Home in a Strange Land

I have found a place to live!  I move in tomorrow, but today I shopped for food.

First of all, my new house is three blocks from where I am currently staying, which is delightful.  The house owner (Sofia) works elsewhere, so is only home weekends, and is renting two rooms, one downstairs and one up.  It is a relatively new house which means things work.  I have taken the downstairs which will be cooler, I think, and has its own 3/4 bath and TV.  I'm not normally that excited about TV, but I've decided that a perfect way for me to become fluent in Spanish is to watch shows with English subtitles.  I will work hard at this nightly.

Sofia's Mami and Papi live behind the house with an adjoining iron gate, and they keep an eye on the place when no one is around.  Which is an excellent idea here in Costa Rica, as burglary is a common occurrence.  The local answer to Mexican barbwire (broken glass atop walls) is actual barbed wired in two tiers of ~14 inch rolls atop walls.  These don't look very nice, of course, so they then plant flowering vines to cover them up.  In better neighborhoods there's not so much walking up to houses as there is ringing a bell at the front gate, as houses are rung round by iron or concrete walls.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the house.  Lovely back yard with lemon and other fruit trees which I do not recognize but might be related to a peach, a covered patio with built-in barbeque, clothes lines. Upstairs has a central lounging area with two balconies, one with a view all the way to downtown San Jose!  Possible sun bathing territory in anticipation of long unseen body parts being in proximity to a beach.  Downstairs a living room, separate dining room and kitchen.  Oh, there's a woman who cleans the shared spaces once a week and another person who cuts the grass.

To market to market....  The tiny local mercado is ~15 blocks from me and open on Saturdays until noon.  For $11.60 I got:  8 eggs -one broke in my backpack on the way home :(  , 3 onions, 3 sweet red peppers, 2 cucumbers, 1 large avocado, small pineapple, papaya, 3 tomatoes, 1 kilo beans, 3 heads garlic, 5 small potatoes, 5 large carrots, 2 gala apples, small bunch cilantro.

Costa Rican food mainly consists of beans, rice, vegetables (avocados, tomatoes, onions,  carrots, cucumbers, sweet peppers, maybe broccoli,)  and fruit (pineapple, watermelon, papaya, mango, granadilla / passion fruit, cooked plantain).  Some meat or seafood thrown in for good measure: so far I've had pork, chicken, canned tuna.  Beer is widely drunk as are refrescos, a  (possibly sweetened and) strained fruit juice, and of course coffee.  A popular salad is marinated tomato, onion, cucumber, carrot.  A common breakfast is fruit, beans/rice/vegetables mixture, fried egg, coffee.  Shawn and Laura, I think I'm getting fond of crispy fried eggs!  Other meals are often accompanied by deep fried plantain.  All very tasty.  Though I've heard more than one person complain they were sick of beans and rice and the many ways that creative Ticos have found to combine the two.   I purchased a small cookbook from my B&B, so will be trying some of these same recipes.  It might take me more than seven months to tire of bean and rice combos.

Saturday, Jan 12