Got $100k? Would You Like a House or a Landcruiser?

Costa Rica is a strange place.

Mothers legally cross the freeway (the freeway!) with their 3-year-old and their 1-year-old in tow...

yet...

it is illegal to drive while talking on your cell phone.


You can buy a house here with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths for $100,000...

yet...

a brand new Toyota Landcruiser costs $100,000.


Traffic on the freeway can sometimes back-up for 20-30 minutes behind a toll booth on the freeway...

yet...

they are only collecting a toll of 75 colones. Which is roughly 15 cents.


The country is technically advanced enough that you can walk into any grocery store and pay your phone bill, your electricity bill, your cable bill, etc...

yet...

to change the name on our cable bill from our landlord's to yours, you have to visit both the cable company's office and a laywer's office and sign 4 documents. With your landlord in tow.


The cell phone company is advanced enough to send out "Happy Whetever-Day" text messages to everyone's phones on holidays...

yet...

Cell phone calls only go through two times out of three.


You can call virtually any restaurant in the country and they will deliver to your house...

yet...

The power goes out a couple of times a week. For a couple of hours. Minimum.


We get ABC, NBC, and CBS...

yet...

ABC is blocked out every night from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Although I guess I should just be glad that we get ABC in the first place.

Weird.

Growing Up

I had a rough childhood.

First, I was almost eaten by an alligator at a very early age. A near death experience like that made me think about entering the seminary, but I knew I couldn't cut it. Instead, I thought seriously about attending Duke University, but decided against it in favor of joining the Navy.

When I got out of the Navy, I had a bad drinking problem and one night was arrested Nick Nolte-syle. Coming out of rehab, I cleaned up my act and walked the straight and narrow. Even dressed the part for awhile. OK, maybe quite awhile. OK, probably too long.

I tried becoming a professional golfer, but was told that only professional basketball players where their socks that high. So I tried playing in the NBA for awhile, but that too didn't work out.

Shortly thereafter, I landed a guest role on The Partridge Family, but they killed off my character during the first season. That led to a stint with a Triple A baseball team, but we only had four players so we didn't win very often.

Coming off golf, basketball, and baseball, I was feeling pretty on top of the world and the world needed a lot of help, so I became a super hero, but had to quit shortly after I outgrew my size 3 suit.

The next spring, I landed a spot on the US Track and Field team and the following winter skied with the US Ski Team, but at that point I had had it with sports.

So I re-enlisted in the Navy. I just couldn't support the US war efforts, however, so I left the Navy and protested instead. Protesting was exhausting so I took some time off to go fishing for a few weeks.

Coming back, I really missed my time on The Partridge Family, so I went back to find my roots in the theater. I played Danny Zuco in the Broadway cast of Grease. I tried being a puppeteer. I joined a small traveling group of Evel Keneval impersonators, but quite frankly, I just couldn't stop laughing. I joined a ragtime band. I performed with a Chinese acrobat troop. I went back to Broadway and played Oliver Twist. I worked at a local McDonald's as Ronald McDonald. I even played a leprechaun at St. Patrick's Day festivals.

By the end of it all, I was exhausted so I went fishing again for several months this time. I needed to rest my mind for awhile, so I took up the arcane hobby of making chairs from milk cans. It didn't last.

It wasn't long before calls for Superman's return were rampant across the nation. I knew I couldn't keep up with it all. So I cloned myself.

One of me moved to Hawaii and took up surfing. The other version of me was last seen continuing to abuse the use of the sweater vest.

And now you know why I am how I am.

Some Random Things About Living Abroad

Here are some random observations about living/traveling abroad:

• I am much more aware of what time zone I am in at all times.
  
  
• I now know what the "+" sign means in phone numbers. Don't know? E-mail me and I'll explain.
  
  
• As Americans, we completely take for granted how lucky we are to cross any border into any country—no questions asked.
  
  
• For the first 29 years of my life, I carried my passport with me once—on a month long trip to Europe after college. Now I carry it with me all the time. Or at least a copy of it in my wallet when I'm in Costa Rica.
  
  
• I always have weird money in my wallet.
  
  
• As Americans, we live in a bubble of self-interest with little knowledge/care for the world outside our borders. Or as one non-American said to me today, "In fourth grade Americans learn every step in the legislative and judicial system, but they can't tell you where Canada is." Don't get me wrong—I'm as pro-American as can be. We just don't realize there is an entirely other world out there.

Did You Know That...?

Every now and then I learn something and I think to myself, "How in the world could I have gone 29 years on this planet and not have learned that yet?"

Well I had one of those the other day.

Kerri and I used to have two cars. One car had the gas tank on the left hand side; one car had it on the right hand side. For some reason, I could never remember which was which so I was perpertually turning to her and saying, "Is the gas tank on your side?" every time we pulled into a gas station.

The other day, we were driving in Costa Rica with our friend Kimberly and we needed gas so we pulled into a gas station. I turned to Kerri, "Is the gas tank on your side?"

Before Kerri could answer, Kimberly pipes in, "Just look at the fuel gauge on your dashboard."

"What?"

"Just look at the fuel gauge. There is a little arrow pointing to the side the gas tank is on."

Wow. I've probably asked that question 200 times in my life. And all I had to do was look for a little arrow on the fuel gauge? If you figure the entire conversation takes 20 seconds, that's 4,000 seconds. 66 minutes. An hour!
Don't you think someone at the car dealership could have told me that?

I want my hour back.

And on top of that, I'm convinced that, say, 50% of you out there that are reading this are leaning it for the first time also. So I am hereby making this post my personal crusade to re-educate the planet on this crucial issue.

Spread the word.

Trip to Vancouver

Vancouver 2006

Sep 17, 2006 - 33 Photos

Kerri and I just got back from our trip to Vancouver BC this weekend. We stayed at the Sutton Place Hotel in downtown Vancouver. I spent the first two days in meetings for work and then come the weekend we were able to get out and explore.

On Friday night, we had dinner at Blue Water Cafe in Yaletown, a great steak and seafood restaurant. About an hour into our meal, I noticed we were sitting next to Jason Priestly from Beverly Hills 90210. I wanted to sneak a picture for the blog, but Kerri wouldn't let me. :-)

On Saturday morning, we walked through Stanley Park which provides an amazing view of Vancouver from across the bay. We saw the totem poles in the park, teams playing cricket, and horse-drawn carriages giving people rides around the park.

On Saturday afternoon, we took a cab over to Gastown, had lunch at Old Spaghetti Factory (no, we don't have Old Spaghetti Factory in Costa Rica), and caught a show at Storyeum called, "The History of Vancouver". On the streets of Gastown, we met a fantastic artist named Gastown Sam who we bought an amazing piece of art from.

On Saturday night, Kerri's dad Dan and her brother Steven drove up from Bellingham to meet us for dinner. We had another great steak and seafood meal and had a great time catching up with them.

On Sunday morning, we were up bright and early to catch our flight back to Costa Rica! On the way to the airport, we were in an accident in our cab. Thankfully it was just a small fender-bender, no one was hurt, and we hailed another taxi that got us to the airport with plenty of time to make our flight.

¿Habla Espanol?

Living in Costa Rica, I'm forced to speak a different language. Well not forced exactly—but it does make things a lot easier.

Recently I've noticed that there are actually three languages spoken in Costa Rica:

• Costa Rican Spanish
  
• Gringo "I Learned Spanish After I Moved Here" Spanish
  
• Gringo "I Learned Spanish in High School" Spanish

Costa Rican Spanish is —well—Spanish like the rest of Central and South America except for throwing in a few "pura vidas" and "vosotros"'s for good measure.

Gringo "I Learned Spanish After I Moved Here" Spanish and Gringo "I Learned Spanish in High School" Spanish, however, are noticeably different.

I speak Gringo "I Learned Spanish in High School" Spanish. I spent four years in high school learning right out of a text book, didn't speak it from 18-29, and then it thankfully all came back to me when I hit the Costa Rican border.

Learning a language via text book ("High School" Spanish) is extremely different than learning via immersion ("After I Moved Here" Spanish).

• I can't hear a word and learn it. Period. But once I see the spelling, I know it immediately.
  
• I know more verbs and conjugations than most of my recently arrived compatriate expatriates (say that ten times fast), but they know more nouns than I do. Why? Because sometimes when you are in a restaurant, they foget to give you a fork and you need to figure out how to ask for one somehow. So you just learn.
  
• I can usually speak far more than they can, but they can usually understand far more than I can. Which is quite funny when two of us are hanging out. One person does all of the talking, the other does all of the listening.

Like I Said, It's All About the Amplitude

My brother Jeff and his wife live in Germany. They moved there in August 2005 for Jeff to take a new job within Adidas at their world headquarters in Nuremberg. In the last year, the two of them have gone through quite an experience moving out of the US and transitioning into a foreign country. Blythe often writes about it on her blog.

Wait—this is starting to sound familiar. Ok, ok—I clearly got the idea of starting my blog from Blythe. We were both English majors—we're used to "borrowing liberally".

Earlier today, Blythe made a post to her blog ("Anniversary") that really hit home for me. As a result, I'd like to "borrow liberally" again (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Right.) and expound upon my feelings on the same topic. Thanks Blythe. I owe you two ideas for blog postings now. Or maybe just one of those smoothies you like so much from Starbucks.

So living abroad—what's it really like? Well, in our post-blog conversation, Blythe put it best: "Sometimes the hardest part isn't living abroad—it's admitting to people that living abroad isn't always as glamorous as it seems."

Or as I like to put it—it's all about the amplitude. (What is amplitude?)



When you live abroad (or really, take on any new challenge in life), the amplitude of your every day experiences increases dramatically. You go from a life with a relatively low amplitude to a life with high amplitude. You go from a life that is more "hum drum" (not in a bad way, it's just consistently consistent) to a life that is full of very low lows and very high highs.

The hard thing is determining whether or not the net yield of the low-lows plus the high-highs equals the net yield of hum-drum.

Life for Me in the States
+1 + -1 = 0

Life for Me Abroad
+5 + -5 = 0

But the funny thing is, the human mind and spirit doesn't work that way. Even though the net yield is still 0, you are not the same after the experiences.

My Conclusion: Living abroad is a good thing to do—for a defined period of time. Not your whole life. And if you have defined that period of time in your own mind (1 year? 3 years? 5 years?), it makes it that much easier to get through the low times because you know it is not forever and you are—temporarily—trading those low times for the high times.

PS—As I finished writing this, I just looked out my office at home to find a huge spider walking across the hall. This proves my earlier point. Needless to say, he is no longer with us.

Special K in the USA

It's official—my sister Kendra has entered the blogosphere.

Special K in the USA

The thing I love about "outing" new bloggers is they have to post to their blog now because people are watching. :-)

So, have you started your blog yet? We all want to read it. I'm serious. You only have to post once a week or so if you like. Do it. DO IT. DO IT!!! OK—you don't have to if you don't want to.

But if you do start one, send me the link.

Trip to Toronto

Toronto 2006

Sep 4, 2006 - 20 Photos

I just returned from our trip to Toronto. We got in late on Thursday evening, took a quick shower, and headed downstairs to meet the folks from Media Profile who I was in town to meet with. We stayed at the Suites at One King West which I would definitely recommend. The first night, Media Profile took us to an amazing restaurant called Ultra Supper Club. Great atmosphere, great wine, and great food.

The second night, Kerri and I laid low and ordered room service after I got out of a long meeting all day. On Saturday, we explored Toronto checking out St. Lawrence Market and Eaton Centre (the largest mall in Toronto and the third-largest mall in Canada). On Saturday night, we had a great dinner at a place called MoDo's which had a quaint atmosphere and showed old black-and-white Charlie Chaplin movies on a brick wall.

On Sunday, we jumped in a car and drove south to visit Niagara Falls which neither Kerri nor I had ever been to. We took quite a few pictures and took in the sights. We didn't realize that there was a little "mini-Vegas" in Niagara Falls. On the way back, we cut off the highway to check out a little town that was recommended to us—Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was a cute, old, little town that Kerri absolutely fell in love with and decided that we had to return to some fall when the leaves were changing color.

We got back into town just in time to meet up with our friends John and Bettina for a fantastic dinner at the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. No, not that Jamie Kennedy.

Then it was up at 4:00 AM on Monday morning to head to the airport—Kerri to California to visit her mom and me back to Costa Rica.