No hay problema!

Here we are on day two our first “real” week in Costa Rica. Last week didn’t really count because we only had two Spanish classes and Jill wasn’t up and running with her clients.

The good news is we’ve got our morning routine down:

• We are loving getting up when the sky starts to lighten and watching the sun rise over the mountains
• I’m getting pretty good in the desayuno (breakfast) department
• We know that if we roll out of here at 7:45AM we will be at Spanish school by 8AM.

In other good news we are both loving Spanish. However, we are now at the point where we are puzzled a fair amount of the time. Over the last couple of days we’ve covered the Big 5 Verbos:

• Ser
• Estar
• Haber
• Tener
• Hacer

We’ve learned when they apply and how to conjugate them. Each one makes sense in its own right, but when la profesora gives us a sheet full of sentences and tells us to drop in the right verb and conjugation hilarity ensues. Our profesora says we are doing well and I suspect we are gradually getting it, but it definitely feels like we are in the deep end of the pool. “Hacer” is my personal nemesis at this point. It appears to be catch all in a lot of ways that are not intuitive to me.

We stopped at La Coope today on the way home from school to pick up some items for dinner and breakfast. If you’re buying stuff that’s grown in Costa Rica it’s generally of fabulous quality and costs about half of what we are used to paying. The one thing that’s a little deceiving is their citrus looks pretty beat up, but is always fantastic under the peel. I think it’s because they don’t do any irrigation and the skin does it’s job protecting the fruit.

• Giant bag of fresh organic basil: $1.55
• 250 grams of granola: $1.64
• 1/2 kilo of cherry tomatoes: $1.75
• 2 Gala apples (imported): $1.56
• 15 pasture raised eggs: $2.64 (eggs are priced by the kilo)

We were out the door at La Coope for $9.15.

Today Jill has four clients, which is the most she plans to have in one day. So this will be the initial barometer of how she feels after 3 hours of intensive Spanish in the morning and a full slate in the afternoon. My job is to keep her fed and hydrated. Another mark in the good news column is that with three clients down and one to go Jill reports “No hay problema!” I’m delighted to report that things are working as desired on the IT front.

An interesting question is what I will do with myself while Jill is working in the afternoons Monday through Thursday. I’m going to stay close to home in the near term because until we are certain that things are rock solid I want to be available to Jill in the event of technical issues. I’ve got a healthy reading list, but if anyone has a life changing book they think I need to read please let me know.

We took advantage of Jill’s one hour break to do our daily walk down the hill and back up. We’re both pretty floored by the native flora. We’re still discovering new things with each walk. Here’s what we found today:

One of my goals is to have dinner ready to plate when Jill has a therapy day that ends at dinner time. For dinner tonight I’m making gnocchi. We bought a three pack of gnocchi at PriceSmart, which I will serve with olive oil, basil, tomatoes, garlic, salt, and pepper. Simple but delicious!

After dinner we have Spanish homework plus flash cards.

Jill’s parents arrive Thursday at 1PM. I believe we are ready for our first guests. We will be going afield with them to take in volcanoes and waterfalls so maybe my upcoming posts will be a little less de riguer.

I should probably have a gin and tonic ready for Jill when she commutes back down the stairs from her office at 6PM to celebrate a good day all the way around!