Losing Our Car and Eating at McDonald’s

Recently, we went to City Mall in Alajuela to pick up a few needed items at Office Depot. City Mall opened about three years or so ago, if memory serves me. It’s huge. Three levels of underground parking and I think maybe four levels of shops, services and a food court. Lots of North American style stores and brand names.

We parked in stall number 135 and went into the mall, wandered around looking for Office Depot, finally asking for directional assistance from people stationed around the mall just for that purpose. I needed bubble wrap and had forgot to translate it into Spanish. This is a fun part of living in a foreign country that uses a different language and your Spanish speaking skills are, well, lacking somewhat for some things - trying to describe what you want using gestures and facial expressions. The poor clerk went on the hunt for someone who could speak English. The fellow with English skills knew exactly what I wanted - he said the Spanish words for bubble wrap are “plástico de burbujas”.

Mission accomplished and, since it was near to lunch time, and because I had a craving for a McDonald’s cheese burger, we went to the food court and ordered cheese burgers, Cokes and fries. I made a pequeño ordering error in Spanish and we ended up with two cheese burgers each. Those cheese burgers are the best - small, not too much filling inside (beef patty, cheese slice, pickle and special sauce). I couldn’t eat both burgers so took one with me for a snack later in the day. Here’s one item on the Costa Rican McDonald’s menu, which I imagine isn’t available in Canada:

Then off we went to retrieve our vehicle and head for home. We went to the level where we thought we had parked our car - and stall number 135 was empty! We walked all over that level - no Subaru Forester. A word to the wise: remember your stall number, BUT also remember what level you are on. When you enter the underground parking, you are issued a ticket. When you leave and before you go to your car, you run the ticket through ticket machines located on each parking level and the amount you owe is displayed and you feed in your colones to pay for the parking. Then you feed that same ticket through another machine at the exit. But, each ticket has a time limit.

So we had done all that before looking for our vehicle but time was running out. We wandered through several levels. Have you ever seen that Seinfeld episode where Kramer can’t locate his car in an underground parking lot, Elaine has bought a live goldfish and, as time goes by, she fears for the life of the goldfish in the plastic bag? Well, that’s how I felt about my hamburger - what if it is getting too warm and I eat it at home and then get really sick?

Finally, we found our vehicle and headed home. Remember your stall number and your level!!!!

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - October 2018

As indicated in the following chart, visits to this blog were received from 17 different countries during October 2018:

The following is a summary of the weather for the month:

The overnight low temperatures, aggravated by accompanying high humidities, were quite chilly - at least in the area where we live. The daytime high temperatures were mitigated by clouds.

The day on which the maximum rainfall occurred (2.15 in / 5.46 cm) was a dark and dreary day of almost continuous drizzling rain - reminiscent of many days in the late fall and winter on the West Coast of Canada and Pacific Northwest in the USA. Nevertheless, there were many days with broken clouds and sunshine to accent the continuing green season.

New Tires

When we bought our Subaru almost a year ago, we knew that the rear tires would need replacing some time within the coming year. That “some time” came this week.

I had been shopping at the Maxi Pali store next to the Grecia mall and when I returned to the car, I saw that the left rear tire was flat. I know how to change a tire, but I couldn’t even lift the spare out of the wheel well. And who wants to change a tire anyway.

What to do, what to do. I called Lance and he suggested flagging down a red taxi and having the driver change the tire. This isn’t at all unusal here. Once we had an absolutely dead battery on a borrowed vehicle and Jorge came and removed the battery, took it to a shop he knew, and returned it the next day in working order.

So I waited until a taxi was dropping off a passenger and showed the driver my flat. He had it off and the spare on in ten minutes. I paid him for his time and efforts. He told me to drive directly to a gas station because the spare needed a bit of air. I did this, but the gas guy misunderstood me and also put air in the flat. Later that same day, we took our car to Llantas Algosa Ltda to have the flat looked at but it was holding air and they couldn’t find a problem with it. So it went back on and the spare came off.

The thought was that somebody had let the air out of the tire in the parking lot - this happens in tourist areas especially - and then they would offer to “help” and then steal something. Really highly unlikely in the Maxi Pali lot because there is a guard but I suppose it could happen.

I had to go out again the following day to Super Rosvil, parked, bought my groceries, returned to the vehicle and, yes, the tire was flat again. This time, three Rosvil managers came out to help me and the tire was changed in super fast time. They wouldn’t take any money and I must write and thank Super Rosvil for their employees’ immediate help.

Back to Llantas Algosa Ltda. The tire could not be repaired so we bought two new ones. Highly recommend Llantas Algosa - their speciality is tires, installation, alignment, etc. They have some high tech computer equipment for the alignments. Comfortable waiting room also. Nice people. The first time we were there they charged 1,000 colones to switch the tires (about $1.60 USD). 

Final cost for two new tires, plus installation, etc. - 76,000 colones ($122.00 USD).