Real World: Costa Rica

Things have been going non-stop.  I didn't have a chance to blog yesterday (or the past few days for that matter).  We fit a lot into one day, and then it was St. Patty's day so the second we got back to the hotel, we were gearing up to go out for the night... hence the title of this entry. 

Things have been great.  Tonight is our last night in San Jose.  It's been fun seeing the larger businesses in and around the big city, but it will be great to get away into the other regions of the country, see new cultures and lifestyles, and so on. I cannot wait!

So where to start... Yesterday, Thursday, March 17th, we started the day off with the breakfast buffet, of course.  There's not a better way to start off the day if you ask me... there's always tons of fresh fruits, yogurts, pastries and pancakes, and always, always rice and beans. Tomorrow I'm definitely going to have to take advantage of the eggs-made-to-order, since I have no idea what the next hotel has in store for us, breakfast wise. 

TG & I dressed up & ready to go see the US Embassy~

Thursday was the one day we had to "dress up," since we were headed to the US. Embassy in Costa Rica.  TG and I broke out the heels/wedges.... which surprisingly wasn't such a bad choice. We haven't been doing much walking, at all, which is kind of disappointing.  I'm used to being a professional pedestrian when I travel around places, and that just isn't the case here, yet.  Perhaps when we are in one of the other regions.  I'm looking forward to hiking, learning how to surf, and more "active" things as the trip continues.

We all got on the bus around 10:30 and headed into town to a market/mall area.  We had a couple of hours to shop and look around, eat lunch, and then come back to the bus in time to go to our appointment at the US Embassy.  The mall had a handful of shops, mostly for women, and a little cigar pop-up shop in the middle of the way for the guys to buy their cigars (aka.. Cubans. :) ).  It didn't take us long to see all there was to see, and we made our way along the streets and came across an amazing view for a picture op.

View of mountain

Some of us in our group decided to take our chances on a Japanese BBQ joint with a 25% off sign in the window, which turned out to be, in my opinion and I'm sure many others', the best meal of the trip thus far (and probably the least expensive as well.) We were the only people in the restaurant and had a group of probably around 15 people, and were treated to the VIP service, which is more than likely their usual service.

TG & I at lunch

Edamame, appetizers, calamari, sushi rolls, you name it. They had it and served it. $10 US dollars for it all, including a lemonade and a glass of wine~! I couldn't believe it.  A meal like that in America would have cost ~$35+ easy.  Everything is so fresh here.  I'm anxious to try the sushi (and maybe I'll even dabble in trying seafood) along the Pacific coast. 

The spread of our appetizers... all delicious. 

We made our way back to where the bus was picking us up and stopped by a grocery store to pick up some water.  A man in line who spoke English was talking to me about a man he met in 'Nam, who now lived in Alba, NE. Small world, right?  I was having a hard time paying attention to him, though.  The cashier was having a hard time converting the US dollar into colones.  It's strange we can use US dollars here. I would laugh if someone tried to use pesos or something of the like in our country, but then again.... it is a tourist driven economy, and the dollar is stronger than their currency slightly. On top of that, when they "convert" the dollar into colones, they round off in their favor.  Win-win for everyone. 

When we got the the bus stop, we still had a few minutes to wait for the driver to get there.  Walking between the cars there were not homeless walking through, cleaning windows, and demanding tips, but there were people walking along selling fresh fruit to the cars stopped at stop-signs.  There is so much produce in this area.  It's inexpensive and fresh.  I'm still working on my theory of why there are more overweight people than I figured there would be, but one would think with so much fresh produce available this would be incredibly helpful in living a healthy lifestyle. 

Man selling fruit up and down the street at spotlights. 

Our bus ride to the Embassy took us through more of the city we had not seen, yet.  We passed a large, gated area where there were a good number of soccer fields at a local college.  There is a lot of futbol going on around here, but that's no surprise to anyone.  J brought along his soccer ball on the trip, hopefully we'll get a chance to play around with it when there's more downtown... perhaps on the beach after surfing lessons. : )

US Embassy

There had been a mix up with our appointment at the Embassy, and we had about 40 minutes to spend elsewhere until they would let us inside.  We decided to walk through a small strip-mall area across the street and ended up at a delicious little, organic cafe.  The coffee was delicious and the owner exemplified everything a small business owner should be.  I was impressed, anyway!  Entrepreneurship is one of the things I'm studying, so when I come across a business that is doing it all right with no complaints it's worth talking about... those five-stars don't come easy!  If I lived here, it would be my favorite, favorite, my cafe of choice for those day-long study sessions. It might have even been better than Caffeine Dreams.... (!) Can you believe that?

US Embassy

We went back to the Embassy and were able to get in this time.  We had to be escorted in the hallways and sat through an incredibly informative session where we were able to ask almost any questions we wanted.  I'm fairly sure we were in there with a group of French students, but I can't be certain. They all had similar physical characteristics.  I'm always fascinated traveling to different countries and seeing how alike people look. I forget that in America the lines between nationalities have been softened, and many of us have a small handful of ethnicities in our backgrounds.  As interesting as I thought this was, it wasn't the point of being at the US Embassy, so I should probably stop myself before I go into all the details of why they looked so similar and what they must think we look like. 

We listened to a few presentations, learned about what the Embassy does, what life is like in Costa Rica and so on.  I was particularly interested in the medical/heath care side of what is going on.  Part of this class is writing a paper on a topic of our choice and I find the differences in healthcare/health interesting, so I'm gathering information to use that as my topic if I can learn enough.

They use a universal healthcare system here and insurance companies haven't really started to take hold.  I wish I would have been able to get a picture of the public hospital here that we saw.  I don't think the work "sketchy" quite describes it.  If I were dying, it would be the last place I would ever want to go.  Dirty, old, run down.  Not good. 

There are private hospitals where the wealthy go and can pay out of pocket for services. The cost of healthcare is significantly lower here than in the United States, and when you can go to these hospitals the level of care is good enough that people do what is called "medical tourism," and come here to pay out of pocket for less expensive services.  

On the opposite side, the public healthcare is terrible.  People who are diagnosed with cancer are given dates one, two, maybe three years away to start start their first radiation/chemo treatment.. by that point, if you're alive, the treatments are not going to stop the cancer that has been taking over your body that long.  It's a death sentence if they tell you that. Either you come up with the money and take to the private hospitals, or you wait and live your life out, knowing your ultimate fate.  Universal healthcare... sounds wonderful. 

~18.5% of the people here live under the poverty line, and the majority of the entire population live in conditions many in the US would consider low-income/poverty.  They make less and spend less.  If they get into a good company, that becomes their way of life.  They do not see it as having little, it just is the way it is, and for the most part the people I have encountered here are very happy people, who you can see the peace and happiness inside of them radiating out in their words and actions. 

...Because of the mix up in appointment times, we weren't able to stay and listen to the speaker on the environment, which is a shame since that is the reason we are here in the first place.  Disappointing, however, the circumstances were out of our control and we needed to make it to our next appointment at Intel, muy rapido!

Presentation at Intel

The presentation at Intel was not nearly as interesting as was the one at the Embassy.. Not a huge shock, there.  The topic was based around their financial department and was presented by a man on the accounts payable team.  The facility was nice, nothing special. Reminded me of an America office in maybe the early 00's. The strangest part was the lack of technology.  The man's computer took a long time to boot up, and you would think a company like Intel would be on the cutting edge of technology, especially at their headquarters. 

By this point we were all starving, again and on the bus ride home made plans to go downtown, eat, and celebrate St. Patty's day.  This is when things got interesting for some in our group...

Real World: Costa Rica

St. Patrick's day in El Pueblo

The hotel has a shuttle bus that was taking us downtown, a 12 seater that managed to cram I think 16 people into.  Being the smallest, I got the privilege of riding on the floor between everyone.  We were all in good spirits, ready to see just what San Jose had to offer, and were dropped off at a place called "El Pueblo." 

There were a few restaurants and a number of bars/dance clubs in this area.  We decided on eating at a Mexican sports bar kind of restaurant.  I had fajitas and (fresh) guacamole, which I've been dying to get since we got here, and MS got me to try some delicious drink I've never had before.  The evening was going pretty well, we were all getting pretty comfortable with each other, and as evening turned into night, the scene changed. 

We found a small bar/club next to the restaurant with decent priced drinks, music, and a DJ and spent most of the night there with just our group.  It was nice not having to worry about stranger dangers  and just have fun with the people we know. We danced up a storm, cheers-ed to Costa Rica, the Omaha Education Group (what we are constantly referred to as, haha), and St. Patty's day.  I am so sore still, two days later, from all that dancing.  It was a blast. 

The strangest things getting used to are their lack of limitations surrounding alcohol and other things so strictly monitored here.  Restaurants and bars would give people "to go" cups and people were walking around from bar to bar in this area with their shots and drinks in hand.  It was crazy taking that all in...

At some point a few of the guys in our class got distracted by the locals and wandered off.  Their story ended with a lost passport and some money lost at the casino, but that's a story for a different day... plus, I'm not even sure I want to know all that happened there...  We took the bus home, minus a few people, and got a few hours of sleep in before waking up for the next day.  St. Patty's = success. Much better than the crammed-packed Omaha bars & gross wrestlers we ran into downtown last year. : )

Thoughts of the day:

• There are a lot more over-weight people than I thought there would be, and in general people strive to be "healthy," not the skewed image of "thin" that people strive for in America.
  
• Terrible infrastructure.  The roads being the way they are inhibits them from growing economically and attracting foreign businesses.  This is one of the things the US Embassy is working on with the Costa Rican government. It sure makes for long travel time.... 
• However, even though there is a huge lack of sign-age, I'm getting more familiar with the “streets” aka, I can recognize some landmarks/points when we pass them.
  
• There was a stadium I saw took a picture of and I'm wondering if it was the National Stadium the Embassy official was talking about that China built for them.... No one has said anything and we've passed it a couple of times.... what did people do before google?

The mystery stadium, possibly the national stadium.