Dreamin' Part Two

I didn’t always live in a cold city.

50 shades of grey? How about one shade of grey, the color of depression.

My upbringing was an anomaly among my Generation X peers – I grew up in the country, doing farm chores, taking care of animals, running wild in the woods.  

There was no cable tv.  

I caught frogs and shelled peas.  

There were no visible neighbors, and a trip to town was kind of A Big Deal.  

The Texas sun burned my eyes and skin.

I miss the smell of the earth.

Ok, I admit the sunsets here are spectacular.

What would I do if I could do exactly as I please? 

This, or traffic.  Hmm, let me think.

Probably quit my job and go to Costa Rica.

Maybe my skin would lose that grey pallor.

What would you do?

Costa Rica Dreamin'

Seattle.

The Emerald City has been my home for the last 10 years.

Puget Sound, home to orcas, seals, and 9 million seagulls, has a chilly beauty all its own.

Glass towers compete with snowy mountain peaks to make a striking skyline.

My job is in that building, right there.  No, the other one.

Seattle has a reputation for being progressive, modern, and green – and yet the city sprawls into interminable suburbs.

Traffic falters and stops.  The 7 mile commute from home to work takes an hour.

I work in a steel and glass beehive downtown, where I report the news, shiver, and desperately guzzle bad coffee.

The eyes of strangers and co-workers alike remain downcast.

Today, the news is the same as yesterday.  The weather is the same as always – cold, wet and dark.  The cloud cover seems to have an actual weight that presses on me from every side.

I pretend to be cheery and chipper on the radio.

Ten months have gone by since it was warm enough to go outside without a jacket.

The sky, the water, the street, and my skin are all the color of wet cement.

There MUST be something better.

What would life look like if I could tell my "boss" to shove it and go be an expat in Costa Rica?

What if I did it?

What if I didn't?