Have you ever wondered about the little coffee-farming town I live in, here in the Central Valley of Costa Rica? Well – wonder no more! I’ve written a little guidebook to help you navigate around Grecia.
After living here for over 3 years, I discuss what you need to know if you are visiting Grecia – either on vacation, or even if you are thinking about living here one day.
Hello friends! Greg and I get questions all the time on self-publishing, so we have decided to do a blog post on it for you. That’s right – this post comes from both the Seymour’s today!
Here is our advice, answers, and tips for you:
1. Why did you self-publish vs. publishing the traditional way? Well, that answer is quite simple: time and money.
So you’ve heard that living in Costa Rica is perfect, like being on a permanent vacation? Well, I’m here to keep it real. Here’s an example of what it takes to live here – or of what can happen occasionally. Sometimes every day.
This is a true story, and is pretty much a combo of “tico time” + “pura vida” + just plain real living in Costa Rica.
Let me tell you a story. There was once a girl who lived in Dallas and LOVED salad. Almost any kind of salad, but her favorites were caesar salad (with or without chicken) or a fried or grilled chicken salad (with ranch dressing, cheddar cheese and croutons). OK, so maybe these salads weren’t the healthiest of salads, but still – it made this girl feel good and healthy when she got to eat a salad for a meal. At least she was getting some vegetables, and let’s be serious – any kind of salad is better than a burger or pizza.
So, when I first moved to Costa Rica, I was surprised that I couldn’t find cream in the refrigerated section of the grocery stores. I searched and searched – several different grocery stores – all to no avail. And I’m talking about any kind of cream: half and half, light cream, whipping cream or heavy cream.
Yep, that’s us with our 9 suitcases in the driveway of Greg’s folks house in Dallas, right before we headed out to the airport to fly to Costa Rica on June 17, 2013.
So, what exactly did we pack in those 9 suitcases? Well, I’m here to tell you. This has actually been requested of me several times, and I just finally got around to doing it (thanks Dee Dee for your nudge the other day!) Although I did an earlier form of this list in the back of my book Costa Rica Chica, this post will be more detailed and itemized.
A lot of DIY recipes for this call for liquid castille soap, and while I’m sure I could find that here in Costa Rica somewhere, I couldn’t fathom where to even begin looking for it. So in the mean time – I did this recipe below. It works great, is so easy, and is SOOOOOO incredibly cheaper than say… Bath & Body Works.
So you’re coming to Costa Rica – either for a vacation, or (get back Jack) to MOVE here.
You want to know about the sun and the bugs.
Well, I’m here to tell you – the sun is pretty potent in Costa Rica.
We are only 10 degrees North of the Equator, after all, my friends!
You know what that means. The sun will be more intense here in Costa Rica,
no matter what you are used to in the States.
So…. you’re having dinner guests over in an hour, and you discover that you don’t have any napkins in the house! Horror of horrors. But wait – you DO have paper towels.
Well, this happens a lot to me here in Costa Rica because we just don’t buy napkins. Paper towel is fine for all of our needs. And of course we buy the cheapest paper towel we can, because we live on a pretty frugal budget. Although we did have to start paying a bit more for a little bit nicer brand, as the cheapest one was very hard to tear off the roll without shredding, and if it got the least bit wet, it totally disintegrated.
