where i live

a few photos from our apartment... finally.

this is our street. it's very quiet. there's a bus stop. not very exciting. but there you have it.

our living room. we've actually moved the furniture around a little bit. the one restriction is where the cable comes in for the television, so we're limited as to where we can put the giant hutch/cabinet thing on which the tv rests. so this is what we've settled on for now.

here is our little kitchen. it has a microwave, which is more than we had in our place in quepos. it's not really set up that great either... i have a tendency to hit my head on the cabinets when i'm at the sink. and once i got a big bruise on my hip from hitting the counter when i stood up from crouching in front of the fridge.

a room so small it can really only contain my bed. oh well. it's comfy, but the window opens out onto the stairs outside the apartment and i can hear everything that goes on in the apartment across the way. everything. and there's a big closet. what more could a girl need...

ah, the patio. the most exciting part of the whole place. the plants really make it a lot nicer. this is where i do most of my tanning - between the hours of 10:30 and 12:30. it's also nice to sit out there and get a little natural light even when there isn't direct sun. it's our only source of natural light in the apartment.

mystery device contest

so here is a photo of a very common item in many costa rican homes. think you know what it is? submit your guess in a comment.

spanish adventures - waxing is fun

so "spanish adventures" is the term that colleen came up with for something we do pretty frequently here. basically it's when you go out somewhere to accomplish some task that at home would seem easy and straightforward, but with the different language and culture becomes, well, an adventure. opening a bank account was an adventure. getting something at the pharmacy is an adventure. and yesterday i had a fabulous spanish adventure.

so living somewhere warm where i'm constantly wearing capris, skirts, and my bathing suit it seemed like a good idea to get my legs waxed. so i had that done before i left for costa rica. well, it was time for that to happen again, and so began my adventure. i had seen this sign in front of a salon that my bus drives by everyday that said (among other things) depilacion. which got me thinking. that nair cream stuff - that's called delapilatory cream or something, right? so that's kind of close, maybe they do waxing at this salon.

well, i tried to do some online research as to what the actual phrase might be in spanish (it's always best to know a few key words in any spanish adventure). what i came up with was hace encerar de la pierna? do you do leg waxing? so after procrastinating a little (because my spanish is crap, the adventures always require a little more guts for me than they do for colleen, who speaks pretty well) i set off to the salon. as i approached i saw there were a couple people inside and the gate was open. i walked by. about a block later, i turned back and headed in with my prepared speech: perdona mi espanol! pero, hace encerar de la pierna? (excuse my spanish! but, do you do leg waxing?) the woman replied no. blah blah solamente cabezas blah blah. (only heads - como se dice "blah blah" en espanol?). oh. okay. i had kind of suspected that this might happen. so i said: sabe donde...? (do you know where...?). well, she went on a bit of a run here, but what i got out of it was: derecho... carreterra... dos ceintos... a la derecha... estetica... (straight... the main road... 2 blocks... to or on the right... estetica...) so being the yes person that i am i'm going si, si, esta bien, gracias and off i go.

so up to the main road, i turn right, and i walk, looking for esteticas - which i've seen signs for before. so i walk and walk. about 4 blocks and no estetica. so i start thinking that maybe she had said to go left and it was *on* the right after two blocks. so i turn back and sure enough i eventually come across an estetica. i walk by. and then i walk back, examine the sign out front telling about all their services. i ring the buzzer and a boy comes out, lets me in and asks what service i want. i try to explain leg waxing - using some gestures - and he speaks a little english and understands. so he gets his dad, who also speaks a little english, and he tells me that yes, they do that, i would have to wait 30 minutes or so. no problem, my only other plan for the afternoon was to go to the supermarket. but then comes my favorite part - i ask cuanto cuesta? how much? he wasn't sure, so he had to call his wife. well, she tells him it's....

cinco mil.

5,000 colones. 10 US dollars. what???!!!! i try to act cool. okay, that's fine. inside i feel a little guilty, like i'm stealing. so i sit and attempt to read glamour magazine in spanish. and the dad tells the boy to show me some of the before and after pictures from the services they offer. so he's showing me all these pictures of peoples noses, and wrinkles, and butts... i'm not really sure why and i'm kind of wondering if i've signed myself up for something more than a leg waxing. but after i pretend to care how they've improved these womens butts for a little while he leaves me to struggle through the magazine. eventually the wife/mother shows up, and she speaks even better english. so she is the one that tells me what i should really be saying when i want a leg waxing - depilacion.

so eventually my lady shows up - liliana - and does a pretty good job (although i had a bit more wax residue on my legs than i usually have after a wax at home). so she is trying to learn some english and me a little spanish, so we sort of chat, and she gives me her phone number for next time. and at $10 a pop, i think i'll be a pretty loyal customer. sometimes it's pretty cheap to be a woman in costa rica. and sometimes spanish adventures are fun.

i might get paid maybe someday...

so today i managed to successfully open a bank account. so i might actually get paid someday maybe. which would be exciting. although i have to admit there were two very important things that made my bank adventure successful: a letter from the school i work at that said "please open an account for ann so we can pay her" and the lessons learned from colleen when she opened her account 2 weeks ago. so i went in all prepared with my passport, my letter, and an electric bill to prove my address. i also knew that when she asked me solterra o casada? that i am solterra (single). *and* the most important thing - when she started babbling on about lunes and las dos en la tarde that was when i can come back to pick up my atm card (monday after 2pm). so good things. a successful spanish adventure.

so i am attempting to be more employed. i went to this language institute last saturday to say i was living in san jose and could i leave my resume. well to my surprise the girl asked if i wanted to speak with the director now. well sure. so i chatted with this guy for like an hour about the school and their system and what-not. he asked me to come back on wednesday from 11 to 1 for "training" - though i kind of got the idea it would also partly be like an audition.

so i went on wednesday and there was about 5 other people there too. a few ticos and an american boy. so we all kind of got the demo of how they run their classes and stuff. and then we were all asked to do a little demo of the system in the language we intended to teach (so there was some spanish, some english, and one girl was even going to teach portugeuse). so i was pretty good, i have taught before and i'm not afraid to look a little silly in front of other people, especially not strangers.

BUT. after we ran 30 minutes over the 2 hours (because this one annoying girl was being super nit-picky about some grammar thing - but they were talking in spanish and i actually kind of understood most of what they were saying - yeah me!) i still didn't know if i had a job. and how much i might be paid if i did have a job. they asked me to come back next wednesday for another training session, to talk some more about what they do in the more advanced classes. *sigh* so i'm going, but part of me is a little annoyed - i mean i feel like i'm jumping through all these hoops and they won't even tell me if i'm going to be hired and how much i would get paid. so i can't help but wonder if this is all a waste of my time.

other than that, not much else is going on. i had to conduct midterm interviews this week in my classes (which no one actually told me how to do). basically i was just supposed to ask them a couple of questions and make notes on how they speak in their responses. so i guess it went okay. but i still generally feel like i don't know what i'm doing. i'm grading writing assignments and giving interveiws and conducting classes whatever way i feel like. i know this place has lots of systems in place and ways of doing things.... but no one seems that interested in letting me know what those ways are. so i guess they can just deal with my crappy execution of stuff until they take the time to tell me other wise.

so colleen is kind of excited to do something for the super bowl this weekend (it is this weekend, right?). not that either of us care about football at all. but we just thought it might be fun to hang around with other people and watch something in english. does anyone know what channel the super bowl is on? or what time it's on? i'm sure we'll figure it out...