CUWinds Costa Rica

As a relatively frequent traveller I enjoy keeping notes of the various cultural differences between the places I go to and the place I live:

Keyboards: This keyoard is written in Spanish and the keys are everywhere.  There are a few new ones like ñ, ç, and somehow I´ve hit something so the font looks like this and I can´t figure out how to change it back so I suppose the rest of my post will look like this.  Anyway the point is that apparently there are special keyboards designed for Costa Ricans.

Driving: The Costa Rican drivers are some of the most terrible I have seen, beating out places like Bombay, India and Dubai, UAE.  Quite an impressive feat.  There is no better way to appreciate your life and frailty (cheers, Nick) than to try running sandwiched between speeding trucks and a ditch.  I did sustain a few minor scrapes falling into a ditch before I realized that these trucks have pretty good control of what they´re doing.  Nevertheless, for every pedestrian death the Costa Rican government paints a giant yellow heart on the road as a means of remembrance.

Drinking: The official drinking is 16 but the kids I´ve talked to can´t even tell me when they started.  Drinking and driving used to be rather prevalent but after a number of related accidents the government began to crack down.  Offenders may now look forward to a minimum sentense of a liscence suspension and a maximum sentence of several years in prison.  However the cops, the enforcers of said laws, are poorly paid so if you happen to have an extra wad of cash, you can continue on your merry little way.

Motels: Motels in Costa Rica consist of windowless, one story buildings divided into four-walled compartments that can be enetered via garage-style doors.  You may rent one of these compartments (rooms, I daresay) for an hour for the explicit purpose of

Pedophilia: Having sex with the underaged is strictly prohibited in CR as a cardoard cutout of a severe looking man reminded me as I walked out of the airport.  Since then I have seen plenty of billboards discouraging such activity.  I even saw a sign in a bar going to far as to discourage pulic displays of affection.  Even more odd, signs with a heart with a slash through it, like a no-smoking sign, dot all of the highways in this country.  Contrary to intuition, CR is merely protecting its drivers by reminding them to wear seatbelts.  Love is absolutely not discouraged.

Pura Vida: The first thing, probably before the pedophilia comment, that was drilled into my head upon arriving to Costa Rica.  The literal translation is ¨pure life¨or more accurately ¨really pure life¨ since the noun typically precedes the adjective in Spanish grammer unless the meaning is unusually significant.  The general idea behind it is to relax and enjoy life a little more, stop worrying, take your time and learn to expect less.

As the next semester, with its endless winter peppered with way too many deadlines, stresses, and psycho landlords, I advise you all to take a leaf out of this one.

Pura vida indeed.

Iona Machado

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.