I basically embody the American Dream. I come from a poor family amid a broken home—but I was the valedictorian of my class. I was the first person in the family to ever go to college, working two jobs to pay for my undergraduate education. Then came medical school. Then private practice. Then my own kids and the big house and the fancy cars. You know…success.
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For my husband, Michael, and me, living in Costa Rica is pretty much like being on a perpetual vacation. Don’t get me wrong here; full-time living requires some things you don’t have to deal with when you’re on holiday. On a two-week vacation, you don’t have to wash the car or weed the flower beds. You don’t have to pay the bills. And someone else does your dishes and folds the laundry. But it’s not those things that make up our vacation-life in Costa Rica.
The best swimming holes are the local, secret ones. You know, the ones of tall-tales and summer memories. You only find them by living nearby. Call it “expat’s privilege.” My favorite is a secluded spot Mother Earth hid away on the backside of the Orosi Valley as it skirts the northern edge of the Tapantí Read more...: Expat Diary: My Indiana Jones Moment Deep in the Jungle
I think my life as an immigrant is fairly different from other expats’. First off, I live in the mountains instead of on the beach. I live in the Orosi Valley of Costa Rica—not the Central Valley. My husband Michael and I are the only “gringos” (not a pejorative word in Costa Rica) in our entire town of 4,000 people. And we “live” in Spanish.
Welcome to ‘Finca Good Life’! That’s what Michele Martin and her husband Ray say the moment you arrive for a visit. By the way, that’s not just the name of their place; it’s their personal philosophy, too. Living the good life is what they say they do every day on their mountain ridge in the province of Cartago...
Did you know, you can regularly find beautiful homes in Costa Rica, from coast-to-coast and in the mountains in-between, for under $200,000? Of course, you can spend more, but why would you when there are so many options well within your reach?
Time is a funny thing. Memories of the past glow with a special sentimentality. The best moments shine brighter, but even the mundane take on a peculiar nostalgia.
I absolutely love my life in Costa Rica. Living in the lush and verdant Orosi Valley, I have found my perfect retirement paradise. But every silver lining has a cloud here and there, and there are definitely some aspects of my personal paradise that can be trying from time to time.
I have a confession to make: I had an addiction. Or maybe it’s better described as an obsession…or a mania. There was a time when I probably could have stood in a dank room full of the similarly afflicted and said, “Hello, my name is John, and I have too many watches.”