This is it. The trip we’ve been waiting for! (This week needs to go by faster.) The kids are finally old enough to go (and have had both their Covid vaccines) and I’ve been bubbling with excitement! It’s not just for a (much needed) vacation but for work as well, so it’ll be a jam packed 10 days of toil and play. My mom has been excitedly building our itinerary of Things To Do when we arrive.

The work:

1. With the small mall my parents and sister built in the port of Puntarenas completed, which is mainly a couple of storefronts with apartments up top, my sister will be opening her Japanese homestyle restaurant in one of the storefronts, my mom will be opening a sandwich cafe next to it, the rest of the storefronts rented out, and a Bed and Breakfast/Hotel out of the apartments. I’ll be taking pictures and setting up the listings for them on AirBnB and Booking.com.
2. Haul ingredients and Japanese cooking materials with us—I spent this last week visiting a Japanese wholesale restaurant supply store, and making contacts with other online distributors. Unfortunately there are no such supply stores in Costa Rica, so it’ll have to be a physical effort on our part to bring it in. Each of us are allotted two 50lb luggages, and since we have washer dryers, we can take just a few articles of clothing in our carry on. By the way, this is the part I actually enjoy the most—visiting wholesale suppliers. Call me a glutton and a shopaholic but I find this the funnest part, so not entirely sure I can call it work. Lifting 40lbs of straight miso is also an experience—the box is deceptively small but heavy as hell.
3. Start scouting out building sites on Fica (farm) KyA which is where we’ll set our vacation home (my mom thinks I’m nuts because we can just vacation with them but I got plans! Big Plans!)—about 140 acres, currently it’s mostly teak plantation (in areas where there were previously no forest—forest conservation otherwise) and occasionally it gets rented out to farmers who run their cows. At the tallest hill on the property, there’s a beautiful ocean view of the Pacific. The Costa Rican government also “purchased” (in quotations because it’s really just eminent domain) about 2 acres due to the expansion of their major highway so I’ll take a look at where the new property markers fall. I have to check out the prefab container houses my dad still has left over from Finca Yago (RIP Iago, our gold and blue macaw who has been with us for 25+ years and passed away this week, the namesake of that farm) to see how the layout would work, along with setting up a bank account there. A year round water feature also exists… somewhere on it so that’ll be fun to explore. Begin mapping out the fruit trees and other plants I will cultivate as a food forest, since I also plan to turn it into a Bed and Breakfast for when we’re not using it. There’s also been some recommendation I build a full on Aikido retreat which may be possible down the line… but I’m not so sure how well that would work on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

The Fun:

1. Horseback riding! When we were younger, we’d visit my parents friend’s farm (a fruit and cattle farm) and ride across the plantation. Once, the farmhands led us to their horse pasture, and all the horses came up to us and surrounded us (they only bring them in during seasons for work, otherwise they’re turned out) and I, using my rudimentary Spanish and some charades, asked why they so readily approached us. The farmhand smiled and said one word, “Mama.” pointing to the horses we were riding. We were riding the mothers of the horses in this pasture. Since both Sophie and Martha are little, I don’t think we’ll be doing what we used to do which is just go around on our own (or go fast), but stay to a specific spot.
2. I call it the Trout Pond but I actually have no idea what its real name is. It’s located in an absolutely gorgeous and dream like valley, with lazy creeks and streams meandering through, where we can fish up lunch and they will cook it up for us. It’s also where we caught a glimpse of the Queztal, a rare bird native to Costa Rica.
3. Harvesting palm hearts! I mentioned to my mom I wanted to harvest (and record the process for my blog and Instagram) of harvesting bamboo shoots, but apparently it’s no longer the season for them but she did say palm hearts are available year round and they grow wild on Finca Yago so she’ll locate some. She also thinks I’m crazy, by the way, for wanting to go to CR and harvest food.
4. Learn how to make bokashi fertilizer and record the process. My dad spent a lot of time perfecting his technique he learned from someone who ran a fruit tree nursery.
5. Visit the Small Waterfall. I also have absolutely no idea what the heck its real name is, it’s just how we refer to it and everyone somehow knows that’s what we’re talking about, but it’s a really fun waterfall where little fish come up to you. The kids will have a blast. There’s a small animal sanctuary near it as well.
6. Visit the butterfly garden and the bird aviary in which toucans harass you for fun.

You bet your bottom I’ll be taking pictures and recording this fresh new adventure!

List of Fruit Trees/Plants for a tropical perennial food forest (most of these my parents have grown already to much success). Costa Rica only has a dry season and a wet season, so the climate is really different from the one I’m used to cultivating in—but I’m nothing if not excited to learn new techniques. I’ll add more to this as time goes on and will likely have a separate page just like the Temperate Food Forest one.

• Mangosteen (my absolute favorite)
• Passionfruit (Adam’s absolute favorite)
• Mango (Adam’s other favorite)
• Cherimoya
• Guanabana
• Rambutan
• Dragonfruit
• Cashews
• Guava
• Banana
• Papaya
• Star fruit
• Lemon
• Lime
• Orange
• Malay Apple
• Jabuticaba
• Sugar Cane
• Bamboo
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Chinese bayberry (yangmei)

The plight of a backyard homesteader is always about leaving the animals for days so I’ve been preparing the quails for our departure (which isn’t a comment on how emotionally ready they are for us to leave, but to make sure they don’t starve/dehydrate to death when we’re gone.) I tested out a 2 gallon chicken nipple waterer to great success—it should hold for 10 days without a problem (I have two waterers across two cages), and got the 10lb feed dispenser. I’ll have someone check on them 5 days in and top them off if necessary, but I don’t imagine it will be. This is one of the reasons why I’m kind of considering no longer doing ducks (and not even doing chickens) because it would be impossible to leave any of the bigger poultry alone like this—the feed and water dispenser would have to be humongous and it’s still not a guarantee they wouldn’t (especially the ducks) gorge themselves on the food the first few days.

December 14, 2021 – Finished the last two weeks of the Coursera “Fundamentals of Hotel Distribution” course in… a day. I had started it during Coronatine (since the New York Department of Labor was sponsoring courses for people to take for free) but put it on pause due to all the moving and house selling and renovations but now I got back into it. It’s actually the first course of a four course specialization (“Hotel Management: Distribution, Revenue and Demand Management Specialization”), which will be useful for my particular goals. I can’t stop saying good things about this particular course, because from a distance education point of view, they’ve done a phenomenal job with the content and reaching their student learning outcomes. It’s well designed, well paced, and very clear in the information we should be acquiring.

December 17th, 2020

Cleaning out the fridge so there’s no leftover things growing legs while we’re gone means I’m making bizarre dishes and a conglomerate of food that have no rhyme or reason. As long as we can eat it, it’s going in a meal.

One of the distributors is really good in that they follow up on our account. Too bad they don’t ship outside of the US.

December 19th, 2020

Filled out the paperwork required to get into Costa Rica, took me like an hour to do all four. You get a QR code that gives them your vaccine status and travel insurance status. The flight’s a little under 6 hours, straight shot. Going to pack our clothes today. We don’t need to take much with us since my parents have a washer dryer there.

Things always seem to go balls up right before leaving—one of the combi Navien heating units (the previous owner installed four of these bad boys—one for each apartment) keeps throwing the E110 error code. I cleaned out the intake filter but it still happened, so I have someone coming to figure it out tomorrow. Hopefully it’s an easy fix since I don’t want my tenant to be out of heat while I’m gone.

December 21st, 2020

Got to the airport at around 3pm… for our flight out at 7. We grabbed a bite to eat since we didn’t know what the dinner situation would be like on the plane (they had sandwiches—chicken and a tasty vegetarian wrap which I ended up getting.) Nothing too crazy but apparently there were a few people who missed the flight so we were delayed. Sophie was airsick the last half and threw up. The flight was a total of 5 hours airtime. Did get stopped by customs, thankfully my Spanish was not as bad as I thought and got us through.

Barely was able to sleep (although the kids were out like lights) so that was torture, I’m not looking forward to the red eye flight back. But we made it! Both the kids were champs at following directions and making it through—no whining, no crying, just bright eyed and bushy tailed excitement.

My sister picked us up (the car they had called cancelled on them) and we got to the cute little boutique hotel my mom booked for us at around 2:30am EST, shoving all the eel we could into the tiny fridge. My sister will haul her bounty with her back to Puntarenas tomorrow morning, and my mom will take us to La Paz waterfall, which has a beautiful aviary and butterfly/hummingbird garden.

December 22nd, 2021

Of course, why would I not be awake at 6am New York time (5am San Jose)—which is the usual time I wake up. Wandered around the grounds for a little bit and finally knocked on my mom’s door for the wifi password…. She wasn’t awake yet so I wandered around some more until she was up. My sister was still passed out. This hotel has a very Asian flair to it which is an interesting mix (built by a Chinese dude). We’ll be back here before we leave since our flight is late at night. My sister headed back with the haul.

First order of news is breakfast, and my mom ordered both Tipico (typical Costa Rican—rice, beans, egg, plantains, jams, toasts, and squeaky cheese) breakfasts and American (which I could have honestly done without because WHY COME TO THIS PLACE AND NOT EAT LOCAL FOOD). The butter is super yellow, and the soft ripened cream for the beans and rice was just delicious. We talked a little about what conservation efforts we’ll be doing in the future when it comes to the Finca KyA since space for wildlife will only dwindle if nothing is done—so we’ll be reconning that farm asap. My sister will be responsible for Finca Yago. There’s two more (iirc) that’s in areas that are relatively inaccessible so those will need some careful considerations too.

Then we’ll be visiting a friend of my parents, a Mr. Chen who is relatively famous here in the Chinese community. He immigrated here on a agriculture exchange many years ago and established some sort of agriculture department here.

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Best laid plans—we ended up grabbing lunch and then heading back to Puntarenas after meeting with Mr. Chen (kids were super tired) to get settled in to the apartment we’ll be staying in, which is one of six units (not including the ones my sister and mom use) that will be made into a small boutique hotel/AirBnb. Mr. Chen’s garden is gorgeous and I’m super jealous—his specialty is actually orchids, and he also has a nursery full of cute succulents he’s propagating. His property has three houses on it, and his main house is flanked by his two kids houses. He’s growing a LOT of fruit trees, including mango, loquat, lychee, etc. which makes me all the more excited to start.

It was a (harrowing because the drivers down here are crazy) two and a half hour drive from San Jose to Puntarena, and the property is about two blocks from the water and super spacious. It’s bigger than my apartment back in NY! On our way back we stopped by the supermarket for none other than… PASSIONFRUIT. It’s not fruit season so a lot of the fruits I was looking for aren’t in season but passionfruit never lets me down.

So I didn’t realize Hippo was here, I thought he lived on the farm with the rest of the dogs. Hippo is a dog that I went with my parents to pick out in NY many years ago, and he was in NY up until my parents planned to spend most of their time down here. I didn’t think he’d remember me but when he saw me he jumped on me and was super excited to see me—he also obeyed the sit command without hesitation so I guess a lot of scent memory is ingrained in them. He’s part Rottweiler and pretty intimidating, so I can see why my mom and sister keep him with them when they’re here. Sophie is obsessed with him and up his BUTT. She is also, unfortunately, allergic to dogs has to take a Zyrtec or else she’s just coughing—I’m a little allergic so my eyes are itchy but it’s a small price to pay. I actually really miss having dogs.

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I had a raging migraine (I always get one right after my period ends) that kept me bedbound for a few hours while the Tylenol and Advil kicked in (I stacked them this time since it was pretty bad.) After, we went down to the connected house to scrounge for dinner. At the risk of this sounding like a cookbook, we had cold mung bean porridge, shrimp, meat sauce, stewed tofu, oden, this absolutely delicious chicken and potatoes my sister made (I swear it couldn’t have been as simple as how she described it but the potatoes were amazing) and the kids had some cup noodles. My mom learned Adam likes beer and mangoes so now everything is going to have beer and mango.

There’s two nearly identical cats here, Vincent and Kenny (named after Kentucky Fried Chicken) and we walked past one only to find the other in the very room we walked into. That was definitely a matrix moment. Then we toured my sister’s new kitchen and restaurant, which is gorgeous. The tables and chairs are actually made from wood grown at Finca Yago which is some serious and literal yard to table situation. Sophie who is super excited to be in my sister’s kitchen (she’d been talking about it forever), helped (in the loosest sense of the word) make some guacamole. Then it was off to bed (but not before I cracked open another passionfruit.)

The internet is pretty solid here, which is a huge change from years ago when it was as slow as dial up!

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December 23rd, 2021

Woke up this morning a little later than usual but I had basically dropped dead on the bed. Sophie, despite being badly allergic, is literally up Hippo’s butt constantly. The first thing she asked when she woke up is whether or not she can go find him. She’s absolutely going to lose her mind because today we’re going to drop off the bags of dog food to the farm dogs so she’s going to be surrounded by a gaggle of dogs, and pick up some Guanacaste wood from the farm for more furniture. Adam drove and there was a little traffic on the way but we made it safely. We stopped by a restaurant on the way and had breakfast—eggs, rice and beans, plantains, squeaky cheese, cream, juice, yucca, tortilla. I passed on the chicken and the stew, but my mom said they often have these types of stewed meat in the morning. 

When we got there, the farm dogs were also super excited to see us but they’re kind of silly—they started running and barking at EACH OTHER through a fence… that has an open gate. Sophie had a BLAST with all the dogs who licked her to death, but Martha was a little concerned at first because they just bark constantly. At one point they ran in front of me, barked at each other, and when I pushed through, they’d do it again—while looking up at me and wagging their tails. I realized they were trying to show me what a “good job” they were doing being alarm dogs which is hilarious because I’ve been telling them to be quiet. I showed the kids the bats that live under the eaves of the house.

While my mom and the farmhands dealt with the wood, we went and took a walk through the viveros (nursery) which are defunct right now and just houses some plants (We let Sophie pick a cute pink banana while I grabbed a mandarin orange which loaded one of the trees). Adam, having pretty good eyesight, saw a young iguana on the screen—I managed to nab it (I’m still pretty quick!) and Sophie wanted to hold it so we had an iguana with us for quite a while. She let it go when we left (she had named it Iggy, and wanted to keep it for a while but the poor thing was scared half to death.) This was on her Costa Rica bucket list, because she had been begging to catch lizards there. All I need to do now is find some tarantulas and snakes for her to play with. There is no way these two munchkins are not my children—just tiny little forest sprites that are super at home in nature.

Then we went to a local waterfall where you can swim—in the past you used to be able to get underneath the waterfall but now they have lifeguards posted there that tell you that you can’t go past a certain point. I’m guessing someone must have gotten hurt. Also, no more barbecues or bread for the fish. The teeny tiny fish would swim and nip at your toes and before you could throw bread in and they would piranha around it, making the water look like its boiling.

We then went to Hacienda La Pacifica, a local restaurant that used to have peacocks and deer roaming around (we did see the deer as we left… but I’m not super excited about that since deer are a nuisance in NY.) They had an open pool of tilapia where the kids sat by and watched, mesmerized. We had bread and butter, I had a palm heart salad, the kids had a salmon tartare, my mom had steak (after sending back a fish that smelled a little funny), and adam had a chicken crepe.

We headed back to Puntarenas (and saw a couple of macaws flying above) and stopped by their version of a home improvement store, where each of the kids picked up a bag of mixed local candies to try (courtesy of my mom of course), a couple drill bits, and some mop handles. Adam is just pooped, but the good thing is my parents have a mobile hotspot so he can do whatever he needs for work at all times.

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My sister made some amazing wings for dinner, which while smaller, are way more juicy and tender and flavorful than the chicken I get in the supermarket. The guacamole Sophie helped her with yesterday also came on the table and everyone demolished it. My sister is going to test out her menu and hopefully I can help do the photographs tomorrow.

Friday, December 24th, 2021

Adam woke up this morning congested but no fever—not sure if he caught a little cold (we were boosted two weeks before we left) or if it’s allergies because the dry season kicks up a lot of dust here. I went with my mom around the town, which was bustling—she says this is rare but it’s because it’s Christmas Eve so everyone is here on vacation.

I had said I really wanted to go fishing, so we started looking for a fishing tackle store. We must have gone to 8 stores, each time getting some vague directions, but we finally made it! My mom told me that the way the local people fish off the shore here is with a large spool of line, a lead weight at the end, and two hooks strung about three inches apart, and they throw it in. The guy at the counter who could speak some english very nicely strung it up for me and told me I should get shrimp for bait.

Then we went to a meat store to pick up some chicharrones, to this fish market where lots of different fish vendors sold their wares to pick up some fish and spiny lobsters, and then the supermarket for some groceries—including more passionfruit because Adam ate all of them. Martha demolished half a huge mango on her own as well (she loves mangos.) When we came back, I realized the plantain tree in the back had fallen over from the weight of several bunches of plantains, so I let Sophie try to grab them but it was too hard so I had to pull them off instead.

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We had the chicharrones for lunch, with some hand made tortillas and another pork dish sliced thin.This chicharron was the best I’ve ever had—crispy but not hard or tough. There have been chicharrones that were like shoe leather traumatizing me in the past so this one was perfect. Some squeaky cheese on the side and it is heaven! My mom also cooked up the sardine fillet’s we bought at the fish market today, and there is such a huge difference when the fish is as fresh as this.

We went to the beach at sundown but I didn’t bring the hand-reel because I thought there would be too many people which was a mistake, there was no one at the beach because it’s Christmas eve I guess. We had salchipapas which is french fries and fried sliced hotdogs and a jugo de sandia (watermelon juice) at one of the stores that is open next to the beach. The kids found coconuts on the beach and insisted on bringing them back—while both me and my mom think that’s crazy, I reminded her that was exactly what I did the first time we came to Costa Rica so they’re just carrying on the tradition of going nuts for coconuts.

My sister is testing out her shaved ice recipes on us all day and they are delicious. The kids are the ones happiest about that of course. We had the spiny lobsters for dinner and they were DELICIOUS (I’m sensing a theme) which was a surprise because I always expect warm water lobsters to be not as good. The meat was sweet and tender with some drawn butter. About $15 for a kilo.

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December 25th, 2021

Today was mostly work on my part—I helped set up the listings (and had to do it ONE BY ONE) for the units on AirBnb, it took about four hours to get everything right. My sister will input all the codes when they have that portion set up. I also sat with my mom to help set her menu for the cafe she is opening next to my sister’s restaurant. There isn’t much to report today as far as the fun portion goes, but we went to the beach again after I was done. I had expected it to also be empty due to it being Christmas day but much to my surprise it was BUMPIN’. Music and karaoke and people everywhere. There was also a cruise ship at the port (Puntarenas port is a cruise ship destination). The kids were hungry so we stopped by a beach side restaurant and got them a watermelon juice, some salchipapas (again), and Adam had a beer.

Tomorrow morning my mom is taking us to Manuel Antonio National Park, which is about 3 hours away to stay at a resort for the night. Normally by now I’d be homesick and hankering to go back to NY but honestly Costa Rica feels (and literally is) a second home for me. Also, selfishly, I get to be pampered by my mama rather than do the pampering and she takes over thinking for my family for me this week. Everything from food to alcohol to desserts and clothes, we’re basically princesses (even Adam.) I’m going to miss being here for sure.

I think Martha is going to miss the mangos the most—this tiny creature has eaten almost two mangos all by herself at this point, and each of them were nearly the size of her head!

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December 26th, 2021

Today we set out for Manuel Antonio, which is where my sister completed her scuba diving license (which can be used anywhere in the world). We stopped by the Los Suenos resort for breakfast (I had a migraine and was a bit carsick as a result). The view as always is gorgeous.

Then we went to a beach side restaurant in Manuel Antonia while the kids went to put their feet in the water. Don’t get the mussels, turns out it’s not the kind of mussels we think but is the big halved ones. Finally we came to our hotel which is the Blue Banyan, and is a nature preserve. There was an iguana tapdancing on the roof all night. The kids really enjoyed the pool. Tomorrow we will have a tour of the animal sanctuary.

December 27th 2021

The owner, Chip, is originally from the US and spoke with us about the environmental laws that have passed in the last ten years during breakfast (they make amazing banana pancakes—like so delicious I will need to find out how to make it at home)—birds can’t be pets (and actually now the only allowed pets are cats, dogs, and bizarrely hedgehogs) which explains why we haven’t seen parrots in restaurants or at people’s houses. When the law first passed they received a whole bunch of birds, and an avian specialist from Cornell University came and created a program to test which birds can be released back into the wild, and which had to stay at the sanctuary. They are mainly a sloth and monkey sanctuary that get a lot of animals hit by cars or electrocuted, and not only plant trees but also install wildlife crossings so that less sloths get monkeys get into car accidents. They also advocate for putting guards and insulating the electric wires since whenever an animal gets electrocuted, it causes a power outage.

We saw marmosets and white faced monkeys and spider monkeys—these were all animals that could not be released due to being pets. They also pulled a boa out of the kitchen because it had been hiding there so that was pretty cool—the guide said it was the fourth time this same boa had come in.

It was really humid and hot so the kids were very tired. Then after, we went to Los Suenos for lunch again (Sophie had a tuna tartare, Martha had chicken fingers, we all had the brussels sprouts, wedge salad, and octopus for appetizers, Adam has a pear salad, my sister had a ravioli, and my mom had a carbonara—the restaurant was Italian) and then back to Puntarenas and to the beach! This is the last night here in Puntarenas so we stayed at the beach a little longer—Sophie found a dead pufferfish washed ashore and I’m… pretty sure it’s a poisonous one. Adam chased the kids around the beach for a bit. Did our laundry so we would have enough clothes for the next three days. Our dinner was ham sandwiches and lobster bisque made with the lobster shells from the spiny lobsters we cooked up the other day, courtesy of my sister. Then off to bed!

…or not. My parents also have an Airbnb in NY at their house (I’m a cohost and I often handle the communications) and the guest could not get the heat to work so I spent a while trying to troubleshoot. THEN it was off to bed.

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December 28th 2021

We had noodles and eggs for breakfast, and then my mom needed a second opinion on shelf placement as she begins to decorate the units in earnest. We packed our stuff and then took her car into San Jose first—she and my sister will join us a little later. Adam drove and while he is a good driver, his crazy matches the people here too. So our schedule for the next few days is we’ll overnight in San Jose (at the same hotel as our first night—we got the room by the pool which is a treat for the kids especially), have brunch with Mr. Chen, and then go to the trout valley and stay overnight there. Then back to San Jose on the 30th, get tested in the morning, my mom will stay overnight in San Jose so we’ll bum around her hotel until it’s time to leave for our flight—we should get to the Airport around 9pm for our 12am flight.

We ended up getting into San Jose relatively early (despite traffic due to… falling rocks) so we decided to grab lunch first before checking in (had a Patacones Al Pastore—fried green plantains and marinated grilled pork, fried cheese which I loved, and Adam had a salad. I don’t know why but I’m usually lactose intolerant but I don’t have a reaction to the cheese down here. It’s very strange.) Then the kids were in the pool for two and a half hours, took a nap, and then we were off to a French restaurant my mom wanted to treat us to called L’ile de France. My mom and my sister went to the restaurant area first because it is near the supply store she needs to purchase plates and stuff for her restaurant.

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The french restaurant was absolutely delicious—we had escargot (the kids too! They are absolutely my children.) which made me again interested in raising snails, duck liver mousse, beef tartare (Sophie’sfavorite), a tasty cold asparagus dish, and potato gnocchi. My mom said she and my sister come here once a month and it makes all the craziness here worth it.

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December 29th, 2021

This morning we headed out to the cloud mountain valleys of San Gerardo which is a place I often see in my dreams and now that I’m here I’m not so sure if those are dreams or memories. On the way, we met up with Mr. Chen and his wife for lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the valley and had hanging hummingbird feeders with dozens of hummingbirds. The kids loved it because if you held your hand near, they would perch on you. I had a coconut based seafood soup and adam had a salad. Martha really wanted to order for herself and got… french fries.

The valley is so lovely in that it’s temperature is a perfect 70-80 degrees during the day and drops down to the 50’s and 60’s at night, with rolling fog making the landscape look surreal.

The drive to our lodgings for the night my mom said was dangerous so we let her drive, but it actually wasn’t bad at all. The place we’re staying at raises their own rainbow trout in the ponds, and is right by a gorgeous mountain stream with several trails—which I could have honestly done without exploring as far as the trails go because that was exhausting. Then me and Adam went to the bar while my mom watched the kids. We ordered mojitos, a cheese conserve, and a rainbow trout conserve, which is cheese/trout marinated in herbs and oil. It was quite delicious and makes my culinary brain go a-buzzing as to what to make when I got back to NY.

We’ll have dinner here (I got a delicious stewed beef tongue) and then tomorrow head back into San Jose where we’ll get a covid test and then stay at the hotel my mom will be overnighting in to wait for our 12am flight. We’ll probably get to the airport around 9pm.

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This trip was really too short as I didn’t end up getting to do as much of the stuff I wanted to work on this time, but it was a great trip to refamiliarize myself with the area—my mom said the next time we come she’ll just give us the car and the car keys and we can do whatever. It’s hard to go back home, but seeing all of these lovely places we stayed at makes me want to make my place also a paradise.

December 30th 2021

This is technically our last day here because our flight is at 12 midnight back into NY.

I should mention that Adam has been doing a lot of the driving and he’s been a champ—especially since 1. all the road signs are in Spanish, 2. there are no actual addresses, everything is relative to everything else (ex. the red house 200 meters north of the post office in Alajuela), 3. the Waze directions is in mandarin and in miles… which wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t for that, 4. everything else is in kilometers, and 5. traffic laws are loosely followed here so it’s absolute chaos. We managed to survive which is a testament to his driving ability (but there were several times where I held on and went “Hooooly shiiiiiiit.”)

This morning we had a delicious breakfast, even though it was super cold overnight. My mom, me, Sophie and Martha sang my dad happy birthday over the phone. Then we took a shower (wherein I had to remove a cricket from the bathroom because Adam is freaked out by bugs and the hot water was finicky as hell.) We headed into San Jose but not before we stopped by a coffee plantation. I had seen these small bags of coffee that I thought would be great for souvenirs (rather than buying big bags) so we made a small detour into Terrazu where most of the Costa Rican coffee is produced. Their store didn’t have enough units so they directed us to the factory where my mom proceeded to buy… 100 bags. So now we’re hauling quite a bit of coffee home with us.

We had lunch at a local pizza restaurant near the hotel my mom always stays at, checked into her room, and then went to get our Covid test (all negative!) to await our flight. Her room this time is BANGIN’—with a jacuzzi. The kids had a swim again in the pool.

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Home sweet home—the red eye flights are… not fun. I barely slept and was exhausted. My dad came to pick us up and we crashed when we got home. Then we had to prepare for New Year’s Eve practice at the dojo. I’m just ordering a sushi platter and call it a day. I’m still adjusting to the change in temperature.

I don’t really know what else to write now that we’re back—only that we might do another trip in the summer. I’m going to miss the carefree days there but between now and then, I’ll focus on making getting Moffitt in tip top shape.