All we’ve been working towards was over in about 2 hours with a lot of happy kids!
Thanks to the many people who took one of the 300 angels or otherwise contributed to the project!
Finger Prints for Residency
I am one step closer to my residency in Costa Rica. Immigration informed my attorney that it was time to be fingerprinted at the San Jose Police Station. I made no photos, so here is a verbal report of Thursday, 3 December 2015:
4:30 AM – Up for shower, breakfast and walk to the bus station
6:15 AM – Bus to San Jose
7:45 AM – I exit bus at northeast corner of Parque Sabana, 4 blocks from lawyer
Appointment is at 8:30 AM, so second breakfast at Soda Tapia (famous!)
8:30 AM – Meet attorney Jose Pablo Carter at his office 150 meters east of Soda Tapia
9:00 AM – We arrive in his car at Police Station with maybe 15 people ahead of us
We complete paper work and then I do the musical chair thing like at bank
This was just one long row of chairs. As a person is served we all move up
the chair line until I was next to be served. About a 25 minute wait.
Maybe 15 minutes of a guy two-finger typing all my info in a computer
He glues the three photos made back in February to 3 different forms
Then gives me all my paperwork and sends me to the fingerprint girl
I learned later she was new. She did 3 fingers then new form, start over
because she did one of my fingers twice 🙂
Then she gave me two of the photo/thumb print cards to take to my attorney
He gave one back to her and explained to her where it went (Wow!) Learner!
10:30 AM – We drive away from police station and he says no one knows how much longer
I will have to wait, maybe 2 months. But we have made some progress!
10:45 AM – He is taking me to a taxi stand to go to bus station because he has a meeting.
Then he sees a taxi, flags him down and I move to the taxi headed for the
Parada de Autobus de TUASA – there are about a dozen bus stations depending
on where you are going. I go to Coca Cola Station for Atenas bus but I need
to go to Alajuela to pick up a package at Aerocasillas. So I go to the
Parada de TUASA for the next bus to Alajuela. 5 minute wait!
By noon I’m in Alajuela with my package ordered from Amazon of a Hypoallergenic & Bedbug proof mattress cover and pillow covers which I have not found here. Then a quick quesadilla and I have only a 5 minute wait for bus to Atenas (Lucky? God’s will?). Near the bus station in Atenas is my primary hardware store where I find they have only 1 soaker hose left, so I get it and try Coope Hardware and they have none (I need 2). I call a taxi and tell him what I want and he takes me to a third hardware store (ferreteria) and they have one left. Great! I just bought all (both) the soaker hoses available in Atenas! 🙂
I go home and install them in two gardens and water the gardens. My front yard and trees had a sprinkler system installed yesterday by my gardeners at a really good price, about what I paid for the two soaker hoses! Now my yard, trees and gardens are ready for the dry season without me spending two hours every two days holding a hose to them. Bear in mind that it may not rain again here until May!
When finished, it was 5:30 and I suddenly remembered I had a 5:00 Spanish class! Oh well! I am exhausted and will catch up next week. 🙂
Today is Friday and I got more cash for Angel Tree expenses (trying 3 ATMs before one worked!), paid one Angel Tree bill, got groceries, and I’m staying at home the rest of today! Susan picks me up at 6:50 tomorrow morning for Angel Tree party preparation. She and I are in charge of moving 300 wrapped gifts from Su Espacio to the church salon. Other volunteers will help. Then a fast-moving party and I’m on bus back to Alajuela for a rent car. I like to get a car the day before needed to get used to the car and make sure everything works! 🙂 I’m excited about experiencing another new birding place starting Sunday! Rancho Naturalista. My happy feet are busy feet! 🙂 And when the bone spur in my heel hurts, I take an anti-inflammatory Rx the doctor prescribed and do great! The heel cushion in a real shoe helps also! 🙂 Wear my sandals only around the house now.
Festival de Arte y Danza
Last night was Su Espacio’s Festival of Art & Dance which was really a dance classes recital. I left at the intermission because I had to get up at 4 this morning to go to San Jose. But from the first half:
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| This is the Pre-school English Class which sang 3 songs in English – no dance. A friend in my Spanish class from Atlanta volunteers to teach this class. |
Tomorrow I will tell about my experience being fingerprinted for my residency application.
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| Dancer’s humor! |
Yellow Bells Begin Blooming
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| Dry season begins and these trees in my yard begin to bloom and if like last year will continue through March or April. |
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| I zoom in for the flowers because . . . |
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| They are on the opposite side of trees from my terrace where the afternoon sun shines, but maybe later they will bloom on this side too! Summer has begun! |
“Where flowers bloom so does hope.”– Lady Bird Johnson, Public Roads: Where Flowers Bloom
Busy days ahead!
Tonight I go to Su Espacio’s “Arts Festival” which is more of a dance recital. I’m the photographer.
Tomorrow, Thursday, I go to San Jose early to be fingerprinted for my residency application, which is no guarantee that I will get it soon, but at least it is in the process!
Friday I may have to help shop for any angel tree kids we have not received gifts for.
Saturday is the Angel Tree party in the morning and I get a rent car in the afternoon for my Sunday to Wednesday birding near Volcan Turrialba.
Then just a couple of more Spanish lessons for this year before I get a break from conjugations and verbs! I’m considering a trip to Nicaragua over Christmas but if I don’t do that, I will make the border visa run on December 30.
Rock Band at Youth Festival
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| Just another Rock Band to me but I guess the youth liked it. Youth Festival Sunday Afternoon and this was the main attraction. Central Park Atenas |
I went by Sunday after sitting at Su Espacio to receive Angel Tree gifts. This Saturday morning is the Angel Tree Party and that afternoon I get a rent car. The next morning I am escaping to a new birding haven, Rancho Naturalistic, in the shadow of Turrialba Volcano. Three nights with all meals and a birding guide for just $80 a night as a ” Costa Rica resident’s” price! Been wanting to go and tried to get a time later, closer to Christmas but after next week they are booked solid. So I’m off! Nearly!
A book I’m reading on solitude quotes some neurologist saying that time immersed in nature restores the brain. Sounds good to me! 🙂 Of course I’m listening to birds right now outside my window, but getting away makes it even better!
FALL? The Interesting Strangler Fig
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| Recently all the leaves were falling off the Strangler Fig Tree – still green! |
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| This is the Strangler Fig Tree before. |
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| Now it is almost bare, but . . . |
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| Immediately new buds started popping out and then . . . |
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| Buds turning to new leaves which will again soon hide its host tree in there. The host tree is nearly dead with one limb showing leaves. |
Read more about Strangler Fig Trees (a bunch of different species) on Wikipedia. Note that it is not a fig tree for the fruit we eat, but a type of Ficus aurea of which this one does have a type of fruit that animals and birds eat, but not humans. Birds drop or deposit seeds in a living tree. The seeds first germinate in the tree like an epiphyte until the roots grow down to the grown. Then a real tree starts growing around the host tree until it eventually chokes it to death. My host tree still has one living limb with green leaves. After the host tree dies, then in years rots away, some of the strangler figs collapse for lack of support. They also share an interesting mutualism with the fig wasp, another story! 🙂
Magnificent Hummingbird Female
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| Magnificent Hummingbird Female Though it could be a Female Ruby-throated – Female harder to identify Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Magnificent Hummingbird Female Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
This is right off my Terrace, which is what I’m calling my balcony now. I love this flower, which my gardener surprised me with, and the hummingbirds love it too!
My Birds of Costa Rica Photo Gallery has all my hummingbird photos together in a sub-gallery.
Did you know that a hummingbird eats about 60 time its weight each day? Of course he only weighs as much as a quarter (U.S. currency 25¢ piece)! 🙂
Visited New Mall Yesterday
While on business in Alajuela yesterday, I met a Tico friend there and we looked around the new mall. Some photos:
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| They claim it is 80% finished or maybe occupied, but did not look it to me. |
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| You cannot drive up to front entrance yet because road is not finished! |
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| The entrance road coming soon!? The street in front is bumper to bumper cars! But they are widening it, in time. 🙂 |
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| Some Chinese tourists get photos in front of one of many Christmas trees! |
Once I got past this entrance tree I somehow forgot to make any more photos. So I will show the inside the mall another time! It is very large with stores for about anything you could possibly want. The prices were not as bad as I expected, but still expensive. The food court is large and has a good variety, but my friend wanted Taco Bell, so we did! (Somehow it seems wrong eating American Fast Food in another country!) But it was good, even though they serve french fries with every combo! ???
Today, Friday, I spent 4 hours from 7-11 at the Feria (Farmers’ Market) trying to get people to take an angel from our Su Espacio Angel Tree. We gave out 24 and still have nearly 50 left with only one week left to get sponsors. David thinks they will go fast this week. If some are not taken, we have plenty of money to buy gifts for them, BUT someone has to go shopping for them! We’ll see what happens. I may get another job.
Simple Pleasure 4: “Mi Patio”
Mi Patio is simply Spanish for “My Yard.” It is more than just my flower garden. Only 4 shots:
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| I do selective pruning to keep my garden art bird visible. It is so full now that a major pruning will be needed by Dec. or Jan. |
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| Coming in from the driveway. |
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| Front yard from my terrace. |
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| Terrace view of the Guarumo (Cecropia) Tree which has really grown! |
My yard is truly a constant “simple pleasure” that I enjoy all the time I’m at home. Living in the country or in a forest, next to a national park was always a temptation to be in true wildness all the time, but it would require a 4WD vehicle in most cases, be further from healthcare when needed, and shopping which I could handle the easiest, and further from people, especially those who speak English which I also would like in some ways when my Spanish is better, BUT . . . I think this is the best of both worlds and I am in a small country town. I just need this particular simple pleasure of a garden yard to have nature around me. And a very comfortable house! 🙂
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| And there is always cut flowers for inside! 🙂 |
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.~Luther Burbank
Simple Pleasure 3: Sidewalk Cafe at Coopeatenas
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| At the entrance to my favorite Supermercado is this little sidewalk cafe for excellent coffee & pastries (Banana Nut Bread my favorite) and the best deal on ice cream in town! Half the price of POPS Ice Cream Shop. That’s my coffee and carrot cake at the first table with my shopping bags. I walk to here and mostly walk home, unless big load/rain, then a taxi Coopeatenas is the farmers’ cooperative super market & farm store out back |
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| And fun, friendly Ticas behind the counter with Santa on the Cash Register! Helados is ice cream. They have sandwiches too! And Gourmet Coffee! Many of their bakery items are from Crema y Nata, my favorite bakery. |
And that cash register sign says in literal English translation:
order, cancel, and remove your order here
Of course you know that “cancel” means “pay” and “remove” is like “pick up”
This same sign is in most “fast food” restaurants, called “cafetería” here.
“I wish I could show you the little village where I was born. It’s so lovely there…I used to think it too small to spend a life in, but now I’m not so sure.” ― Mary Kelly
Yep! That’s me! I was born in Warren, Arkansas, a small farming town like Atenas, Costa Rica and never thought I would ever live there again! Now I do sorta – well, here it’s coffee instead of tomato farms and Alajuela Province is a lot different from Arkansas and Costa Rica is another world from the states. But I do live in a small town again! 🙂