Busy Days

 

Santa Cruz advertising the last bullfights before Covid in January 2020.


Yesterday we got news I pretty well knew we'd get. We cannot extend our visas beyond the early March date, so we'll have to leave Costa Rica for somewhere else on this planet via an airplane. We'd been delaying until the last minute for a couple of reasons. 

People here made all kinds of claims about filing for exemptions that turned out to be utter codswallop idiocy. 

1 - C.R. is notorious for backtracking on their government edicts. They reversed themselves two hours before the drivers license expiration took affect in mid November. I've been watching them doing these silly things since I got here. As stable as a plate of jello sometimes. But they issued word yesterday that this was the law and there would be no exceptions if you weren't hospitalized.

2 - Covid, duhh, I have zero desire to travel during a pandemic and expose my old sick self to strangers cooties on a plane. Even if the airlines are claiming all sorts of de-cootie-fying tactics.

Well C.R. has spoken. They are not opening the land borders until at least April. So it's fly back or pay the fine and possibly affect your residency status. I am in the in progress status again, but I'm about to switch to fully submitted and waiting status again. Hopefully Covid will not screw it up this time.

So I spoke with my lawyer, who tells me that immigration would do de nada if we're a day, a week, a month, several months late leaving. It just invalidates our drivers licenses and plates on our car. Making plans to go back to the States soon, but later than the early March requirement.

Plane tickets bought, hotel reservations made, rental car booked. Set in stone now. Let our housesitter know the dates. Preparing to schedule those Covid spear our brains tests, and our extra health care insurance for C.R. Even if C.R. decides to suspend it all. Going home to New Orleans. 

Originally I was preparing to go to Washington D.C., but it didn't quite work out the way I intended. I had a family member there experiencing Covid Derangement Syndrome who kept yelling that no one should be flying anywhere. I tried to explain this was not my idea, and that we have to finish up getting the last few documents to finish filing our residency packet. The same residency packets that got kicked out by Covid. It is just bad luck and a pandemic.

I am planning on double masking on the plane but after talking to my elderly aunts in the area I am not so worried. New Orleans has been apparently been hell on Covid lately, much more so than other parts of the state and the rates are falling there. She's said that the airport, and likely the high end hotel we're staying at (at half price, no less!) are known for Covid cleanliness. I hope so.

One of the things I will be doing besides placing a few mega orders at stores to be delivered to the hotel is going into the office of vital records in New Orleans and getting my last few documents for residency, my birth certificate and our wedding license with the international Apostile stamp on it. After that it's just waiting for the updated FBI records to come back on us and we're officially filed! And will never have to leave again for any reason.  

I plan on seeing family, from a safe distance, except for my daughter that lives in the area. She's have both shots of her Covid vaccination, so we're going to hang out. I'll buy her dinner at the excellent restaurant connected to the hotel and we'll hot tub! I am excited! Very glad we're able to take a few days to go back and get Jim's underwear, LOL. A few weeks ago I started to order him new undies and on Amazon for a 5 pack it was only like 12 bucks but import taxes ran it up to 44 bucks more. Hell, even an extra suitcase on the flight isn't going to run that much~ This is going to be interesting trying to do one of my usual mega shops with Covid stuff in place.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Missed Stompism

One anecdote I neglected to pass on that had Jim and I puzzling and laughing. Stompy, Jim and I were talking about her upcoming European trip when she mentioned she was going to be in Amsterdam a few days. I squeal and tell her had I know I would be loading her with money and a shopping list for the Van Gogh museum. I really, really, REALLY want that entire set of sweet Samsonite with his almond blossom painting on it. She turns to us and tells sue she's going to the Sex Museum instead. Oh holy crap!
Read more

Bottomless Betty and Blocking the Aunt Heap

Image
  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge last weekend. So where have I been? Back to Louisiana and then up to Maryland. I wanted to check on my mother in her assisted living. It didn't go well at all, even if I stayed ten days. One of my aunts in the Aunt Heap nicknamed my mother 'Bottomless Betty' after she suddenly developed the inability to wear bottoms at all, no pants, no panties, no skirts. It was most bizarre and had a sudden onset. Her dementia has gone haywire in the few months she's been in assisted living. I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was either. This was a shock, her mental status slid so fast it was scary. Did what I could, talked to the folks in the admin office seeking a way to help her. My mother's doctor had tried a drug to slow the dementia but all it did was cause my mother to hallucinate.   Got home on Tuesday night, taking that long airplane ride from Washington, DC to my home near Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Human Greek chorus and alarmist member of...
Read more

Strange Days and Orchids

Image
Water feature from the Orchid Garden near San Jose. Well, it's been a strange week or two. I've lost days to this silly ankle thing. Took off the boot at a week to start doing physical therapy movements, made it two days and now the boot is back on and I'm down to two pain pills. It's healing so slowly this time. Have to do a medical follow up this week. Several days ago we went to a party for a lady we know who is throwing in the towel and going home to the U.S.A. Katie was trying to do that thing that is impossible here on the Gold Coast -- live as a gringo without a steady monthly income. Even a social security pension will not cut it here. It's expensive, but likely not as expensive as life in the U.S.A. is getting lately. Read that there has been a 40% jump in the price of vegetables and fruits last month. Deporting the folks that do all the grunt work there was one very bad idea mixed with those insano tariffs. We have high tariffs here and it inhibits the amo...
Read more