15 facts about living in Costa Rica that you may not have been aware of

1. It’s totally normal to drive and be drinking a beer or smoking a joint (not that I do either of those…I have no car!).
2. When in a taxi and driving in the local area, seatbelts are “optional”.  You’re also supposed to sit in the front seat.
3. Don’t be too attached to anything, you will get robbed.
4. The cheese is dreadful. My intern from last year was from Minnesota…the poor girl was dying for some real cheese and my vegan mac and cheese really didn’t appease her.
5. The bread at the panaderia’s (bread shops) is awful
6. The milk is unrefrigerated
7. The eggs are unrefrigerated and are also sold by weight and you can just buy one if that’s all you need (that’s just weird + all of the above make it so much easier to be a gluten free vegan)
8. It is a very small country.  You will run into people you know all the time
9. Your housekeeper will be late…or won’t show up…and won’t call
10. It’s nice to always have clean dry towels on hand for your friends when they come over and are sopping wet from the rainstorm they just had to walk through (and which umbrellas are just useless during).  Having additional umbrellas to lend to friends is also a nice gesture. Although you may never get them back.
11. Dryers, dishwashers and normal size ovens and frigs are really just for the wealthy people.  Having a small oven and a small frig are luxury items in many homes.
12. Ants will live in your computer, they also eat onions (just FYI)
13. Because of the ants, weird black bugs and overall humidity, everything must be kept in the frig or better, the freezer.  Your small freezer may look something like this:
14. Men carrying machetes in grocery stores is totally normal
15. There is no Amazon here.  You cannot just order something and have it delivered next day.  You may be able to call a store in San Jose and negotiate with them to put the item on a bus.

Did I miss any? :-) Chrissy