The basics

My first couple of days have been a pretty boring routine as I settle in, but here are some thoughts.

My hotel is on a strip that seems to be still developing and has some nice offices for international companies and an entrance to a nice neighborhood, and you can tell this section of the road is upscale.  Walking down the street I pass a couple of strip shopping centers (including restuarants), banks, a grocery store, etc.  There is also a McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway, Quiznos, and Applebee’s.  (Keep in mind that those are relatively premium places outside the U.S.)  Japanese and Peruvian food are clearly popular; there are at least 3 Japanese and 2 Peruvian places within a 5 min walk along this street.  The thing that sticks out is the Caterpillar rental place.  Maybe people stop by to pick up their groceries nearby and then their front-end loader.

Food prices can vary wildly.  I’ve been eating out at the nearby restaurants.  There is no Costa Rican food place nearby, since (like many places) people cook that at home and if they are going to go out and pay good money, they want something different.  A main plus a drink has run me $16-30.  I looked at prices in a McDonald’s and a Big Mac meal – the cheapest combo – is 3000 colones ($6).

Prices include all taxes – the U.S. system drives me nuts.  So far, all restaurants have added 10% tip to the bill, but I think that’s because these are nicer restaurants.

A shot from Lindora looking south toward Santa Ana.  San Jose proper is very small, so I'm having to learn all of the little suburbs.

Eating out story: I went last night to a nice Spanish/Argentinian restaurant.  They had two separate menus, one for Spanish food and one for Argentinian, which was interesting.  A family with kids sat next to me.  I’m not typically one to roll my eyes and taking kids out to restaurants, except that the family didn’t think a thing about their littlest (~2, I would guess) consistently pounding the table with the salt and pepper shakers.  Think about eating next to a jackhammer.  That finally stopped when the kid found a more interesting pastime: sucking on the top of the shakers, I assume for the pepper and salt tastes.  However, I had some excellent mozerella and basil empanadas, so it was impossible to be too annoyed.

I pass a surprising number of people running or going for a family walk in the evenings.  Many of these are wearing construction-site reflector vests, which makes a lot of sense when you frequently share a road with cars.  Time to pull out my own reflector belt…

My initial take on the Tico taste in pop music is that it leaves something to be desired; within 48 hours of being here I had heard Gangnam Style, Call Me Maybe, and a One Direction song on the radio.  That’s approaching 30-50% of the English songs I have heard.