Today we had to venture into the big capital city of San Jose to get fingerprinted at the police station. We arrived at the station around 9:00 am and proceeded to get in the long line outside the station. My 82 year old father and my 89 year old mother-in-law, however were duly escorted to fhe very front of the line. Costa Rica is very respectful in certain arenas towards seniors. Before we could all get fingerprinted, we were whisked to a small enclave in front of the station to get our picture snapped....one man operation with a photo printer...quick background using the gray wall of the building and two minutes later, perfect almost passport type photos. My hubby and I were taken to a holding area under the citrus trees with a bunch of other folks patiently waiting for their turn in the que.
Since our parents were finished processing and it looked like we were hours away from being done, we asked our companion from the lawyer's office to take them to the US Embassy to the Social Security document to be used for proof of income. They were then taken back to the house while we waited patiently with the other 70 or so folks to be finger printed. My fair skinned husband who is insistent on getting his 20 minutes of vitamin D in the sun each day did come home looking like a lobster since part of our wait was shade free so he got a week's worth of vitamin D! The weather was very nice though...about 75 degrees.
I am continually astonished at how patient people are here and the sense of humor they keep when dealing with long lines! We met two older gentlemen sitting next to us for hours who kept us in stiches laughing. One man said his boss kept calling him asking him where he was...why wasn't he back at the office. He said he wanted to reply, "because I am now at the beach, of course!" You quickly learn here to just "go with the flow" and join the natives in laughing about things.
Since our taxi had gone back to our hometown, we decided to be adventurous and try the bus system since we have heard and read so many positive things about the bus system. We took a taxi from the police station, after having a quick meal across the street of wonderful Carribean food, to the Coca Cola station, which is the main bus station and not the Coke bottling plant. We arrived and were told to walk straight through the open market where we were dropped off and ask on the opposite end of the market for the bus to Atenas. The next bus was leaving in 10 minutes. We hopped on and 45 minutes and $4.00 later we were back in Atenas. The bus was very modern, Mercedes Benz, and very clean!
My dad and I will make the venture back to San Jose in a couple of days since he was not able to get his Canada Pension paper today. We are all pretty happy though the fingerprinting business is behind us so now we wait for Interpol to come back with a nice clean report on all of us so we can proceed with the approval of our residency.
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