September 1, 2010

Learning Pura Vida in Costa Rica

By admin

Nope, Costa Rica is not Puerto Rico, Mexico or an island. And if you go there, prepare yourself for a sloow lifestyle — that you’ll love when cracking open a bottle of Imperial beer but may have to get used to when faced with angry crowds of high-strung tourists. Learning to enjoy the good life as an expat requires some growing pains, but ask my friend Marcelo here, it’s worth it! Costa Rica is amazing! Not sure what I mean about all of this? I tackle some of the misconceptions I uncovered during my year living in Costa Rica as a guest blogger on Nomadic Matt’s site:

Click here! Learning Pura Vida in Costa Rica

Posted in Guest Blogging | Tagged , | 4 Comments
August 25, 2010

The Good Life: walking tour of Costa Rican pueblo

By admin

Since moving back to the US after a year of living in Costa Rica, I’ve been inundated with questions, most often along the lines of, “What is living there like?” Most simply, life is very quiet. My adopted stomping grounds, Coco, is a fishing village of 3,000 people on the Pacific coast, just an hour south of Nicaragua. Maybe a visual walking tour will give a better idea of everyday life in the pueblo. My only request: no comment about my usage of the present tense. Seriously, no comment! Read More »

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August 10, 2010

Expat life by the numbers

By admin

Some of the things that felt most natural to me at the time (my neighbors constantly yelling at me through my window when I didn’t have a phone) are the things that will soon feel the most foreign to me when I return to the US. I teared up writing this list and boiling down my time into a series of numbers; I’m not sure why. A lot of it has to do with the fact that it clearly shows how much I’ve changed. A mere six months before I moved to Costa Rica, when all I knew were cities such as NYC, Las Vegas and LA, I would not have believed that I could accomplish such “feats.” (Even BlackBerry-addicted me can survive prolonged periods without a phone, TV, car or computer. Who knew?) In fact, I grew so rapidly during my year as an expat that not only could I not have imagined such a life beforehand, I doubt I could have achieved it. But slowly, my life morphed into something even fantasy-driven I could never have dreamed up for myself. During my year in Coco, I experienced/survived/enjoyed: Read More »

Posted in My musings | Tagged , , | 10 Comments
August 3, 2010

Coco and Las Vegas: A Breakdown

By admin

Am I really leaving my beloved Coco to move back to Las Vegas? Yes, yes, I know… It’s beginning to sink in. I started to write a funny little item about how different my Central American pueblo is from the wild Sin City I called home for three years before luring me back after two more. But now that I’m traveling through Turkey and Bulgaria with @DTravelsRound, it’s all too obvious that you can find connections and similarities anywhere you look. We all know it’s a small world out there, but after hanging out with people from Australia, Scotland, Sweden, Italy, France, Russia, Denmark and more, I’m feeling sentimental. Even through my utopian travel haze, I know that Coco and Las Vegas are as different as night and day. But I worked extra hard to find connections and will keep in that spirit as I finish my trip and then make my Big Move. There is something like all of us in everyone we meet and everywhere we go. Enjoy it!

Read More »

Posted in Top Ten Lists | Tagged , , | 18 Comments
July 28, 2010

Why I’m leaving paradise

By admin

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say, “I wish I could give everything up and move to a hut on the beach.” Well, you can. I did! And it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. The year I spent in Playas del Coco, Costa Rica, most of the time in a tiny one-room house surrounded by ear-splitting roosters and howler monkeys, was the happiest of my life.

Despite those loud animals, I conquered my life-long insomnia. Plugged in to an adventurous community of expats and travelers like me, I made friends from all over the world. And in my pueblo, I made friends with whom I could truly be myself. In fact, I can honestly say that I was more myself this year than at any other time in my life. Read More »

Posted in My musings | Tagged , , | 34 Comments
July 27, 2010

Sailing, sailing…

By admin

Spend a year in a fishing village, and you’ll get quite used to being on a boat. But of all my days at sea, I’d never been sailing. So when my friend Heather invited me to join her on her 45-foot Sea Bird one Sunday morning, I leapt at the chance!

Coco had suffered through pouring rain for days, but we woke up that Sunday to sunny skies. Already fearing that I’d soon be leaving my little beachfront pueblo, Lisa and I decided to make it a celebratory sail. On the way to Ocotal beach, we picked up two bottles of champagne. We’d barely left shore when we popped the first one open! We toasted our bubbly as a handful of dolphins played about 20 feet away. Read More »

Posted in Journal Entry | Tagged , , | 8 Comments
July 20, 2010

My first review!

By admin

Almost exactly six months after I started my blog, I Wish Gap Year gave me my first review. And it couldn’t have been nicer! The reviewer really spent some time reading my blog, which means so much… especially since this magazine editor greatly appreciates reporters and writers who do their homework. This was completely unexpected and so, so exciting for me. I can’t thank I Wish Gap Year enough! Show them some love — their site is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to take a gap year abroad. Eleven months into my stay in Costa Rica, it’s a move I clearly support!

Read my review here: Blog Focus: The Jungle Princess

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 5 Comments
July 13, 2010

A Perfect Storm

By admin

Some trips seem so much like a slam dunk that it’s hard to get excited for them. My last such adventure? A week in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. My friend Denise invited me, to leave the very next day after I got home from a week in NYC. I love Denise; I figured I’d like her friends. I love San Juan, and I love the beach; easy, peasy. Instead of thinking about it at ALL, I spent weeks getting pumped about NYC. Poor Nicaragua was an afterthought, an “Oh, I almost forgot that I have one night to unpack and re-pack my bags, even though I live in the tropics without a dryer and thus have no idea how I’m going to manage such a fast turnaround.” Read More »

Posted in Journal Entry | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments
June 22, 2010

Thank you, NYC

By admin

Ten months after I moved to a small fishing village in Costa Rica, I’ve come to an interesting revelation: I most feel at home in Coco (population: 3000) because of the time I spent in New York City. I’ve moved around so much, that those five years living in Manhattan are my record, as long as I’ve lived anywhere. From there, I moved to Austin, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, all which ended up being temporary stops. Now? I’ve got NYC on the brain. Here are the surprising ways that living in the big city eventually turned me into a small town girl.

1. My first house in Costa Rica was only slightly bigger than a Yukon, but I’m used to cramped space. In NYC, my bedroom was the size of my bed. (Literally. I had to climb off the foot in order to get off it.) Read More »

Posted in Journal Entry, Top Ten Lists | Tagged , , | 19 Comments
June 21, 2010

Camera-ready in Costa Rica

By admin

Trying (unsuccessfully) to diet, getting my hair done, worrying about my limited wardrobe… Either I had a date, or I was going to be immortalized on film. Stop laughing out loud about my dating prospects in this tiny town. I don’t hear you anyway, because I’m too busy staying camera-ready!

An old friend of mine, Matt Gross (of New York Times’ Frugal Traveler fame) visited me for a whirlwind film shoot for an excellent travel/expat show he’s pitching, Strangers in Strange Lands. Little Coco might never be the same. Read More »

Posted in Journal Entry | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

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