Thu, February 14
Arrived in Costa Rica after all night flight from Los Angeles.
Beautiful sunrise and clouds as we descend.
Ily meets me and we take a taxi home.
Fri, February 15
Saw movie, Cloverfield, at Paseo de las Flores Mall.
Had fried chicken at El Testy downtown. Took two pieces home for field trip tomorrow.
Sat, February 16
Field trip to Poas Volcano with Ily’s philosophy class, for class presentations. I participated in a Marxism skit with Ily & her colleagues - I played a priest selling indulgences, hearing confession from a rich girl, a poor girl, and a promiscuous nun. Quite the smash.
Watched video, Banaras, in Hindi with Spanish subtitles. Ily wants soundtrack.
Mon, February 18
Ily went to work at La Aurora and I stayed home. Looked at Spanish learning software. Started learning Flash ActionScript. Called lawyer and made appointment.
Tue, February 19
Walked to AutoMercado for cheese, pineapple, milk, pipa.
Pineapple not too good, half yellow, half green, with distinct border between. Dos Pinos leche agria, also not too good.
Wed, February 20
Drank black tea and walked to Hipermas grocery store.
Bought crema dulce and 3.3% fat milk (entera grasa) also cheese and other things. Saw glass jars for sale.
Came home and mixed milk and cream in blender to make approximation of ½ & ½. Not too bad. Stored in empty pipa container.
Thu, February 21
Trip to San Jose - Registro Civil for copies of Marriage Certificate. Fingerprints, translation of documents, Immigration.
Bad lunch at Antojito’s Mexican Restaurant in Centro Comercial Del Sur Mall.
Copy various papers. More copies, then papers to Lawyer.
Fri, February 22
Huelga (Teachers Strike) Ily not working at Liceo.
Sign letter at lawyer’s office. Should have read it first. Retrieved hat left at lawyer’s yesterday.
Sat, February 23
Ily at school, last day of philosophy class. I stay home and work on her platonic solids for teaching next week, as well as editing and printing out her teaching plans.
Niki’s Birthday. I finally meet Carlos, Leny’s husband. I also meet Ily’s “evil aunt” Ana.
Sun, February 24
Wake up early and clean house.
Meeting Carmen at 9am to go to Vara Blanca for nature walk, then lunch at La Bavaria restaurant. The plan is for me to drive the car.
Started this journal, so events listed above might not be exactly in sequence. Also some things were left out, due to fragmented memory: papaya en leche at Fresa’s, chicken at night at El Testy (see photos for exact date).
Lynn called while I was writing this.
Carmen and two of Ily’s teaching colleagues picked us up while Ily was talking to Lynn.
We went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens and took a long walk along a brick-paved trail. Saw many colorful birds and hummingbirds that had been lured there by bananas and nectar. They also were raising butterflies in captivity, and had snakes in glass terrariums, including some extremely venomous specimens such as the Fer de Lance or Tercio Pelo, responsible for about ten deaths per year in Costa Rica. In another room there were frogs sleeping on the undersides of banana leaves. Then we saw a re-creation of a historic Costa Rican home, made of wood without glass windows or electricity. Then we saw five waterfalls along a steep trail with many stairs and tourists. I felt kind of dizzy the whole time, maybe because of the coffee liqueur they gave us right at the beginning.
After the waterfalls we went to Casa Bavaria Restaurant and had an overpriced buffet lunch. I drove from there back home, since Carmen had had a couple of beers.
Now I’m going to practice Flash and ActionScript.
Mon, February 25
I learned a little more about Flash, then watched some of the Oscars. It was boring and we turned it off and went to sleep. I had a lot of dreams, some of walking back from Carmel Valley, another of a confrontation with a Latino man who put his fist against my neck. I took his glasses off and asked him to remove his hand, then put his glasses back on him and joked around, tickling him and swinging him around in circles until he stopped bothering me. In another dream I walked through a pitch-dark parking garage, narrowly missing hitting a low cement wall and thinking I was lucky, and maybe this luck was part of my being, navigation-wise, at this point in my life, or something to that effect.
At 11:30 I’m going to meet the lawyer again, to get my number that indicates I’m being processed into the system.
I studied some more ActionScript this morning, and started illustrating Ileana’s mural for La Aurora high school.
Now I’m going to write some emails and go to the internet cafe and send them.
Tue, February 26
Felt kind of bored due to no books to read. Read the Yellow Pages and discovered Super Sony in San Jose, an Asian market that might have kimchi.
Also Hotel Jaguar in Limon, with its own library (http://www.hoteljaguar.com), and Monterey Del Mar hotel in Puntarenas. The Translator defended his translation of Monterey, CA, to Monterrey by saying that is the Spanish translation of the U.S. place-name. I had been under the impression that proper names remain untranslated.
When Ily called I was working on ripping all my audio Spanish lessons from CD to MP3, since the CDs were hopelessly corrupted and riddled with skips, unplayable by a CD player. CDex, my faithful freeware open-source ripper, was able to salvage them. So now I can take them with me outside and learn Spanish anywhere.
I met Ily at the bank across from her busstop at Los Angeles Cathedral. We took a taxi to Paseo de las Flores and stopped at the new mall next door to try Giacomin. I had cold cocoa and Ily had cappuccino and a croissant sandwich. Not so outstanding, but fine. We looked at Universal and Rosabal, then went to Paseo de las Flores Mall. We went to the bank and then I bought a bunch of expensive books, including The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and two books by Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist and The Fifth Mountain.
Wed, February 27
I’ve almost finished the Alchemist, and I’m reexamining my Personal Legend, which I think revolves around music, writing and the search for the perfect guitar. I’m going now to the internet cafe to transfer some files from an old diskette to my key-drive.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Neglected to write for a while, trying to remember what happened since the 27th. I read a lot, did a lot of computing. Took a couple of walks, mostly shopping at grocery stores and the Mercado. One morning I went on the bus alone to San Jose to get a satchel for papers Ileana had seen there. I came right home immediately, since I had to meet Ily for lunch. It must have been Friday, one week ago, the 29th.
On Saturday, March 1st, Ily and I went to San Jose to investigate Super Sony Asian market. It was okay, and they did have something like kimchi, wilted soggy vegetables tied in plastic baggies. I passed on that, and we didn’t buy anything. Next time though, I will get a can of Silkworm Larva for Arthur’s food museum.
On Sunday, March 2nd, I called Mark Roy to wish him happy birthday. At night, Ileana and I walked to Hipermas for a huge shopping haul, which included two new Pyrex bowls to replace the green glass bowls that broke in the microwave.
Hipermas was absolutely crowded!
We also got some wine and a bunch of other things. We took a taxi home.
On Monday, the 3rd, I went out to pay some bills for Ily. I went first to the Municipalidad to pay the property taxes for the house she owns in Pirro. I stood in line for about 10 minutes and paid 23,000 colones for a year, about $46 dollars. Then I went to ICE, the phone company and waited for an hour in the wrong line, it turned out. If I had gone to the door they would have let me in to the short payment line. But I was queued up outside with all the people who were applying for phone lines. Then I went to pay the “Luz y Agua” (Light and Water) bill, which can be paid at any grocery store. (Apparently, the ICE bill can be paid at a grocery store too, but not on the last day to pay, as our bill was this time.) I walked through town, past Mas x Menos (pronounced Mas por Menos) by the Los Angeles Cathedral bus stop. It is always so crowded, so I didn’t pay it there. I continued walking and ended up at Hipermas, the biggest grocery store, my favorite, which also sells clothing and furniture. I paid the bill and bought a Cremoleta, an orange popsicle with vanilla ice cream inside. Then I continued walking, thinking I might meet Ily at her work in La Aurora. But it seemed too far, and I took the bus back from San Joaquin. It turned out I wasn’t walking down the right road anyway.
Along the way I saw two dead dogs, one half-submerged in the gutter by the road and smelling pretty bad. A 6 or 8 inch bright green lizard scampered on the rocks nearby, the first lizard I’ve seen here. Ily said it was an iguana.
Along one narrow stretch with no sidewalk, a car coming up the hill blew its radiator cap right next to me.
The next day or the next, the 4th or 5th, I went to meet Ily as she got off work at La Aurora. I took the bus over there, it takes about 15 minutes. On the way to the bus stop, I went into an electronics store, Importadora Monge, and bought more memory for Ily’s video camera. I had planned to make a video about the journey, but did not do so. I am extremely self-conscious about videotaping in public. It seems like bad manners. But maybe wanting to do it and not doing it is even worse.
[I just realized, thinking of the photos of me as a child that Dad sent yesterday, that maybe this is one reason people have families—to have a subject for their documentary instincts.]
When I got off the bus at La Aurora, I walked on a small pedestrian walkway between some houses, one selling ice cream. La Aurora is kind of a poor neighborhood. I came out near some graffiti-covered buildings that had blue official words painted on them, something about the police being in proximity. I had thought Ily’s school was straight ahead, but now saw it was to the right. I must have looked a little lost.
A girl near some public phones called out to me and I turned. She asked if she could have some money, I figured for the phone. She had a really nice, bright white smile, and seemed like a nice person. I asked how much she needed. She said a thousand colones ($2). I thought that seemed steep for a phone call, and she said a hundred would be okay. I noticed she was wearing a shirt with a school coat-of-arms on the pocket, La Aurora, Ily’s school!
I asked the girl if she knew Ily and she did. We walked over to the school just as Ily was coming out the gate. The girl told Ily she was helping me. I told Ily about the request for money. Ily said the girl was Nicaraguan, 14 years old.
In the following days, I went to the store a couple more times, bought a santoku knife and some Costa Rican baking chocolate. Also some green cabbage. Started a batch of sauerkraut, put too much salt in, but it is fermenting as of this writing. Salt here is fortified with fluoride as well as iodine.
Walked one evening behind AutoMercado in a neighborhood I’d never been in before. Saw a packed bus going up to Getsemaní. I looked for a piece of wood to fix the two broken chairs in our apartment. Came home and practiced the new play with Ily and her colleagues.
Fri, March 7, 2008
Felt mildly nauseous this morning, didn’t sleep very well, woke up tired when Ily’s alarm went off at 5:45 am.
Had white rice with butter for breakfast, plus three overripe bananas, which may better explain the nausea.
Practiced with Ily’s colleagues again last night for the presentation we are giving on Saturday morning, to her class in Educational Systems Evaluation.
I’m playing a corrupt Educational Administrator who allocates resources in return for sexual favors from teachers, similar to my last role as a priest.
I’ve been doing a lot of school paperwork for Ily on my computer. Formatted some organizational charts for her and her collegues last night as well.
I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma and I’m about halfway through The End of Poverty. Seventy dollars worth of books doesn’t go very far around here.
Last time I was on the internet I looked at the Monterey County Weekly and saw something about Physics. There was a Google ad next to the article about a new physics book by Mark McCutcheon. I downloaded and read the first chapter, kind of a tease explaining how Newton’s theory of Gravity was derived from an older equation called the Geometrical Orbit Equation, related to Kepler’s three laws of orbital motion. According to McCutcheon, there is an overlooked property of the atom (to be revealed in Chapter Two) that explains gravity and will in turn explain every other current mystery of physics. The refutation of Newton was fairly convincing to a layman such as myself. Newton’s postulate of a gravitational force was completely unnecessary, since orbital motion could be calculated without taking mass into account. Only velocity and distance were essential to the calculation. Mass and gravitational force were postulated based on the geometrical evidence available through observation. No one really knows the mass of the earth or other planets. The mass of a spacecraft is known, and needs to be known for orbital calculations only because changing its trajectory requires fuel to be burned, and how much fuel depends on its mass.
Anyway, I’m excited to read the next chapter, but first I want to Google the author and find out more about him and if any other physicists have anything to say about his work.
Gina knocked on the door this morning and handed me a letter from Dad. Nice letter with family pictures from 1968, picnic at San Juan Bautista and playing in snow at Mt. Toro. Made me feel kind of sad for everything I left in Monterey. Ily cried when she saw the photos at lunch time.
She comes home for lunch on Fridays, since she works at the high school across the street. We went downstairs to Gina’s Cafe de Flores and Ily had chicken in creamy yellow sauce with a small salad. I still wasn’t feeling hungry, but maybe it’s because today is pretty warm, almost hot.
I was able to speak to the waitress this time. The first time I came to the Cafe in October, Ily started to order for me, but then the waitress said I should order for myself. It was an awkward moment, and there was a mild tension between the waitress and myself ever since. I always feel kind of self conscious and mumble “Hola” or “Buenas Dias” when I come in, and try to say what I want when it is time to order. But today, I said clearly, directly to the waitress, “Nada para mi. No tengo hambre hoy.” Ily had to check to make sure the waitress understood, which of course she did. I listened to my Spanish lessons last night and this morning, and I think it helped.
I told Ily I was feeling bored and mildly nauseous, and she said “Of course you’re bored, I told you you need to go to school, get out and learn Spanish and have things to do.”
So I’m going to enroll in a Flash class at the National University here in Heredia, UNA as it is known. The class will be taught in Spanish, which will be a challenge, but since I already know Flash, and it is a beginning class, it shouldn’t be too difficult for me, I hope.
I’m going now to get some more leche agria (kefir) at the Mercado downtown.
I haven’t gone yet. I did feel better and had some Gallo Pinto for lunch, and a can of beer. I read some more of The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey D. Sachs.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Got up early this morning and went to meet Ily’s colleagues in the park at 7:30 to practice our play before class at 8.
Ran through it three times then went to class. Old classroom downtown with wood floor and small desks in a circle. Helped set up digital projector, then Ily gave the first part of her talk about Evaluating Educational Systems (or Systems of Educational Evaluation, I’m not sure which). It was well-received, with a great deal of heated discussion. After Ily’s colleagues, Yesseth and Viviana, presented their parts, the class had a break for a midmorning snack. I was still feeling a little delicate, so I didn’t have anything. One person had brought fresh chicharrones (deep-fried fatty pork) and Ily said they were really good. After that we did our play, then I went home.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Ily went to church and I stayed home. I went to meet her after church and we went to San Jose for some reason.
Monday, March 10, 2008
We did a lot today. Ily had a huelga (teacher’s strike). We went to San Jose to the Ministry of Public Education (MEP). Yesseth was already there, and she had taken a number for Ily, so we didn’t have to wait too long. I had some jello and fruit salad at the cafeteria on the second floor while I waited.
After that we went to the Colegio de Licenciados y Profesores en Letras, Filosofia, Ciencias y Artes. (College of License-Holders and Professors of Letters, Philosophy, Sciences and Arts. Ileana got a new ID to replace the one that was stolen last November. She got an ID for me too, so now we can go to a special club in Heredia where they have a pool and a sauna.
Then we went to get me a Costa Rican drivers license. I got a cursory physical exam for $20, then we had to go back to Heredia to get a few more documents and copies of documents. We were really hungry when we got home, so we had some beef soup Ily had made Sunday night. Back at COSEVI, the Costa Rican Dept. of Motor Vehicles, I talked to a lady who entered my information, then walked to the other end of the complex to pay my fees. Then back to the opposite end to have my picture taken, by a man with 666 tattooed on his forearm, and a little pin on his shirt with the same number. He also had a button with a photograph of a man waving, with the words “Jesucristo Hombre… Aqui Esta!” (Jesus Christ Man…. Here I Am!)
I wondered about this and Ily said there was a man in El Salvador who claimed to be the Antichrist who had lots of followers, apparently including my DMV photographer.
We went again back to Heredia. I now had three new Costa Rican photo IDs, one license to drive a car, one for motorcycle, and a pool pass identifying me as Ily’s husband.
We went to CCSS and got my state medical insurance card, then to the Mercado for leche agria for me. We were totally exhausted by now. We rested, then went to the new internet place just down the street to finish registering for my Flash class at UNA (National University) here in Heredia. It was a busy day.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
We got up at five am and had coffee. We could hear a bird singing outside, when the buses weren’t going by or idling at the UCR busstop. Ily left for work a little after six. I took a shower then went for a walk to take pictures at about seven. I did some laundry when I got home. I feel kind of low energy.
The pictures didn’t come out too great. The zoom only works to eliminate image quality.
Ily called me around 2:30 to ask if I wanted to go to CCSS for the rest of my insurance paperwork. I had just started my Flash lesson, but said I’d go anyway. My stomach still felt kind of funky. We went and waited in line for a few minutes and got a form to fill out, then went home. Ily insisted that I needed to eat something, but I didn’t feel hungry. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to eat. We went to the little Chinese place a block and a half down from our apartment and got shrimp and broccoli. I t was good.
Then Ily said we needed to go to San Jose to buy tickets for our trip to Cañas and Tilarán, on Saturday, when Semana Santa (Holy Week) begins. We got on the bus just as the sun was going down. Ily said it would be a quick trip there and back, since rush hour traffic was coming out of San Jose, and it would be over by the time we started home. But it was a slow trip in heavy traffic the whole way, there and back. When we got to the bus station to buy the ticket, it was closed. Ily said I would have to try again tomorrow, by myself since she would be at work all day.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
I didn’t go out so early this morning. I learned my lesson: stay in the house until a decent hour, like at least 9am or so.
I studied Flash, then left a little after 11. In the park by Iglesia Carmen, I took a photo of a statue of the man who composed the Costa Rican national anthem, Manuel Maria Guitierrez Flores. Every morning at 7, every radio and television station plays the anthem. I recorded it one day and put it on my phone as my ring tone.
I found the bus and rode to San Jose. I went past my stop, all the way to the end of the line, then walked back toward the Cañas-Tilarán bus station. I had lunch at my favorite food court first, the one in the MEP building around the corner from the bus station. I had vegetables, yuca deep fried in lard (it tasted kind of like bacon), and picadillo de cerdo with chile dulce (pork with sweet red peppers). The place was crowded with doctors and nurses from the hospital across the street.
One of the weird things about the Costa Rican public transit system is that there are lots of departure points for different destinations. The bus station for Puntarenas is in another place, and the one for Limón is in yet another. The same thing is true of closer destinations on the local buses. Bus stops are scattered through the city, seemingly at random. There is no central bus plaza with information about all the bus lines. You have to know where your bus leaves from, and if you don’t know, you have to keep asking people until you find someone who knows. Lots of times they will be helpful and tell you something, but it will be wrong, so you’ll go where they direct you, but then you will have to ask someone else.
I walked up to the ticket agent and uttered the lines I had practiced with Ily the night before: “Quiero, por favor, dos tiquetes a Cañas, por Sabado a las dos de la tarde.” (I would like, please, two tickets to Cañas for Saturday at two in the afternoon.) But he said I could not buy the tickets more than one day in advance. I would have to come back Friday.
I walked back out into the Zona Roja and headed east, toward Parque España and the old National Liquor Factory. A man in a fruit stand said “Extranjero.” (Stranger). By the time I had composed a reply, I was long past him. A brightly made-up prostitute gestured to me and I ignored her. I stopped in front of the Holiday Inn and looked at my map. I had spent part of the morning scanning and printing part of a tourist map onto an ordinary sheet of paper, so I could get my bearings without looking like a tourist. I saw a park by a river on the map and decided to go there since it was very close to me. I walked down some small streets, toward the sound of a singing mockingbird, and there was the park, looking kind of abandoned. But it was open, and it cost 1500 colones to get in, about $3. I paid and entered. A sign pointed to the Danta (Tapir). I went over there and the danta was swimming. I was enchanted. I saw turtles and crocodiles. Parrots, owls, and toucans. A sad little jaguar pacing its cage and uttering the occasional plaintive yowl. A jaguarundi and and ocelot, both similarly sad, as cats in cages always seem to be. But in general, I felt more relaxed to be there away from the crowded streets and dangerous traffic. I could still hear the mockingbird, and other birds. The wind blew through the trees and clouds covered the sun. It felt good to be under all this greenery. I stayed for almost two hours, then continued my walk toward San Pedro, where the University of Costa Rica is located. On the way, I stopped in a music store and played a guitar. In San Pedro I went into a small guitar factory and talked to the owner and builder in my broken Spanish. Later, Ily said she knew his son from El Castella, the art school where she taught. I looked for the bus from UCR back to Heredia and finally found it. I sat in the front, directly behind the driver. The bus filled up until the aisle was packed with people standing. The last girl to get on told the driver something about a traffic problem and recommended a different route. So we headed toward downtown. We turned to go under a small railroad bridge, which turned out to be too low for the bus. The girl got out and helped the driver back up. We got on the highway and went toward Tibas and Santo Domingo, then got off the highway into heavy traffic. The girl again suggested a different route, and the driver changed course. We went up into the hills and coffee fields above Tibas, going up and down steep grades and across tiny, narrow bridges. We saw a beautiful sunset. The whole trip took more than an hour, to go what seemed like about five miles.
had wanted to purchase cafedeflores.com (registered 2007), they had nine years to do it. It almost seems like they were waiting for someone like me to do it, so they could get it at no cost. This seems now, with a bit of time to think about it, like a predatory threat, a cheap scare tactic to get me to give something up for free that I worked and paid for. In that light, the principled thing to do would be to wait to take any action until the ICANN ruling. But yesterday I let my fear rule me. How sad.