This week, I’m going to continue with a partial grocery shopping list of our hard- or impossible-to-find gringo food items. Again, I expect to elicit a sizeable reaction from readers informing me where they found gringo food items I said we couldn’t find or couldn’t afford. Maybe you missed my blog 2 weeks ago? Then, I’ll…
Do you think you will miss your customary delicacies after moving to Costa Rica? If you are going to reside in Costa Rica, there is one adjustment you are probably going to be required to make. It is learning to find or invent substitutes for delicacies that don’t exist here. Other delicacies are so obscure…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes I couldn’t connect with a recommended English-speaking specialist for a medical appointment. You’ll see, I’ve learned to have patience. I was having a troubling medical situation. So now my Plan B is to attempt to see a GP in the town next to mine. I called and the receptionist connected…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes When moving to Costa Rica you’ll need medical attention. So what’s available when you retire here? While we’re still waiting for our “cedula de residencia” as “pensionados” we’ve kept our MediCare in the States. Just in case there is a real medical necessity. So, if something major required a return…
Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes I’ve found out how to pay my utility bills. But I’ll start this blog with a disclaimer. My chosen topic for today’s blog, paying utility bills in Costa Rica, is a bit like an unfinished symphony: the final stanza has yet to be written. It also reflects my own personal…
It is tourist visa stamp time for my wife and me. Our 90-day visa was expiring and we needed to make a border run. Therefore, we had to leave Costa Rica and re-enter to renew our visa. That was the only way to keep our U.S. driver’s license and Costa Rican driver’s insurance in force.…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes How can you legally drive when you have just moved to Costa Rica? Can you legally drive on a pending residency? Have you decided to settle down and start living in Costa Rica? Maybe giving it an extended tryout? Then you’re going to have to leave the country every 90…
TicoNuevo joins ranks at the horse parade. A little-known fact for novice “tope-goers”: you can actually rent a horse and join the riders in most Costa Rican tope or horse parade. We had this offering at our horse parade. Some of the renters, to be delicate, “detracted somewhat” from the aura surrounding my vision of…
If you want to move here, I insist you learn about the tope in Costa Rica. As my practice riding sessions continued on schedule, I recalled the team’s uniform requirements mentioned weeks ago during our get acquainted dinner (a black cowboy hat, white dress shirt, black jeans, western belt and buckle, and a pair of…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes TicoNuevo starts practicing for his first tope, a whole new experience. One more neighborly communication came through our shared caña India fence. I was reminded of my first horseback riding “lesson”, I needed practicing for my first tope or horse parade. This was going to happen on the first Tuesday…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes This is how the wish for my first tope started. Your Costa Rican guide books and online resources probably define a “tope” like a horse parade. Using a very liberal interpretation after my first experience with one, that’s as accurate a description as I can give. Every town of any…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes So, we’ve completed 98% of our home improvement project. Friends say that this is the Tico way of finishing things. Honestly, I think it happens everywhere. But allow me to tell you all about it, so you can learn from my mistakes. We have finished the business with my contractor…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes I’m sure you now want to learn more about the remodeled result of our home. We went through a long and detailed process, but we’re all happy with the remodeled result. We bought our new property in Costa Rica at a price that allowed us to afford all of the…
Planning to import your household container? Then be careful and be patient! Our construction projects continued. And based on our prior inquiries and due diligence, we thought we had timed the arrival of our household container pretty well with our move-in date. The ongoing progress of the work at our house to receive our container…
Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes I have now learned to watch my pants because I was stung by a scorpion. On occasion, the relevance of an event or experience needs to be related while it is fresh in one’s mind. Therefore, I’m taking a brief detour in this blog from writing about our home improvement…
I told you last week that we had to move into our home under construction in Costa Rica. It didn’t matter that the contractor was still working on the reconstruction job. Unfortunately, less than 48 hours after we moved into our new home, we were on a flight back to the States. It was a…