First Day Here

So, Brenda and I got up early, 6am! Way to early for any type of real functioning. We grabbed breakfast at 7; sweet coffee, beans & rice, toast and a really neat tasting sweet butter. We ate outside, it was a little cloudy, but nice. Then Brenda went out for a little walk while I took a nap (since 5 hours of sleep doesn't work for me). We met up again for coffee at 9:00 and discussed what we are going to do for the day. And this is how it looks:
9:00 – 12:30 Hang out and chat
12:30 – 2:30 Pre-op appointment at the clinic
2:30 – 10:00 Going the Gold Museum, going to a Peruvian restaurant for dinner and preparing for tomorrow's surgery.

I am sure that there will be little bits of things to fill in later, but for now that is the plan.

By the way, we just found out that it is -13 in in Ontario. Ha-ha! It's a balmy 22 here.

First Day ~ Part Two

So where do I start? Okay, after our coffee break, Brenda and I packed our stuff that needed to go to Casa del la Mariposa (from here on known as Mariposa) and left for a walk. We trundled through a park that had these really cool trees that had no bark on the trunks. It's not that the tree didn't have bark, it's just that the bark peeled off and left a green tinge on the remaining smooth wood.

From there we went to Rosti Pollos (a Costa Rica version if Swiss Chalet) for lunch. We tried the Aztec soup and something else that was yummy (it was a hard, flat tortilla with refried beans, chicken and veggies), but we can't remember the name of it. We then headed back to the hotel to meet Andi, the owner of Mariposa. She and her driver, Charlie, drove us to the Mariposa to drop off our bags. We tried to pay her but ran out of US money. This was due to the fact that we were unaware that there is a 16% tax, plus a 3% tourist tax. But more about running out of money later.

From there we went to the Rosenstock & Lieberman Clinic (from here on know as R&L clinic) for our pre-operation appointment. They drew blood to have to typed and matched, just in case we needed a blood transfusion (which is $200/litre used). We then both went through the procedure expectations and costs. (pant, can't breath ...got to go)

I have just now finished hyperventilating. On top of the price quoted, I decided to have additional liopsuction done on my upper abdomen, thus increasing the cost of the operation by $1761.50 CAD. (Can't breath! Panic setting in! ......Okay)

After much consternation, Brenda and I left the clinic with Alvaro Mesen, a taxi driver/body guard/tour guide. He drove us around San Jose to the heart of the city where there tons of little markets, bakeries, restaurants, and banks (lots of very big banks). We saw some really cool stuff made of rose wood, but decided that, in our current financial situation, to buy nothing! By the way Alvaro was great. His English was excellent and he was not hard on the eyes either! I would highly recommend him if you are every in San Jose.

Now in reference to our running out of USD, we stopped at three different banks trying to get a cash advance. The first bank would not let us do it because we didn't have our passports (we had left them in the safe for safe-keeping). The second bank that Alvaro took us to, would not do it for us because we were using Mastercard and they only delt with VISA. The third bank would not do it because we didn't know our PIN. We spent a lot of time running around, going to banks, with no success. But that running around gave us a good chance to see a huge chunk of the pedestrian boulevard. We never made it to the Gold Museum, though we did walk by it.

We wandered around for a few hours and ended up at a restaurant called Nuestra Tierra (which is not the Peruvian resturant that we thought that we were going to). They made this great coffee that was filtered, in what looked like a sock, with hot milk. Damn it was good. We ordered a meat and vegetable soup and the sea bass. Both dished were fabulous Brenda really liked the beans & rice, and some kind of root vegetable, that there was no translation for , but her favourite was the pico de gallo. My favourite was the sea bass. We chatted and bolstered ourselves as best we could and eventually Alvaro's friend, Alex, picked us up at 7:30 and we headed back to the hotel.

There we prepped for the upcoming day, took “before” pictures, took sleeping pills, (because we a both really nervous) and are now getting ready for bed. We head out tomorrow at 6:45 to arrive at the R&L for 7:00. Our surgery should take place at around 7:30 – 7:45.