Little by Little

I continue to make progress here, little by little. Poco a poco. Last week I went into San Jose to complete my filing for my Residency. The last step was to get my head shot for my residency card and finger prints. I expected to go to a city hall type building for this. It is the official identification and final important step. I went to Roberto's office, my CR attorney, where he had all the papers translated into Spanish for me to deliver to the official immigration location. I thought he would be going with me, but he had his helper who spoke no English at all accompany me. He was very sweet, and we mostly communicated by him pointing to where I was to stand or go next.

We pulled up in front of a building that was nothing like I had imagined these offices would be like. First of all, we walked up to a man set up at an outside table with a chair next to it. This was where I was having my head shot made for my license! He had me sit in the chair, took my picture, ran if off on a printer, cut it out and handed it to me. I was almost laughing at how crazy this appeared. We continued next door to a tin building that was completely open. There was a gate around it and a metal door to shut it off at night. This was the finger printing location. Roberto's helper told the people I was a "senior" over 65, and they took me straight to the front of the line! It would have been a 2 hours process instead of the 35 minutes it took. He pointed to a chair for me to sit in and instructed me to (pointing to his ear) listen for Claudia Sullins. Luckily the lady that came and got me spoke some English. We sat at her old metal desk as you took the papers Roberto had sent me there with and put everything into the computer. Her last questions to me were, "Is you house wood or cement, and what color is it?" In CR there are no real street addresses. Addresses are actually location by directions. The very last line of my address is, Casa de amarillo (yellow house). After that she walked me over to the line to get my finger prints. They still use the stinky black ink here.

I wanted so badly to take pictures getting my finger prints done, but there were signs everywhere with pictures of phones with lines through them. It all went so smoothly I did not want to rock the boat by pulling my phone out to take a picture. I did take a couple of the outside photographer given the important job of taking everyone's photos for their licenses.

I love it here. There is no pretense whatsoever! Nothing was in a fancy office or building, and it all worked just fine. Now I just wait for the papers to make their way through immigration then to me.

Pura Vida

Pura Vida

Well, here I am still trying my best to discover Pura Vida. I am afraid there is still a little too much city "crazy" girl in me. I am better, just not all the way yet

My furniture made it here last week with some damage and an entire box missing. The box had some valuable collectables in it, and two cushions I put in there as padding that go to my dining chairs. Now I only have 2 matching cushions. Most of the damage can be repaired at a cost, but my antique floor lamp is toast.

As far as my missing box...I contacted the shipper with less than satisfaction. It is really too bad because up until now I felt confident using him, but the proof is in the pudding isn't it? When I first called Charles Zeller at Ship To Costa Rica he had his movers and I recheck to make sure box #58 was missing. No box #58 any where. After we searched as requested Mr. Zeller said he would call Customs and see if they still had it. I had to call him back then sent an email. He wrote me back giving all the reasons it could be missing with the top 3 being my fault. I did not hear from him for two more days when I emailed him again with all the steps I had taken asking for his help. As I sit here typing this 5 days later he still has not responded. So, the moral of the story is, first of all to not use Charles Zeller, and secondly understand that things can happen in Customs that you have no control over no matter how careful you are.

As a back story, the shipper, Charles Zeller, had me list every thing moved with a number and list each one on an inventory list. As they were moved out of my home I had an additional inventory page with numbers I was to cross out as the boxes and all items were loaded into the truck. Box #58 was there and loaded. A copy of all these inventories were then sent to Zeller for him to check when he received my belongings. He did have note of the damages done to my furniture, but no note of my missing box.

The damages are the fault of me and the mover I hired to load the crate. He did stack things beautifully and tied some things down. It was not nearly enough. You need to tie rope, use moving bars and anything else that works to keep your things from shifting inside the crate. The crate is driven to the closest port near you. Mine being 7 hours away. The crate is then moved by a crane onto the ship. It can be tossed around on the seas then is unloaded by a crane onto another truck and driven to customs. That is a lot of moving, and in my case, a lot of shifting went on despite our efforts. Truly get someone who specializes in loading for over seas shipping.

Now that I am calmed down from all of that I did find a furniture man who picked up my bookcase and antique dresser mirror to be repaired. The smaller items can wait. I have unpacked everything except my paintings and pictures. Why you ask? More of my Pura Vida character building. I have a man that was supposed to paint my walls before my things came. He was busy and did not get to me. Then he got food poisoning, and here I sit with nothing on my unpainted walls and large boxes leaning everywhere. I swear I am trying to stay calm! This is a lesson...if you are considering moving to Costa Rica you better understand NO ONE is in a hurry or even worried about timeliness here. It works for them, and I'm sure it will one day work for me. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, depending on how you look at it, I have never been late for anything, and it has always driven me crazy to put off until tomorrow.

Breath........Okay! Everything else is moving along wonderfully. My immigrations papers have been turned into the government, so I can get my residency! I was so excited to get the copy of my papers. Now all I have left to do is get finger printed which I hope to do this coming week.

I am still LOVING nature here! Every day I see Toucans, parrots, amazing butterflies, hummingbirds and views that go forever, and all this is off my own balcony!

Pura Vida!