Things I've learned about Costa Rica

I was having trouble finding the exact address of where I'll be staying and where I'll be teaching.  After researching it a bit, I found out why.  Try to read this if you can...

And, after looking for additional blogs about Costa Rica, I found this on someone else's blog.  I thought it was pretty interesting.  This other person says....

"Did you know that Costa Rica doesn't have traditional street addresses? Most of the roads are unnamed, making it muy difícil to assign street numbers. So how the heck do you find anything? You use a combination of local landmarks, rough distance estimates, and cardinal directions.

Por ejemplo, here is the address for Epson, the printer company, in Costa Rica:

In English, the dirección is: 100 meters south and 300 meters west of the American Embassy, San Jose, Costa Rica. Well, that's helpful, as long as you know where the Embassy is!

Does someone actually measure the number of meters in these addresses? Of course not! The rule of thumb is that 100 meters is approximately one city block.

Want to see a couple more? Here's the address for Unilever, another international corporation:

Translation: From the cross in Belén's San Antonio district, go 400 meters west and 800 meters north.

And here's my favorite! It's the address of a local potato chip company:

The company's located in Ciudad Colón. To find it, head to the old folks home (Hogar de Ancianos), then go 100 meters south, 400 meters west, and another 100 meters south. Apparently, the initial southbound road that runs next to the old folks home doesn't go through, since the directions tell you to go south twice."

So...let's hope I'll be able to find my way around once I get there!

On another note...It looks like my 16 year old son, Layne, will be going with me!  We are extremely excited about the opportunity for him to experience another culture.  Unfortunately, he will not be able to attend the school where I will be teaching.  He'll continue to take his classes through the local high school that he already attends, he'll just be doing them online.  We're a little worried about that since one of his classes will be Geometry and another one is Chemistry, but we'll just have to stay on top of his assignments.  This is just a chance of a lifetime for him to experience life in another country and we know it will be nothing less than "top of the chart" positive for him and for his life.

This upcoming week I'll be going to a "re-entry" meeting where I'll get to meet several students who are coming back from where I'm going.  I am looking forward to meeting them and hearing all about the details of life there.  More to come....