Saludos de Costa Rica

Well, we made it. And it’s raining! Still, at least the rain here is warm and not that icy cold, sideways rain we get in Aberdeen.

We arrived here late last night after a rather uneventful journey. Here are some highlights:

• It was snowing when we left Aberdeen – the plane had to be de-iced, which meant we left about an hour late. We think this was Aberdeen bidding us farewell and reminding us what we will be missing during the next three months!


• We were pleasantly surprised at Heathrow not to have to remove our laptops from our bags for the security check. At both Aberdeen & Newark we had to take them out of the bags, and Colin also had his bag searched both times because he didn’t remove Rana (our network drive). The security guy at Newark asked Colin if he had a flux capacitor in his bag. Great Scott!


• We didn’t have much time in Heathrow & Newark due to our flights arriving an hour late each time, a theme which continued to our arrival in San Jose. We did have some time at Newark though to people watch and play our airport waiting game: “Tell me why [insert description of person waiting in lounge] is going to Costa Rica.” Not exactly a catchy title, but fun and laughter-filled nevertheless…

Today we have been settling into our home – we’ll write more about where we are living at a later date. We went for a walk through town to pick up some essentials, and then our friend, Peter, kindly drove us into Heredia where we purchased a kettle (hervidor), microwave (horno microondas) and double electric rings (hornilla eléctrica doble). So we now have basic cooking facilities which is, naturally, very useful. Peter also lent us an umbrella, which we hope won’t be quite so useful.

Zoë’s Spanish Phrase of the Day:
Este es un avión, no es un tambor.

Situation for use: When the guy sitting next to you from Newark to San Jose listens to his iPod loudly and insists on tapping out the rhythms on the window and tray table (just in case you couldn’t already hear it issuing from his earphones). No, I didn’t say it … but I wanted to!