News
Slumming it in Costa Rica
It isn’t hard to do. It may not be a good idea, but it isn’t hard to do. People who live in the San Jose area have heard the names. Barrio Cuba. Leon XIII. Los Guido. Pavas. The list could go on. I have come to know some people who live in some of these
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Recent Posts
Here is the latest from usexpatcostarica.com
Learn Spanish
Learn to Read Spanish in ONE HOUR!
It CAN be done. YOU can do it (I believe in you!). UNDERSTANDING what you are reading is another story. But by following some simple guidelines, you will be able to pronounce written Spanish. Spanish has far fewer sounds than English, to begin with, and nearly all of the sounds you need to make are
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The Spanish Inquisition Part 3
I need to re-emphasize that I am NOT a native speaker and I am not truly fluent. But as a student I am passing along some things that I learned that may help YOU learn Spanish. Verbs: This is where Spanish is trickiest. You can do it wrong and still be understood, assuming what you
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The Spanish Inquisition (learning the language, Pt. 2)
In part 1, we took a look at a few general aspects of the effort to learn Spanish. Here in part 2 we’ll take a look at the language itself and some things that might help to get a grasp of the language. These are things I found helpful and I hope they may be
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To get the most out of Costa Rica, you should be able to speak Spanish. The better you speak it, the more there is to enjoy. Nevertheless, I know more than a few gringos down here who have lived for years here and speak only the most rudimentary Spanish, about what an intelligent person could
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Entertainment, Food and Drink
Birthday Party at Harry’s Bar Poás One of my favorite bartenders celebrated her birthday recently at Harry’s Bar Poás in San Jose. I like the place for a number of reasons. First, you won’t find a more genial gringo in San Jose than Harry. Second, I can afford to drink there. Third, it’s only a few blocks from my apartment. And
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I had been itching to try out my new slick video camera and wanted to take the train again so I mixed the two together and, voila! A couple of friends and I decided to take the first afternoon train up to Heredia, mostly for the ride (nothing against Heredia, but it has even FEWER
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Updates! Updates! Updates! It’s been more than 4 months since we started this blog, and we’ve put up nearly 300 posts on all kinds of topics, from Volcanoes to street vendors to residency procedures and more than I care to list. Nothing stays static and we’ll try to catch you up on a few things since the original
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Relocation, Residency and Real Estate
Gringo Gripes – Caja Health Care Bless you, AM Costa Rica. Once again I have been inspired by my morning reading. Over the past couple of issues there has been a ‘dialog’ (if you want to be polite) between detractors and defenders of my adopted country of residence. Since I’m both a detractor AND a defender, I shall wade in where
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Costa Rica – Heaven or Hell? Once again I draw inspiration from the letters to the editor sent to AM Costa Rica. Variations of these letters appear rather frequently on that site. Perhaps the editor feels it his duty to publish all opinion. Perhaps he likes that it’s free content for his web site. Probably both. In any case, the most
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The Story of Dave In a way I suppose it’s all my fault. I was the one who told him about Costa Rica. He came down for a visit and within a year he was living here. Actually, it isn’t ALL my fault, but I did set the chain of events in motion. Here’s (part of) Dave’s story. I
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