Pura Vida!

So we made it finally to Costa Rica! After all of the hustle and bustle of traveling around the states, we can now relax and settle into one place for a while. When we saw our car for the first time the first thing popped into both of our heads, “How are we ever going to fit all of our luggage into the car.” The “Jimny” is very small but we managed to fit everything in thankfully. I have a feeling that the economy cars of today are becoming miniaturized from even five years ago as can bee seen by our other recent rental car experience.

When we woke up in the morning, we remembered why the raining season is so beautiful in Costa Rica, there were many gorgeous flowers in bloom (hydrangeas, paraiso’s, crab claws flowers ect.). Also, as a pleasant surprise, we found bananas, plantains, pomegranates and limes that were ready to pick on the property. It is really hard to appreciate a banana or pineapple in the States after tasting fresh varieties here. The sweetness of the fruits just blows us away.

After settling in for a day we began Spanish classes in a nearby town. It has been difficult to get back into ‘school mode’ let alone pay attention and speak for 4 hours straight in another language. When we had our first break we looked at each other and just rolled our eyes at each other expressing our frustration at getting into the swing of things with the language. After a couple of days however, we started to feel much better and have picked up the language again shortly.

One aspect, which at least I was looking forward to, was having some more time to cook at home. Nay has been gathering, testing and experimenting with some vegetarian meals and has come up with some really good stuff. My favorite thing is relatively easy with the abundance of amazing fruit, is a natural mango sorbet that she made. Using only mangos, not even sugar or water, she made a sorbet that I would put up against any in the supermarket or restaurant.  

Attached are some photos of the first sunset after we arrived, and some pictures of tropical flowers around the house.