Everyday, when I walk out our bedroom door (at 5:45 or 6:00) I am greeted with this wonderful tree. One of the many gorgeous sites that we’ve seen in Costa Rica.

I’m sorry that we haven’t written more but we are still waiting for internet at the house. If you remember, Jim spent 3 hours at the ICE (pronounced E-say) office last Wednesday. He ordered internet and it would take 10 days to be installed. He tried to pay for the installation but they said that it would be added to the first bill. Yesterday, I got a Spanish call from ICE and after much babbling I managed to give Charlie our landlords phone number in Spanish. Carlos called this morning and said that we needed to go down and pay the installation fee. We did that and we’re back at square one and 10 days until installation. I guess everything is slow down here.

The first morning, after Jim went to work, I grabbed an armful of dirty clothes and headed to the laundry room. I was surprised to see that the GE washer was in Spanish. I could figure out “nivel de agua”. The positions were minimo, medio, alto and maximo. The temperaturas were also a breeze. I’d learned frio and calor in the Rosetta Stone which meant that tibio must be warm. The “intensidad de lavado” had a normal setting. That’s good for me. My options for the programas were manchas dificiles, blancos, de color, de cama-edredon, delicada, lavado express (with a picture of a pair of running jeans) and extra centrifugado. I just set it to de color and turned it on.

On the weekend, Jim and I did grocery shopping at the Automercado. I wanted to make stir-fry but couldn’t find any water chestnuts or cornstarch. So, yesterday I ventured out of our Condominium complex to the little grocery store across the street. I’d been told that it was run by a Chinese family. I’d looked up cornstarch in the Spanish dictionary and came up with maicena or almidon de maiz. Water chestnuts weren’t in the dictionary. This store is like the old grocery store in East Enterprise, Indiana (the Broge’s will get my reference, but it’s funny how rural Indiana keeps cropping up as a reference point). I had to watch my step since the floor wasn’t level. I’m not sure there were electric lights in the store. I couldn’t find any water chestnuts or cornstarch. But I did find a bag of almidon de yuca. It felt like cornstarch (through the bag) and so I bought it for 150 colones. I felt bad giving the guy a 10,000 colones bill to pay for it. For those who don’t remember the exchange rate – 500 colones is a buck. We missed the water chestnuts in our stir fry but the almidon de yuca did a great job of thickening up the sauce.

I’ll write more later. I missed quilting today.

Coming soon: Did we tell you the one about the guard, the stove and the oxcart parade?