The thrill of the hunt

These last 2 weeks or so have been a little crazy, as Krysta and I have been on a house hunt. We also just finished up language school this last week. While we are sad to leave our teachers at the language school, its also been a little bit of a relief to be done with that phase of the process.

Along the way of searching for our more permanent dwelling place, we had some interesting and good learning experiences. For instance, when you are getting directions to a place over the phone, it's a good idea to confirm that the house is actually located where the newspaper said it was....and not 45 minutes away from where you'd thought it was. No worries- we found that out before the taxi driver took us all the way out there. We also learned that the taxi drivers here (at least the ones we came in contact with) are super patient and helpful when we have no idea of how to get where we wanted to go. Addresses here in Costa Rica consist of telling how many meters to whichever direction the place is from the nearest big land mark. For example, the address of our current place is 200 meters east of Plaza Cristal. The houses don't have numbers, but they do usually have vivid or recognizably outstanding colors. So, finding somewhere that you've never been before may prove to be quite the challenge. We had at least 2 incidences in which the directions weren't quite clear enough, so the taxi drivers would pull over multiple times to ask people on the street for directions. This resulted, pretty much every time in either the taxi driver or the person on the street using their cell phone (as we have none) to call the place we were attempting to find in order to get better directions. They were all very sweet and helpful and it probably didn't hurt that by us not knowing exactly how to get there, having to drive around a lot, they were raking in the dough. Anyways, we always ended up finding where we needed to go, some way or another.

So, after making over 50 calls about renting places, facing many-a-rejection and visiting 9 or so places in person, we finally found what seems to be just about the perfect place! We checked out a few other places after seeing this one and doing so just seemed to confirm that the apartment we'd seen before was the place for us. We've felt really blessed in the ways that God has provided for us, especially in the housing department. This apartment we'll be moving into (that we actually just signed the papers for today) is new, has a beautiful view of the mountains and is within what we had budgeted for rent. It's about a 20 minute walk to the Dixons and downtown, 10 minute walk from a bus stop where we can find and catch a bus that will take us directly to where we'll be working and downtown San Jose- without having to switch buses. We are also only a 5 minute walk from a smaller store where all the basic necessities are sold, in case we forgot something or needed to get something in a hurry. For those of you who may be concerned with safety, the apartment is built up, terraced on a hill with wallish type fence things around it, so it's well-protected. AND the man who lives above us runs a security company, or something to that effect, and apparently (according to the landlord) he's pretty safety conscious/protective.

As to the next step in the process, we now have a set of keys, so we can begin moving in whenever we want. However, before doing so, we need, well, to clean, but also to purchase the necessities for living- such as, a refrigerator, a stove, I kinda need a bed, so that we can actually reside there, with food and all. But as soon as we can get our hands on these things for good price, we'll start to transfer everything else over and begin to make it home! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we search for these items- we've already been blessed in that one of our language teachers said that she had an older, yet well-working washing machine that she would give us- for free! God just continues to prove His faithfulness to us- please pray that we'll do our part in searching out, as well. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Below are some links to pictures of the new apartment and a get-together we had with the Dixons and Janzens to decorate cookies for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!


Apartment pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ugyekCeSYH61ZP-FQSYlHQ?authkey=10uoQ7qtTOo&feat=directlink


Cookie pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/krystaleanne9/Cookies?authkey=REbsE3qhpDQ&feat=directlink