I'm sitting in a few inches of water, eagerly anticipating the next big wave. When it comes, it's far stronger than I expected it to be. I'm slapped in the face, knocked off my rear and whipped around by its power
I tried once to compliment a friend on her car and told her in perfect Spanish, "Me gusta su coche." She asked me to repeat myself a few times and with gesturing I was able to get the point across. But she still looked at me like I was crazy. What I didn’t know was that "Me gusta su coche" means "I like your cart" in Costa Rica, not "I like your car." I had just insulted her by comparing her car to a grocery cart.
The story of how most expats ended up living in Costa Rica is so similar to mine: "I came to Costa Rica on vacation, fell in love, and decided to stay." But fell in love with what exactly? What is it about Costa Rica that entices someone to leave their home country and start all over in a foreign land?