Costa Rica Impressions by Juniper

We have been in Costa Rica for almost a week now. It has, for the most part, been an easier transition that I had thought.

Other than relaxing, our days have been filled with family hang-outs. Somehow we skirted an intimidating gathering of every local family member (what would have been well over 20 people if my math is correct) and settled for almost every family member (it went well). My go-to at family gatherings over the years has been to quickly get wrapped up playing with the kids. This accomplished three things. One, it removes me from the responsibility of having to make small talk with adults for long stretches of time. Two, it buys me big points with the parents for spending so much time with their kids. Three, it’s usually the most fun thing to do! To my chagrin, the children grew up a bit since I last saw them! That, coupled with there simply being so many of them in one place, means playing with an uncle is much further down the totem pole of interesting activities.

And thus, I’ve spent what may well be an order of magnitude more time with my sisters and brothers in law than I have in the past.

But it’s been really great! I feel very comfortable around Yo’s family and they have made me feel exceptionally welcome. I may even go so far as to say I have enjoyed being very social so far. Those of you who know me well may desire to underline, italicize or bold (or, perhaps, all three) the ‘so far’ part of that sentence, but I digress!

My favorite thing about Costa Rica so far is the food. Man have we been spoiled. We have only eaten one dinner at home so far – tonight, in fact – but we ordered in pizza because we had a guest over and weren’t quite ready to host someone for a meal. The majority of our lunches have been with family, but those we’ve had at home have been comprised of fresh mango, papaya, pineapple, banana and oranges thrown together in different combinations. We haven’t yet gone out for breakfast with anyone, mostly due to the fact that we typically get up 3-4 hours after everyone else.

Every meal out has been delicious, although my personal favorite was a couple of nights ago when we joined our landlords (Yo’s sister and brother in law) and some other family for dinner. We had massive, juicy steaks for dinner, quite a number of glasses of wine for dessert, and then another steak for a late night snack. Yep, two steaks in one evening. I didn’t even know that was legal.

My efforts at learning Spanish have not yet arrived. I think they fell out of my luggage somewhere between our 2^nd and 3^rd flights. Hopefully they get here soon, because Luna is getting on my case about not understanding much of anything when we’re out and about.

The biggest challenge of the trip so far is meeting the goals I have placed on myself. My next post will be about said goals and also about how and why I am miserably failing at them.

For now, I am going to enjoy the last of my 5$ box of wine, perhaps pop out and play with the cute puppies that live in our backyard, attempt to understand a few words of what Yo and her friend are chattering away in Spanish about in the next room over and, hopefully, write a few hundred more words in my novel.

~Juniper~