Near Electrocution and Other Stories

This is our fun little yard. We live behind the super mercado! It is about the size of an average garage in the states but it does have Kern´s juice and Canada Dry Ginger Ale so it really is super to us.

Things have been good. We are really feeling local of late. When we go into town (Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui) we recognize people and chat with them on the street. Pretty cool.


This is our usual yummy dinner of beans. Made with our very own hot plate. This was sort of rare thing for us to eat. We usually have some sort of sandwich filled with local produce, avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and cheese. Always a good time for dinner at our place.

We came home one night and saw the biggest toad I have ever seen. It was bigger than my foot! We thought it was pretty funny.

This is a flower from a tree right next to where we eat lunch. It was huge! The flowers here look unreal.

This is a picture of one of the many Birds of Paradise plants in our front yard. They are like weeds here.

This is Almira (isnt she adorable?) standing next to our ¨ducha¨ shower. Notice the random wires sticking out of the top? This is how they heat the water here. No water tank just coils that instantly heat the water. That sounds about right doesnt it? Anyway ours broke for about a week- it would short out on us and then once we would turn off the water the coils would activate and give our place a free steam bath. Thankfully we have a new one now. It works great and we are thankful not to have gotten a jolt.

All and all things are great! We are going to be in a local Costa Rican magazine this month- for our English classes. Should be pretty cool! We love you all! Please write we love the comments and the emails! Keep them coming!!!

Love you, Kyle and Almira

A Day in the Life of...

Hey folks! Sorry, the camera's power died...so these are the only pics we've got. Kyle: eating a cucumber and sitting on the "lazy chair" in front of our neon orange house (most people really do just sit outside their houses in plastic or wicker chairs and do nothing). Then there is the creepy picture of the giant grasshopper held by an astonished Almira (we found this live specimen just outside our classroom)...that is all for now. We'll power up the camera for more fun pics to come! Stay tuned for our next blog "Near Electrocution"...sounds promising doesn't it? Love and miss you all!

Long Awaited Fotos

This is us at 4am in the Atlanta airport Sunday morning. Man were we tired...as you can tell.

The view from our Hostel our first night in San Jose.

View from the Center in Sarapiqui

Almira in our office at the Center

Part of our daily walk to work

More of the same.

Awesome tree frog

Once we finally made it to Sarapiqui and the Center they had prepared an amazing chocolate cake for Almira.

Our lovely kitchen-complete with hot plate!

Estamos Aqui en El Centro!!!

Hi everyone!

We made it here to the Center yesterday! It was a blast getting here. Sunday morning we flew out bright and early (we got up at 3:45a) and then headed to San Jose, Costa Rica. We had a seamless flight. It was so low key that I have some real concerns about homeland security. No one really checked our passports or itinerary- like we were told they would. Fun stuff.

We then got picked up by the hostel we stayed at. The driver took us all around San Jose and laid down the history for us. It was really interesting. Really it was. Once we got to the hostel we spent the rest of the day looking for something to eat. We were starving! We walked and walked and unlike just about everywhere else in the world most stores are actually closed on Sunday- just like Chik-fil-A. The only places that were open were American fast food joints. We ended up going to Burger King and having the best Whoopers we have ever eaten.

The hostel we stayed at was way too nice to be a hostel. Awesome and clean queen sized bed- the best!

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus depot where the assistant program director met us- Paula. She was so nice and helped us buy our tickets and get our stuff on the bus. Funny story... While on the bus Almira got hit in the head with a used candy wrapper that was thrown out of the front window of the bus and then sucked back in and landed in her hair. Yuck! It was funny afterwards anyway.

We finally got to Sarapiqui and took our final taxi to the Center. We met all of the wonderful people and had one of the best lunches ever. It being Almira´s Birthday, I had arranged to have a cake for Almira. Man was it the richest chocolate cake ever! So good! (pics to come)

We got to our new home. It is tiny house behind the local grocery. It is much nicer than we anticipated. We have luke warm water and everything (no one has anything more than frigid). We were also excited to see that we could get Ginger Ale. All and all a great place. We still however are living in the middle of nowhere, but we love it. We are still getting settled and acclimated to low keyness of this place. The people are awesome and the land is so beautiful. Costa Rica and a hot wife who could ask for anything more?

We hope everyone is well. We will post pics tomorrow. We have to convert them to smaller files. The internet here is akin to dial-up. A transition indeed. Until next time.

¡Pura Vida!