alexpgp | Oct. 4th, 2010

Galina and I must've pulled into the driveway around an hour ago, and I've been puttering about, going through the mail, setting up my computer, that kind of stuff.

One of the items in the mail is something official from Nassau County, New York, having to do with my mother and her apparent ineligibility for some assistance she received in the last year of her life. As this is something my old man took care of - or didn't - I really don't see any feasible way of "defending" against this demand.

It reminds me of the time when we liquidated our store and settled accounts with the US Postal Service, when suddenly people - investigators - show up to inform us of discrepancies that occurred several years before, which the Postal Service didn't see fit to even inform us of until the store was closing its doors.

So, I'm just trying to snap out of it before settling down to do some work.

* * *What can I say about Costa Rica?

I'm not really sure. We were there a week, on our trademark shoestring budget. We decided to sign up for some basic tours, leaving two days free to wander, but not knowing the first thing about where to wander - not to mention that shoestring budget I mentioned - we sort of went around in safe little circles.

Traditionally, I've never been really big on "the sights," with notable exceptions (such as art museums). I enjoyed the trip on the Tárcoles River, but not so much to the Arenal volcano (or the hot springs... then again, had it not been for the hot springs, my bathing suit would've remained unused the whole trip!). The trip to the Poás crater was a bust, and although the coffee farm tour was interesting, it was not as interesting to me as, say, the tour of the cosmodrome museum at Baikonur.

The real estate fellow we spoke to at Jacó (instead of going for a swim, which had been my original goal) provided another take on the mass mania that Costa Ricans, or "Ticos," seem to have with fences and razor wire. He maintains that criminals in Costa Rica overwhelmingly tend to avoid confrontational crimes. People may rob stuff from your car and from your house, or they may pick your pocket, but they generally won't accost you on the street and take your wallet, according to our interlocutor.

Myself, I worked out a completely extemporaneous theory that "good fences" in Costa Rica tend to send bad guys down the street in much the same way locking one's car or other simple act in the US tends to cause potential criminals to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Furthermore, when a household adds razor wire to the top of its fence, this only encourages all the neighbors up and down the street to do the same so as not to give an impression of being "more vulnerable" than someone else.

In the end, however, the sight of streets bordered on both sides with bars, fences, spikes, razor wire, and so on just seems wrong to this tourist.

How did things go with the language?

Ticos who work in the tourist industry pretty much have to speak English. Most other people don't. I have always disliked having to rely on "the other guy" (or gal, as the case might be) to be able to interact in someone else's country, so in the runup to the trip, I made a point of getting through the first twelve lessons of a course called Synergy Spanish.

As it turned out, I also managed to get additional daily "lessons" of a sort while doing the tours, because our group included a couple from Mazatlán, Mexico, which meant that our tour guide (and the local guides at places such as the coffee farm) provided their spiel in both English and Spanish. I listened to both, and managed to pick up a few words.

Over the course of our week in Costa Rica, I was complimented three times on my excellent Spanish. As one who is very painfully aware of my limitations in speaking the Spanish language, I must submit these three instances as data points to my long-held contention that pronunciation - and mine is very good in Spanish, if I do say so myself - will often trump actual nuts-and-bolts knowledge when it comes to the perception of native speakers, of all people.

Having said that, I was able to stumble through a number of encounters with people to find out what I wanted to know, though in nowhere near the volume that I wish I had.

Would I go back again?

I would, in a heartbeat. But next time, I would want to stay clear of San José and away from hotels and tour operators, and I would want to keep my distance from most expats, I think, as well.

* * *Getting out of the vicinity of DIA yesterday was a trick and a half.

The plane from Houston landed pretty much on time, and by the time we made our way to the escalators in the middle of the "B" concourse, then down to the train and over to the main terminal, the remaining luggage from our flight was being removed from the carousel.

I called our parking lot and got a message to the effect that the lot's vans orbited the terminal every 10 minutes, but after 20 minutes passed with no sign of a van, I called again and did a little voicemail jig to speak to a human, who swore that vans had been orbiting, and that another should be by shortly.

When we got to the parking lot, it turned out our car's battery was stone cold dead, which meant - among other things - that I couldn't even put the thing in gear to push it out of its spot in the event I could coax a jump from another late-arriving traveler. Fortunately, the lot had a portable battery package that started our car right up with no further ceremony.

The roads were fairly empty on the way to Parker. We got to Mike and Karen's late, and hit the sack immediately upon arrival. We got up early this morning and set out for home.

Gee, but it's good to be back!