Pura Vida!

I am in San Jose! Or, more correctly, I am in Cedros, San Pedro. My address is all sorts of fun – it includes 400 m E as part of it. I had quite the adventure getting here. After a mechanical delay in Minneapolis, I spent three hours in Denver (as noted in yesterday's post), before hopping on a plane to San Jose. Upon arriving and picking up my bag, I discovered that one of my soap bottles – a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Original, to be exact – had opened during the flight. The plastic bag I had set it in had sprung a leak, and about half of what I had in the bottle spilled everywhere. The suitcase smells very peppermint-y, and the soap soaked all the way through to my top layer of clothes. Then I headed out to the “Parada de Taxis” to wait for the driver the seminary was sending. After waiting about an hour, I decided he probably wasn't coming (I found out later they thought my flight was at 5:20pm, not 5:20 am). However, I didn't have an address for UBL, nor did I have a phone number. So, I called dad. $50 later, I had an address and several phone numbers. I got in a taxi, and we drove to the seminary, where I was met by the guy who will be my boss – Alvaro – for the next few months. He drove me to my apartment thing, which I will apparently be sharing with a young woman who will arrive Wednesday. And to top it all off, I'm losing my voice. But! I'm here, and that's what really matters.

The Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana (UBILA) library is basically undergoing a catalog overhaul. My job is to pull books from a section, find their cards in the card catalogs (Author, title, and subject), and then look up the full information from the Library of Congress, or the Barcelona National Library. It is slow going – it takes a while to pull all three cards, and looking up the books is a tedious process, because sometimes they don't exist in the Library of Congress catalog, or the Barcelona National Library catalog, but there's a lot of data entry before I can be completely certain. I have a funny little office that would make my dad flip out – there is pretty much space for a desktop computer plus maybe a foot on either side, and bookshelves lining the walls. Its very long and narrow, but behind the computer is a window, which overlooks a little garden with some beautiful flowers.

My apartment is 100 m (1 city block) west of UBILA, on a side street. Like most houses in San Jose and the surrounding areas, there is a gate and a fence that I have to unlock to get inside. There are 7 apartments in the building block, and I live in the furthest one back. I have a small, mostly furnished kitchen, a bathroom, and my own room. There is also another bedroom, and a small dining/living area. This might be the same place my parents stayed several years ago when we traveled to Costa Rica. There are two grocery stores near by. One is the Perimercado de Cedros, which is a big store about 300 m from my apartment. There is also a smaller supermercado inbetween my apartment and the Perimercado. Everyone has told me that the supermercado is not as good, and if I am going to get groceries, I might as well walk the extra block.

My Spanish is less rusty than I expected, but is definitely not one hundred percent there. I have some pretty large vocabulary gaps at the moment, but Alvaro speaks English fluently, so we get along alright. I met a nine year old in the library today. Her name is Luz (I think. She speaks very quickly), and she is learning some English in school. She is very sweet, but says that I spend too much time thinking about the translation in my head and should just get a dictionary already. I don't think using a dictionary will really help with my speed!

So in sum: I'm here, entonces todo está pura vida!