Frantic Friday

First, I would like to start out by stating that we don’t have a cell phone. I thought it would be easy to live in Costa Rica without a cell phone. I don’t like conversing over the phone much and my old job consisted of customer service type calls which I could do without for a while. Besides, my Spanish sucks so what’s the point of having a phone if I have no idea why the caller called and vice versa. It’s not like I’m going to call for take-out pizza, right. (Well, I have thought of that…)

Okay, on to our frantic Friday.

Azure’s soccer team had a game scheduled for Friday against Blue Valley. I recalled that my blog buddy, Jen poco loco, had originally planned to send her kids to Blue Valley so I knew that the school would be in Escazu. When we met Jen a few weeks ago, I mentioned the soccer game and asked her for directions. Surprisingly, I knew the area she mentioned so I confidently told Patrick I could get us to the school. (By the way, I’m happy we finally met Jen and her family. They are great people. Patrick and I enjoyed our chat and Azure really had fun playing with her kids. We can’t wait to get together again.)

Since we knew where to meet the team for the game this time, we decided to get some errands done first including a little gringo shopping at Hipermas and a huge hardware store I spotted nearby the last time we were in Escazu. We breezed through Hipermas noticing the store in Escazu stocks a lot more gringo style products than the one we normally shop at in Heredia. We still didn’t buy much but Patrick replaced the jack, lug wrench, and tie down which were stolen out of the car the week before. Next we headed to the hardware store across the highway. The name of the place was EPA and it happened to be very similar to Home Depot (I kept looking for Tony Stewart ) which isn’t typical for Costa Rica most hardware stores require you to know what you want and a gentleman will go in back to get it for you. I’m embarrassed to say that we loved the place. We found much needed kitchen cabinets that are more affordable that all the other stores we have shopped in and I actually like them more. I thought I would have to settle but I guess not! We also found some bamboo blinds I just have to buy for the empty windows. We plan to go back with measurements but I did end up buying a vanilla plant and some chiles for my growing garden.

We left EPA about 2:30 figuring we had plenty of time to drive to the school. We knew we would even beat the school bus since the game didn’t start until 3:30. So, we drive past the school and notice no one is there. I don’t mean that there are no people we know there; I mean there is literally no one there. No kids, no teachers, no bus drivers –wait! -there is a guard dozing on a folding chair against the fence. I leap out of the car and verify with him that this building is actually Blue Valley School (since there is no sign labeling it). Yes, it is Blue Valley. Where is everyone I ask him in my crappy Spanish. He tells me nothing is going on there until Monday. What? Where do the girls play soccer? He mentions something about down the road. I do remember an indoor soccer place we passed about two blocks down. So, we head over there. Another security guard stops us and we explain that we are looking for a girl’s soccer game between Blue Valley and European Schools. Of course he has no clue what we are talking about but like all helpful Ticos, he directs us to another soccer field down the block.

On the way to the other indoor soccer field, our car’s security alarm wouldn’t turn off (remember our previous story about this subject?). so our car locked up. Patrick had to disengage the car battery and fiddle with the alarm wires. Meantime, I walked up the hill to check out the facilities and to see if I could find either of the teams. I didn’t see any girls but the woman working the place claimed they were in the back. I walked back down the hill to wait to check things out further with Patrick.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the conclusion of Frantic Friday or Where’s Azure?