A trip to the doctor

Bella ran a fever all night and did not eat much breakfast. We called Ana, a cousin who also happens to be a doctor, and asked if we could meet up with her at some point. She said she was working a clinic this morning but she would be at her sister Nelly’s house after lunchtime. She said we could come there and she’d be happy to check out Isabella. We made arrangements for a friend of Maritza’s to drive us to and from Santa Ana, where Nelly lives.

After breakfast, we headed out to the farmer’s market, which stretches down the street just outside of their house. Hundreds of vendors were selling every type of fruit and vegetable you could imagine, and a few that you couldn’t imagine. Maritza bought some standard stuff that we were familiar with (corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, strawberries) and a few things that we weren’t as familiar with. One thing that Sofia took a liking to is called guava. In the States, what we call guava is called here guayaba. What they call guava here is a long seed pod kind of thing. You crack it open and inside is a row of white, soft segments. You eat these segments, but each one has a big seed. When I first put a piece in my mouth, it had the texture of a banana, but not the taste. The taste is hard to describe. Sweet and chewy. Eventually, the chewy fruit part separates from the seed, which is shiny, soft and greenish-black in color. Maritza said people make earrings out of the seeds. They are quite pretty. I later suggested to Sofia that she collect enough seeds to make a set of checkers out of them. We’ll see if she does it.

We tried another fruit called zapote, which reminded me of papaya. It had a taste kind of like papaya, but a texture more similar to a pear. It’s wild trying new fruits that have their own unique taste and are not really like anything else. All you can do to describe them is try to compare them to other fruits, but that doesn’t really do them justice. I didn’t really care for the zapote. Too sweet for me.

Sofia and Alex got a coconut to drink. The vendor whacks the top off with a machete, sticks a straw in, and you drink the milk straight from the coconut.

A man walked through the farmer’s market playing an accordion. Sofia and Alex each put a 100-colon coin in his collection cup and then Sofia asked if she could take his picture. The old man took off his hat, smoothed his hair a bit, stood a little more erect, and played for her and her camera. It was cute. She took a video clip with her camera, so she captured some of his song, too.

As we were leaving, the girls bought a couple of cups of fresh-milled sugar cane juice. Also too sweet for my taste. Costa Ricans like their sweetness, that’s for sure. In fact, this point was driven home the day before at the restaurant I went to with Sofia and Alex. The waiter brought us a plate of chips, salsa, and refried beans as an appetizer. In Phoenix, the salsa would almost definitely be spicy hot. This salsa was sweet. That’s Costa Rica.

After the farmer’s market, we got Isabella down for a nap, so she’d be well-rested for her trip to the doctor. Our ride came around 1 pm. The drive only took about 15 minutes. Sofia and Alex stayed home. (On the way to Nelly’s house, I saw a man at a bus stop wearing a Phoenix Suns cap.) It was nice to see Nelly again after all these years. We knew this visit would be short (since we had a driver waiting for us) but we will be spending a few days with Nelly later on.

Ana checked Isabella out. She looked in her ears. She looked in her nose and in her throat. She thought that Isabella had a virus because her ears didn’t look infected and her throat had some spots that looked like a virus that was going around right now. We were glad that we didn’t need to find antibiotics. Ana suggested treating the symptoms to keep her comfortable and ride it out. It seems that the virus has been lasting about 5 days in most cases.

Ana and Nelly were cooking for a big Arguello family reunion on Sunday, so we said goodbye and headed back to Pavas.

The kids needed an outing, so I put Bella in the sling, grabbed our umbrellas, and headed to Galerón with the three kids. It hadn’t rained for a few days, so today it made up for it. But we trekked along with our umbrellas and enjoyed the shower. I picked some children’s acetaminophen for Isabella, as well as some chicken for Maritza, and a box of Golden Grahams (cheaper here than in the States). I had been thinking that maybe a ball would be a good idea for the kids, who at times already exhibited signs of cabin fever. So we picked a blue plastic ball that said “Costa Rica – Alemania 2006.” The kids can now play with a ball and show their World Cup spirit.

We bought tacos for dinner from across the street. They were filled with chicken, fried, then covered with a mountain of shredded cabbage and heavily coated with mayo and ketchup. Alex didn’t care for them. So far, he’s having the hardest time adjusting to Costa Rican food. I’ve never thought of him as a picky eater, but he’s having a hard time trying things that are different. He’ll usually try a bite, which is good, but he often doesn’t want more than that trial bite.

I tried to find the Suns game on TV, but to no avail. I finally gave up and worked on transferring my journal to the blog. While doing that, I saw that the Suns lost. Ah well. They went further than most had expected them to.

Cristina and her dad tried to solve a Sudoku puzzle on the laptop while I worked on Ramón’s computer. When I had the blog up to date as much as possible, I went to bed and watched some TV until Cristina came to bed.

To see more photos from this day, click here.

Our first real outing

Isabella’s fever broke in the middle of the night, and by the grace of God, Sofia and Alex let us sleep late! When we finally got up around 9, I cooked an egg breakfast for everyone. Even Bella ate an egg, so it seemed that she was feeling better.

Our plan for the afternoon was to take a bus to a big park, called La Sabana, where there is a playground and lake. By the time we were showered and ready to go (I prefer to take my showers in the morning) it was time for Bella’s nap. Since she had been sick the night before, we decided it would not be wise to skip her nap, so I took the two older kids. We caught the bus to the park, about a 10-minute ride. We accidentally got off the bus about a block too soon, but the walk was nice. The park was beautiful and huge, a massive green space in the middle of the city, San Jose. Mounted police patrol the park, but unfortunately we didn’t see any. We did see some droppings. Horse that is, not police!

We’ve only lived in Arizona for 2 years, but already I have gotten accustomed to the lack of humidity. Ever since we’ve been here, I’ve thought it was uncomfortably humid. I feel sticky. It gives me a headache. Funny, I never really noticed it when we lived in Florida. How the body adapts!

After walking around the park and enjoying the lake and surrounding artwork, we crossed a busy street (and train track) to eat lunch. We picked a restaurant called Jicaro del Campo. The kids weren’t very hungry, so I ordered one casado (simple plate of rice, beans, platanos, and the meat/fish/poultry of your choice) and a kid’s arroz con pollo (rice with chicken). Sofia and Alex each got a refresco de Mora (a 100% natural fruit drink made with blackberries) and I got Coke in a glass bottle (my favorite here). The food was tasty, and a marimba player added some nice atmosphere. As nice as the restaurant was, the service reminded me that we were in Costa Rica. It took the same amount of time for our check to come as it did for us to eat our meal. Ah well. Not like we had somewhere to be.

We caught the bus home. Uneventful except for the drunk guy sitting behind me that kept speaking to me in Spanish. He actually had a can of beer open right there on the bus. At home, I made tuna melts for dinner. I used a yummy cheese called palmito cheese (despite the name, it has nothing to do with palm trees). While the kids showered, we got a late visit from Ricardo and his family. Ricardo and his wife Carolina have three children age 6, 4, and 18 months. The kids all played for about an hour while I made a couple more tuna melts. Later on, Ricardo turned on the TV and it was only then that I realized Ramon and Maritza have cable. Not only do they have about a hundred channels, but many of them are in English. We watched the last few minutes of the Miami-Detroit playoff game, albeit with Spanish-speaking announcers (the Heat won, sending them to the finals against either Phoenix or Dallas).

After Ricardo’s family left, we got the kids in bed. Since Bella was starting to run a fever again, we decided to turn in early. We even splurged and turned on the TV in our bedroom. While Cristina nursed Bella, she watched HGTV and the “Cosmo” channel, which was showing some chick-flick. I sat in bed with my laptop and updated my journal until about midnight, then we turned in.

To see more photos from this day, click here.

Unpacking Day

It would have been so nice to sleep in, but Alex and Sofia would not allow it. They were fighting over a book. They had already woken up their grandfather to investigate a rooster that had woken them up at the crack of dawn. I finally dragged myself out of bed. We started unpacking a few bags and when I found the grits that we brought, I made breakfast for the kids.

Isabella surprised us all by doing her first poo-poo in the potty (Ramón had acquired a toddler potty for us). There was applause and, of course, we took pictures.

Exhausted from the day before, we spent almost the entire day unpacking our bags, getting settled in, and relaxing. Since we were given the food vouchers the day before, we hadn’t eaten our bagged lunches. So we ate them now. Maritza tried a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, even though it didn’t look very appealing after a day of traveling around the world in a paper bag. She liked it okay, but her stomach has been bothering her lately, so she didn’t eat much.

Our first mini-outing was to go to the bank and change some dollars into colones. The exchange rate was 508 colones = 1 dollar. I changed $140. Many places take Visa, and you can also get colones out of any ATM. But I brought some cash to change just in case.

We walked down to the Palí, a chain grocery store. We went with the intention of buying bread, sour cream, and eggs but we bought a few extra items (ice cream sandwiches, milk, and cream cheese). While in the store, I accidentally hit my foot on the back of Alex’s shoe and broke my toenail.

On the way back, we noticed the street had numbers painted on it for the farmer’s market every Saturday (marking where each vendor’s spot is). It will be nice to have a farmer’s market practically right outside the door every week.

For dinner, we had rice, beans, tortillas, and salad. Then it was shower time for the kids. Let me tell you something about this shower. I used to show a movie to my film studies classes called “The Tune.” It’s an animated musical, and one song is about this “lovesick hotel” where depressed people go to stay. Each room has some kind of different method of committing suicide. One room has a chair under a ceiling fan that is hanging on by a thread, insinuating that if you sit under that fan, you stand a good chance of being injured by it. Yes, this sounds like grizzly movie content, but it’s actually handled in a very lighthearted, comical way. Anyway, the shower that we use here reminds me of that room with the dangerous ceiling fan. If you’ve read my other journals, you know that most households in Costa Rica use a special type of shower that warms the water in the showerhead, rather than using a whole-house water heater. This is much more economical, but it results in some compromises that most spoiled North Americans wouldn’t be willing to make. Namely, the harder the water pressure, the colder the water is. So to have warm to hot water, your shower is anything from a trickle to a gentle sprinkle. To achieve warmth at the showerhead requires electricity, even though electricity and water don’t usually make good partners, especially when you’re wet and naked. So the Costa Rican “suicide shower” has electrical wires running all over the place. When we got ready for our first shower, Ramón pointed out that when we turn the water on and off we should do it while standing on the bathroom floor, not from inside the shower. Otherwise, you get a slight jolt. Nice. To make this particular shower even more special, the showerhead is held in place over your head by a thin black string tacked to the ceiling. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not. I have no problem using the suicide showers. The nice thing about this house is you don’t lose all your water when the neighbors flush their toilet, which is what happened in Grecia. When Alex and I took a shower this night, I accidentally had the water too hot (i.e. I needed to turn the water on a little harder). But I was already in the shower. We tried to tough it out by splashing the hot water on our bodies, but the shampoo wasn’t getting rinsed out that way. Rather than get out of the shower dripping wet to adjust the flow without receiving a shock, I put my college education to good use. Plastic does not conduct electricity well. So I took a plastic-handled shower brush and tapped the water spigot until I got the temperature I wanted. I want all you gringos reading this to think about us the next time you take a shower in your luxurious North American showers.

After Sofia and Alex went to bed, Ramón, Cristina, and I sat around the table and chatted. Isabella wasn’t sleeping well and Cristina kept having to go nurse her back to sleep every 30 minutes or so. Finally, around 11 pm, Isabella threw up after Cristina gave her some belladonna for a fever. She continued to run a fever and throw up for the next several hours, which made our second night in Costa Rica an interesting one.

To see more photos from this day, click here.

Traveling

Cristina and I had high hopes of being all packed up and ready to go early enough to get a normal night’s sleep. But alas, this trip was to be no different than usual. We got to bed around 4:30 am, with my alarm set for 6:15. The kids were fairly bright-eyed and eager to get going, but Cristina and I were in a yucky, headachy, bleary-eyed fog as we forced a big egg breakfast down our throats and prepared to get to the airport.

Nancy Yaki and her daughter Bo arrived around 7:30. I loaded all the luggage (9 bags to check, 10 to carry-on, plus a stroller, a car seat, and some bagged lunches) into Nancy’s truck. Then, I drove Cristina and the kids to the airport in the van while Nancy stayed at the house. Returning to the house, I put the van in the garage, and then drove with Nancy to the airport in her truck with the luggage.

You’re supposed to check-in for international flights 2 hours early. We were about 30 minutes late, but it ultimately didn’t matter because our plane had mechanical problems. We were delayed an hour and a half. As a result, they gave us food vouchers for lunch. By the time they gave them to us, though, we were going to be boarding in 15 minutes. So we grabbed some food from Wendy’s, which was right beside our gate. We carried it on to the plane and finished eating it there.

Funny, when you’re in an airport, you tend to feel like you’re already gone, already started on your trip. Being in Sky Harbor airport for several hours before finally taking off made me feel like we had already left. So when we did take off, it was almost disorienting to see our neighborhood (we live near the airport) quickly shrinking below us.

The flight was standard-issue. Cristina was able to sleep for an hour or so with Isabella. I think I got about 15 minutes of a doze. Sofia read some and Alex watched some of the in-flight movie, “Glory Road.” Because of the delay, they gave everyone complimentary headphones, instead of the usual charge.

Because of the delay, we were at risk of missing our connection in Atlanta. We set down with about 15 minutes to spare, but it took nearly that long to get off the plane. Luckily, we met a couple, Doug and Anna, from Tucson who were also connecting to Costa Rica. They offered to help us with our carry-ons so that we could get to the gate more quickly. We all barely made it. Sweaty and hearts racing, we took off from Atlanta without even stopping to think about the fact that we were briefly in Atlanta.

Delta showed “The Pink Panther.” Alex mildly enjoyed the more slapstick moments. I must admit that even I laughed at the part where Steve Martin and Jean Reno start dancing to prove that they are Beyoncé’s backup dancers. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, but that scene cracked me up.

We touched down in San Jose with rain-streaked windows. It was about 8:30 pm, Costa Rica time, 7:30 Arizona time. Right before we landed, Sofia said, “let’s clap when we land!” She remembered that this is the custom for Costa Ricans. So as soon as the wheels made contact, we started clapping. There was a decent smattering of applause throughout the plane, no doubt partially instigated by us. We were satisfied.

To our surprise, Monica Fallas, who works at the airport, greeted us right outside the plane. Monica is an old family friend who, if you’ve read my other Costa Rica journals, you’re sure to be familiar with. She helped us all the way through baggage claim. It was chaotic when we finally got out to the street. The airport guys wouldn’t let us take the carts past a certain point. They wanted us to use them and their carts, which of course we would need to pay them for. Call me cheap, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay anyone to carry my luggage 20 feet after I’ve dragged it through my house, loaded it on and off a truck, and carted it through 2 airports. Since Ramon and friends were right there waiting for us, I hauled it all 2 pieces at a time while Cristina waited with it.

There to greet us were Ramon and Maritza, Maritza’s son Ricardo, and the Sheridans: Bill, Jennifer, and Callista. The Sheridans are recent transplants from Phoenix. Sofia and Callista, who were in third grade together, were excited to see each other again. They compared their heights, noticing that they were almost the same.

We loaded up into Ricardo’s car and the Sheridans’ car. As I put luggage into Bill’s car, I wiped some drops of water off the car and asked, “What’s this stuff?” Bill laughed. I told him he must have driven past some sprinklers on the way to the airport. We drove to Pavas, a city suburb west of San Jose, which is much closer to the airport than Grecia, which had been a good 30-minute drive. It took us about 15 minutes to get to Ramon and Maritza’s house.

We got all the luggage inside, took quick showers, and went to bed. By the time we were all asleep, it was after midnight.

To see more photos from this day, click here.

In 34 hours, we'll be on a plane

We've been "packing" for the past 3 days and there's still nothing in the suitcases yet. We've been running lots of errands, getting those last minute items, trying to clean up the house, and trying to be prepared enough to not stay up late Tuesday night packing. I hope we'll be mostly packed by dinnertime tomorrow, but the "to do" list is still pretty long.

This will probably be the last entry before we leave. It's about time to send family and friends the link to this blog so they can start reading it, if they're interested.

One last minor detail: I can't seem to find my passport. I have everyone else's, but mine has disappeared. Well, I still have about 32 hours to find it. No worries.