Beforehand

The month or so before coming down here to beautiful Costa Rica (and indeed the country is rica in beauty!) was spent getting documents ready and trying to pack without knowing entirely what would be available in the small town we're now living in.

The most difficult was trying to get a "Police Letter of Clearance" which, by law apparently, Arizona cannot issue, unlike most states in the USA. This meant we opted for getting the super official FBI Background Checks in hopes that that would trump the AZ-state-only Police Letter. It was also tricky because we have Arizona state driver's licenses (which we needed to update our passports), but I had to get a certified copy of my birth certificate which had to be obtained and apostilled in Colorado, and the FBI Background Checks we had to get through DC, and apostilled in DC.

We luckily got everything together just in time and made an appointment to go to the Costa Rican consulate in NYC to get our official "provisional" (temporary) work visas. After two hours of copying documents and running to the Bank of America to direct deposit money to the consulate office for the visas ($32 per person), we had our visas!

It's still not clear to me what good these temporary visas do given that we still have to apply for permanent work visas, or else we have to leave the country in 30 or 90 days; (the amount of days is not clear). I'm guessing it makes the process faster, hopefully.

So here is a pic of the CR consulate in NYC, and pics of fun had in NYC and upstate... Thanks to my parents, Jerry's family, and P&B!