I am planning on attending my high school reunion this year, which means I will be seeing people I haven’t seen in decades, and will need to be ready to answer the various questions about my life in far off Costa Rica. Each time I return to the US, there are adjustments to be made. I like to joke that I prepare for the US by thinking like a US American— so I form unshakable opinions on complex topics about which I know little or nothing.
In reality, I go back to the states once every 12 to 18 months, and the one thing that takes a moment to get used to is the speed everyone drives at on the interstates. I learned to drive when the maximum speed limit was 55 mph, and if you try driving that speed now, you may get smashed from behind by a flying tractor-trailer, or at the least pulled over for driving too slow.
I have seriously thought about printing up a sheet that gives a quick summary of my 30-plus years at 9 degrees north latitude, making a hundred copies and just handing them out as soon as I hear the words Costa Rica (pronounced cawsta-ricka) spoken by one of my former classmates. I already have ready my go to non-answer for the inevitable question, “Why did you move to Costa Rica?” I respond– “I can tell you why I did NOT move to Costa Rica, I did not move to Costa Rica to get rich, and man have I stayed true to my plan.”
In truth, I live the same life I would have lived in the US– working for a living, paying bills, raising kids, stressing about finances, except I am doing it in a world famous tourism location. Somebody will ask me if I am fluent in Spanish. I might say, “Claro que si”. If I am lucky, I will encounter an ex-classmate who has traveled, and knows some Spanish, and we can show off by conversing in the language, while I hope that his Gringo accent is worse than mine.
Somebody will ask me if I like living in Costa Rica. I don’t know who would stay over thirty years in a place if they didn’t like it. But as I was a prime smart ass in my school days, and do not want to remind anyone, I will smile and say I love it, Costa Rica is Pura Vida! Then somebody will ask me what Pura Vida means.
There will be the weirdly random questions. Somebody might ask if I lived here when they filmed Jurassic Park. My first reaction to any mention of that movie is to let people know that our capital San Jose is nowhere near the beach as depicted, but instead inland at over 1,000 meters elevation, on a plateau and ringed by mountain ranges. I may add that the movie was actually filmed in Hawaii and California.
Sometime during the evening’s festivities, somebody will tell me they always wanted to live on an island. I will likely meet somebody who has already been here, like the old friends years ago who claimed the temperature was 105 degrees Fahrenheit in Manuel Antonio when they were there, and wanted to argue with me when I told them it never gets that hot at the beach. And there may be a guy who has been here who tells me our national beers are terrible, while he sips his Keystone Light.
It will be fun seeing how many of my classmates I can recognize after so many years. And if I get tired of all the Costa Rica related questions, I will just answer them all in Spanish.
