Is eleven bags a lot or not much if you are on your way to live somewhere for 5-6 months? These are the kinds of things I think about. Some people asked us before we left if we were going to ship a bunch of stuff and I thought, “Jesus, we would have to be bringing a lot of stuff to HAVE to ship it. After all, we can check 8 bags AND bring 8 bags on to the plane with us.” Other people who saw our pile of eleven bags said, “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.” Whether a lot or not much, our entire lives reduced down to one suitcase, two duffel bags, three carry-on on bags and five back packs. That’s what it took for us to move our family to Costa Rica.
The last few weeks has been dominated by marathon box-checking. It’s been a lot, even for me, someone who is generally comforted by a list. The refuge an overwhelming list provides is that it keeps you in your head, until a sudden goodbye to someone you love surprise gut punches you. There was a lot of that, but then again the refuge of the logistics: pick-up debit card for new back up bank account, reorganize bags for plane ride, run last errand at Best Buy, check into airport hotel, fail to sleep because what if you didn’t wake up in time for the flight, get family up at 4:20 am (not that kind of 4:20), catch airport shuttle, check bags, go through security, eat breakfast, load plane, two hours in the air, LAX, eat lunch, load plane, 5 more hours in the air, immigration and customs at new favorite foreign airport…so new, so easy, so fast…shuttle to airport hotel, mediocre expensive dinner, crash, mediocre expensive breakfast, shuttle to rental place, rent car, pick up bags and boys, drive to Tamarindo, check into condo (have momentary freak out while guy at gate looks at us like “Who are you? You think you are living here?”), move eleven bags in, begin unpacking, experience surprise delight to discover our Netflix account works on the TV, drive to supermegasupermercado, have semi-frustrating experience shopping with irritable family members at store that has only 20% of the things on the list, take irritable family members home and throw them in the pool, then leave them behind while driving to better supermercado that has another 60% of the things on the list, put now sick husband down for three hour nap, make boys dinner, blissful night of good sleep, make boys French toast breakfast and feel surprise delight that you pulled it off in a foreign country, return rental car, explore Tamarindo, let boys have super expensive “fish eating the dead skin off your feet” experience, check out the beach, discover water temp is lovely, have mediocre coffee, yelp “best coffee in Tamarindo” and discover that was not it…will attempt redo tomorrow, discover the walk back to condo is longer than expected in the heat, throw boys in the pool, continue nesting and cleaning or “Mary Buitron-ing” my way through the condo (yes, Mary Buitron is my Mom—she is also a verb), I thought of her much as I redid the cleaning that was done before we moved in (as I scrubbed and discovered new areas of grossness, I kept thinking “Mary Buitron would not consider that clean!”) and pant, pant, deep breath…I think I can start to relax.
This evening boys were feeling home bound and into re-watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” from like 4 years ago, so Matt and I left them at the condo and walked a couple dimly lit, dirt and gravel blocks to the local sports bar. It turned out to be surprisingly cool: open-air, good cocktails, simple good food, super affordable, lots of things to do like ping pong, foosball, pool, darts, horseshoes and had friendly owner, Steve, who chatted us up and quickly made us realize that this would be a regular haunt. The future is looking good.
Some moments worth remembering from today:
Sam: “Thank you, Mom, for taking us on this trip. You did a really good job.” “I really like our condo.” “I think I am already feeling at home because I feel comfortable walking around our condo naked. We should all walk around naked.”
Gus: “I really like the condo. I have always wanted to live in something small.” “Oh my god, our Wi-Fi works!”