Mother Nature gave us the sign yesterday that the dry season is finally here. How do we know that, you might ask? Well in a tree behind our house we saw two iguana mating and they only mate at the beginning of the dry season.
This has to be one of the most fun things you can do in life. First off if you ask a contractor to build something, he builds it. You don’t know how much it will cost but none the less it is built.
I wanted a car port built to keep the rain off the car, since we live in a rain forest it rains quiet a bit at times. The other times the sun is burning it up and when you get inside your glasses fog up from the heat.
So anyway I asked the contractor who built this house how much it would cost to build this 10 foot by 15 foot car port. Next thing I know is the wood is being delivered and it is about $650. Ok so I pay that and the next thing I know is I owe $240 for the roofing material. So after about a month see the contractor and he says do you want to start tomorrow? I said sure.
The next day we sent the post for the structure. Mind you this wood is all hard wood from the rain forest, like steel. Then the next day we start putting it all together.
The interesting thing is that you still need to provide all of the hardware to put this together, nails, screws, concert, etc. Also you need to provide equipment for the job too. Ladders, hammers, etc. It really is different than building in the states where the contractor provides everything.
The other cool thing I didn't tell you is I get to buy everything to correct any mistakes or errors, how cool is that???? But I am lovin it!
Just to let you know we were notified the other day that Immigration has received all of our paperwork for our application for residency. It took a little over two months from the time we handed our lawyer our documents for them to get them submitted to Immigration. A little longer that I expected but none the less it is done and now all we have to do is wait about a year or so to hear if we can be residences. The really good news is that we don’t have to keep leaving the country every 90 days to renew our visa, even though we are still considered tourist. Should additional information be required we need to be in country.
With that step out of the way we can breath a bit easier for a while at least.
As part of the process of becoming a resident you need to get your driver’s license in order to drive legally since after a while your visa stamp will expire and you will no longer be valid using your US licenses. We wanted to use the services of ARCR to help us out but could not get a time when they could get us in during the times we were in San Jose. After reading many other blogs I had an idea of how the system worked but had no first hand knowledge.
We decided to bit the bullet and do it on our own since our visa’s will expire next month. Since we do not plan on leaving the country for a while (hopefully if we get our papers submitted to Immigration) we had to take action.
So this is how we did it.
We booked a room close to COSEVI in an area we knew was safe and got up early that morning and took a taxi to COSEVI.
Room with a view
Upon arrival we went straight to the Medical Exam place and had our blood type taken and did the medical exam (lots of questions, quick eye chart and blood pressure). That cost us about $40/each. Next we took our medical paperwork over to the famous line up area but shot to the front of the line and waited with other foreigners in a separate line by the front door. We got there about 8AM and waited until about 820AM when they started looking at our documents. We had everything (medical, blood type, picture page of passport and visa stamp page) except a photo copy of our US driver’s licenses (both sides). So I had to go back out down to the medical place again (where they also will make photo copies for you) and got copies made for 400 colonies. Once I returned we were told to take a seat in the back row of chairs and wait to be “called upstairs”.
Stairway to heaven
After a about an hour waiting we got the “call”. Once up stairs we presented out documents to the lady at the desk that hand wrote everything down in a spiral notebook (no joke). When I was done I had to go see this other guy who then entered you into “the system” You are assigned a number. After answering many instant messages, you are finally handed a piece of white paper with this number at the top and allows you to go to BN and pay your 4000 colonies for your license. With your yellow receipt in hand you go back to the office (passing the long line of people now waiting to renew theirs) show them the receipt and wait on the chairs up front to be called in and have your picture taken. Once your picture is taken in a few more minutes you are handed a brand new CR Licencia de Conducir.
Final Product
So here is the break down:;
Cost of room - $100
Cost of Medical - $80
Cost of Taxi - $10
Cost of License – “Priceless”
