Music at the Philharmonic

Last Friday we had the grand opportunity to go to New York City and listen to the Philharmonic.  As many of you know, Paul's father was a subscriber to the Philharmonic beginning in the 1950s.  When he got old, he passed the tickets on to Paul, and we get to go to a couple of concerts a year.  [The rest we sell at cost to friends -- if any of you are interested, let us know.]

This year we had the opportunity to go and hear one of the most magnificent concerts we've ever had a chance to listen to -- Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. 

The concert started with Lisa Batiashvili, playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto.  This is the concerto that is so hard that when Tchaikovsky created it the first violinist he asked to play it, Auer, said "no way ... that's impossible."  Well ... it isn't impossible but it is damn difficult.  We'd never heard it before -- either live or on a record -- and the loss was ours.  For 35 minutes Batiashvili played her heart out, with power, grace and beauty.  She eared the standing ovation and the 4 curtain calls she got, for sure.

After intermission, the orchestra played Dvorak's New World Symphony.  That we'd heard before, of course, but never like this -- live in New York by the orchestra that premiered the piece more than 100 years ago.  The power of the horns; the vibrancy of the timpani -- this was just about as pure a joy as you could imagine.  It seemed less "complex" than the violin concerto, but in some ways our familiarity made it purer and more fun.

Add to all this a pleasant train ride up and back and lunch with Paul's brother, Jim, on a beautiful sunny Fall day and it is hard to imagine that anything could be more perfect.  Sometimes we wonder if keeping the tickets is worth it.  On day's like last Friday we don't wonder ... but we marvel at our good fortune instead.

Rose's Luxury

In 2015 a new restaurant opened on Capitol Hill -- Rose's Luxury.  Bon Appetit said it was the best new restaurant in the entire country. They don't take reservations, so the only way to get in is to stand in line and wait.  When they open the doors at 5 PM you can either sit right down, or ask to be put in the second seating and texted when the seats open up.

Katy and I went to Rose's once before on a day that Katy just happened to be wandering by.  Yesterday we went for the second time.  We figured that on a hot day in August the line would be shorter and we could get in.  We were right and it was worth the trip.

Like we did the first time, we chose to sit at the bar looking right into the kitchen.  Half of the fun of the day is just watching the team work.  There were more than 8 people squeezed into the kitchen working like clockwork.  Almost nothing in the way of haste or disarray.  That's Wendy, on of the lead chefs, in the center making one of our dishes.

Meanwhile, the food was just fantastic.  We've had one friend who didn't like it when they went, but everyone else we know has raved -- and so do we.  We started with a small plate of Pork Sausage, Habanero, Peanuts and Lychee that was just an awesome bang of flavor.  The Catfish came next with a great green tomato relish and a saffron aoli that was smooth to the taste.  The Bucatini in a sungold tomato sauce tasted fresh and smooth in a way that red sauce does not.  And the Brisket at the end -- well, it was as tender as we've ever eaten.  Paul loved it; Katy (who doesn't like brisket at all) was even moderately appreciative.  The homemade slaw and horseradish that it came with were as fresh as you could imagine.  And we finished off with a fresh coconut milk ice cream.

The most amazing thing though, was the price.  We bought a Vouvray Chenin Blanc bottle for $60.  Total price for the meal with tax was just $159.50.  Put another way, three small courses and a large family style meat plate, along with desert cost less than $100 -- and we got the view as well.

We'll be back -- and it is worth the trip if you can find the time.

A Costa Rica Update

Well, you’ve probably  seen many of the photos already, but it seems worthwhile to also do a short blog post on where we are with the grand Costa Rica adventure.

Overall, the answer  is “we are doing well.”  To be sure there are frustrations and delays, but in the long run we are well on the way to living our dream.

Let’s start with the house – construction is almost complete.  I was supposed to be finished by March 10, but there have been some delays, the most notable of which was a wait to clear customs (about which more below).  But it looks like we are now on schedule for early April.  The floor is mostly in; the tile is going up on the showers; the walls are getting painted; the roof is finished.  What lies ahead are the doors, appliances, furniture and such …  All of which takes time, but most of which looks pretty small next to the grand scale of the overall house.  One thing that doesn't need work, of course, is the sunset ....

As for customs – as Katy says if there is, in fact, a 7^th circle of hell, Costa Rican customs is part of it. Our goods arrived in Costa Rica on Jan 15.  When we left on Feb 29 they still had not been released.  Between slowness generally , a mistake by our shipper and overall bureaucracy we were royally screwed.  Our “favorite” (not!) part of the experience was actually having to go to the bonded warehouse and open every single one of the boxes to inventory what was inside.  We had an inventory of course – but we had to confirm exactly which box it was in and also declare that all of our used goods were …. Well, used ….  It was not pleasant at all.  As of the day we left we were going to finally pay the customs bill and have the goods moved out of the bonded warehouse to storage for our contractor to come collect.  All the door knobs; appliances and lights are waiting to go!  

On the other hand, much of what we are designing and building will give us great pleasure.  The picture below is the design for the gate to our house, for example.

Also, on the plus side, most of the rest of what we want to do is proceeding apace.  For example, we spent one full day at the immigration office (would you believe they have only a single office for the entire country??) going through the last steps to get our residency  permits.  We were approved – and if all goes well, the actual green cards (called Cedula, and not green) will arrive by mail later in March for our property manager to pick up.

And, of course, the major plus is simply that we love being in Costa Rica.  Everytime we go there, our blood pressure drops 10% just as we step off the plane.  Yes, it’s quiet and sometimes Paul misses the business of DC – but it is easy to go back and forth and, frankly , the weather is just perfect.  This year we enjoyed a bit more of the local culture, including going to a jazz concert in Escazu and the Atenas chili cook-off festival.  We also found a massage therapist to  use and Katy fell in love with a cat (sadly we can’t keep her!)

Current plan is to go back in April for a couple of weeks when the house is done and then to spend the whole month of July there putting it together, so that next winter we will really have our own home.  Wish us luck …

How Cool Is This? The Vault at the Folger Shakespeare Library

We were overwhelmingly fortunate to be permitted to visit the vault at the Folger Shakespeare Library yesterday.  Here are some of the treasures we saw: Tthe first and oldest known printed reference to Shakespeare.







A First Folio from 1623, with the famous wood cut of Shakespeare.










 Queen Elizabeth's own personal (!) copy of one of the earliest editions of the bible written in English.  A





An expurgated version of Shakespeare, where the deletions had been made by a monk who was from the Jesuits.







 And, one of my favorites, the stage directions for Paul Robeson's production of Othello in 1930.  He did it in London because a black man couldn't do it on stage in the US at that time.

Living the Pura Vida -- Update from Costa Rica

 We came down to Costa Rica on January 5 to escape DC and live the "pura vida" -- the pure life, as the Costa Ricans say.  It's part of our plan to start spending the winters down here away from the cold.

It's still an experiment.  Everything is a bit of a challenge and there is always something new happening.  To take just one example, as I write this the power supply to the pump that drives our water well has failed -- so whenever the cistern empties we will be without water in our community ... at least until someone comes along to fix the problem.

We aren't terribly worried, of course, but its a small example of the challenge of living in Costa Rica.  On the other hand the benefits are immense!

The first photo, above is of the completed road to our land.  If you've been following along you know that we had to build the road before we could build the house.   Well ... the road is done now.  And late last December we got the final national approval for construction.  The municipality checked in with its own approval on January 14, and the plans for the house are now with the Collegio of Architects for final approval.

We met with the folks who are going to bid on the house earlier this month.  Their bids are due in on February 3.  On February 4, after we recover from the heart attack we can begin the process of selecting a builder.  Best case scenario is that they break ground by the end of February!  If that happens and if the 10 month construction schedule goes as planned we will have a completed house by the end of 2015.  Of course it may bleed over to 2016, but that's worth waiting for.  The picture of us is on our land.  The view behind us is what we will see every morning.

Meanwhile, appearances to the contrary, we are actually spending time working and relaxing.  Paul has been able to really dig into work for his clients and start on his next Teaching Company  course.   Katy is happy watching the birds every morning -- we have a couple of local Toucans, somer Oropendula and other species.  We are also doing some of the necessary leg work -- bank accounts and residency permits, for example -- to move things along.

But mostly we are just enjoying the peace of the place -- sunrise each morning; coffee; work at the "office" by the pool; exercise; and sharing this wonder with friends.  Two of them, Gail and Don, were down for 5 days earlier this month and two more, Lin and Gene, arrive today.  Meanwhile, our friends from Ohio, Bob and Jeanne, who we met last year here in Atenas, are back.  We've had a chance to get to share dinner with them, and of course they got to meet NatsGnome as well.

All, in all, the pura vida is the joy of life.  We are happy.

A Great Week in Costa Rica

As most of the readers of this blog know, we bought land in Costa Rica earlier this year and we are, slowly but surely, moving forward toward building a house there.  Our long term plan is to live there in the winters and maybe a bit of an escape in DC summer as well.  In the short-term, however, we need to get stuff done to start making the house a reality ... and so we've been going down to Costa Rica every other month or so to move the ball along.

This one was a really good trip.  To start with, the weather was pretty good.  The rainy season in Costa Rica is from June to November, with the really bad times in September and October.  And we did see a bit of that, including one deluge that was pretty immense.  But on the whole, the rain was mild, and only in the afternoons.  On the last day, the sun came out and we had a magical day -- some of the weather that was part of the reason we chose Costa Rica in the first place.  Add to that that we had another great visit at Casa Laurin, the B&B where we stay when we are on these working trips -- we can't say enough good about the owner Ginette Laurin -- she's just a gem to find.

But the real value of the trip was in how successful it was.  We made a lot of progress towards our dream.

To start with, we managed to finally organize a bank account.  Katy had opened an account in her own name earlier in the year.  But we never had any real way of working with it.  It took a couple of visits to the bank, but by the end of the week we had a bank ATM card, some checks, and, best of all, access to the banking system via the internet.   [An aside for Paul's cyber friends they have an interesting two-factor authentication system -- when you register on line you get a card with 20 random digits/letters/symbols and when you login they ask you, for example, to give them the third, seventeenth and eighth, in that order ...].  So, now, we have a working bank account -- and our next step is to make sure we can use their inter-bank transfer system ...

The second success was a small one but it made us feel pretty good -- we found a store we were looking for on our own.   That doesn't sound that special, does it?  But the addressing system in Costa Rica is totally wack and so learning it and managing to use it is a real achievement.  Here's the address we found:  200 m este y 75 m norte de la Iglesia de San Martin.  In other words you have to know where the Church of San Martin is and then go 200 meters east and 75 meters north ... no street address; no street name.  Just a relative direction -- so you ask where the church is and then chase it.  And so we did ... and found it!


The store we got to was a Claro -- one of the local telecom companies.   So success #3 was the simple one of buying two new cell phones and getting two Costa Rican cell phone numbers for people to call.  Small step -- but essential to getting information and staying connected.  [Paul even managed to set up his Skype account so that it forwards to his Costa Rican cell number.]

Then on to the next step (and this is all still Monday). In the afternoon we went car shopping.  We found a really great dealer, Purdy Motors, and bought ourselves a used 2012 Toyota Rav 4 -- we will probably call him Edgar.   Of course, nothing is quite that easy in Costa Rica.  We had to arrange to for the funds to be transferred via bank transfer from our bank in the US.  It took a couple of days for the transaction to go through.  And meanwhile, of course, we had to find an insurance agent and insure the car.  One interesting aspect of that was the decision we had to make --- how much insurance?  At least in part so that we would be immune from the legal system we got full insurance with no deductible -- a bit expensive but seemed like a decent plan in the end.

And then on to Tuesday ... deep breath.  Katy spent all Tuesday morning the architect making some of the very final decisions about the house.  We are down to the level of what sinks we might want and things like that.  After several hours of effort we are now essentially in the place we need to be -- we can finalize the plan and start taking bids to build the house .....  About the only disappointment in this process (and indeed in the whole week) was the realization that we were going to have to do without the windmill we wanted.  It's just too expensive -- our best guess is that even with Costa Rica's high energy costs the payback period was going to be on the order of 40 years or so.  We wanted to be green -- but green is really not worth it yet.

Tuesday afternoon we went to visit our lawyer.  We started the discussion with him about taking out residence papers.  Because Katy is retired, its easy as pie for her and Paul will become a resident as Katy's dependent -- or, as she says, "my boy toy."  When we go back in January we'll have all the paperwork together to start the filing process.  Again -- it's all details.  Notarized and sealed birth certificates and marriage certificate, plus a "police letter" from DC saying we have clean records.

Wednesday was the day to visit Atenas -- the town where we will live.  Our first visit was to the property where the road is under construction.  You can see, on the left, the footing for the retaining wall.  The road to our property runs up and to the right, with the small triangular structure on our property.  All is well and the new "Calle Freddy" (Freddy is our construction contractor) should be done in another 3-4 weeks.

We then had an opportunity to meet with our property manager, Leticia.  She's a Swiss woman living in Atenas who will take care of all our management stuff -- pay the water bills, arrange for the gardener, etc.  We spent some time with her and now have a really good sense of how much the operational costs will be on an annual basis.  You'd be surprised at all the small items (for example, there is a car tax every December).  We also had a chance to chat with one of our neighbors-to-be and get a better feel for our community.

About the only fly in the ointment here is the issue of water availability.  To be honest we are still not sure -- we keep getting conflicting information. Either there is a problem and we might be delayed in getting our building permits because of water issues ... or there isn't.  When we last heard about it on Friday, it seemed that there was a way forward that would let us break ground in January ... crossed fingers.

Thursday was catch up day.  A quick trip to the bank to get our departure tax paid; and we picked up the car.  We've left it with Ivo, our wonderful realtor, who will take care of it for us until we go back in January.  [Our plan is two months in Atenas this winter -- Jan-Feb.].  [And, as an aside, more good news -- Southwest is opening up direct flights from BWI to San Jose, daily -- super cheap.  Less than $450/person round trip!]  The last bit of business was with Adriana, the landscape designer.  She showed us some great plans -- we're going to have an orange tree; a mango; and even a tamarind tree on the property, plus lots of flowering plants to bring the birds and butterflies.  It will be a few years before they really take root, but when they do, it should be paradise.

And that, in a nutshell, was our week -- several good steps toward paradise!  On to January and ground breaking (crossed fingers).

An Excellent Maui

Well, we are just now finishing up three days in Maui and they really were a highlight of the trip (at least so far).  We had a great time, starting with a great visit with Katy's brother Hank and his friend Dawn -- they seem to be as happy as clams, and we don't blame them given the place they live.

We started off with one of the best dinners we've ever had at the Haliimaile General Store which, despite its name, is not a general store, but a restaurant, run by Bev Gannon.  Special highlights included Paul's Crab Pizza and Katy's Asian Pear Duck Tostada.  Yum.

Then, it was off to go whale watching in Lahina.  That was a special experience.  It more or less sent chills up and down our spines.  Lahina is an old whaling town on the west coast of the island, and today it makes a living running whale tours.  The humpbacks come here for winter to give birth before going back to Alaska for summer.  Probably the coolest thing we saw was a "competition pod" -- a group of males doing dominance things to each other to win the right to mate with a female.  The breaching is sort of showing off I guess.  And we saw one whale actually flip or roll another one as a way of showing his superiority.  It was totally awe inspiring.  Here's a video of one of the whales waving his pectroal fin at us.

The next day was just as special, in a different way.  We went with Hank to go ziplining through the rain forest canopy.  It was cold.  It was wet and rainy.  And it was scary as shit.  But in the end it was totally exhilirating and thrilling to go racing along a zip line at 30 mph through a rain storm.  It was almost like riding in a tree-lined, rain filled tunnel or something.   After that, however, we were cold and wet and just came back to our rental house to chill for the rest of the day.

And today, we finished up with a trip to the southern beaches .... where the sun was shining and the breeze was warm.  But even here the cold intruded -- the Pacific is remarkably chilly water.  Still and all, after another marvelous meal at Gannons (we both had fish tacos with a cool cilantro drizzle), we came home to pack and get ready for the next part of the trip.   Tomorrow on to Kauai.