Costa+Rica!!!!!

Estoy aqui y finalmente you puedo usar una computadora!!! Llueve un poco. Esta nublado pero hace calor. We arrived at around 12:30 and went right to our hotel. Comemos una merienda y we went on a walking tour of San Jose, la capital de Costa Rica. Our tour guide was excelente. I jotted down lots of notes. So this wiki is going to focus on the cultural differences and similiarities I am noticing while here. The first thing you notice is all of the advertisements. They have many of the same fast food restaurants that we do in the U.S. ,Kentucky Fried Chcken, McDonalds ( claro que si), Burger King etc. but they also have traditional Tican cafes which are called sodas. They sell small snacks and batidos, which are fresh fruit shakes usually made with the tropical fruit juices of the country, like sandia,mango,guava, y platano. They will mix the batidos with ice and either milk or water. One thing I can say about CR is that the fruit is FRESH. Yo comi pina deliciosa!!! Our tour guide se llama Julio y el es muy inteligente. El es Tico y tiene mucha informacion. He explained how the plazas in CR were created- Una plaza siempre tiene una iglesia,un edificio del gobierno y un edifico de militaria -the reason is,these three groups built Costa Rica.Additionally, every church in Costa Rica always faces west towards Israel because that was the birth place of Christ and they are Catholic churches. More cultural difference are- instead of yellow taxi cabs they are red. A similarity- Tican teenagers dress in the same skater style as U.S teens and they love to pasar tiempo en el parque! Medicine in Costa Rica is socialized which basically means that the government will pay for you if you get sick but it also means high taxes- 33%is the average yearly amount a Tican pays the governemnt every year. Their property taxes are low but their income tax and sales tax is 25%! Regarding schools, there are public and private schools in Costa Rica. The public schools though are not as good as the private ones because they are underfunded. The public schools must ask for donations outside of Costa Rica's version of Costco. The private school students must wear uniforms. I also learned that Costa Rica modeled both its school and legal systems on those of France.The Minister of Education is trying to make changes but he is running into difficulties with the teacher unions of Costa Rica- they are slow to initiate the reforms he desires. I will give you much more information about that tomorrow because we will be visiting the U. S. Embassy and we will get a chance to meet him. I am interested to hear his take on the situation. One more thing I noticed about Costa Rica- it has a similar immigration problem as the U.S does. We are experiencing difficulties maintaining a border with Mexico and incorporating Mexicans into our society. Costa Rica is having the same problem with their neighbor to the north, Nicaragua. Many Nicaraguans are coming to Costa Rica to work in the fields and in agriculture. They will do the jobs the Ticos will not. The Nicaraguans are paid poorly and treated poorly in Costa Rica but they have few alternatives because their own country is so poor and offers few economic opportunities for them. So I guess we have much in common with Costa Rica but also many differences. Stay Tuned!! P.S. I am having difficulties uploading my pictures so it may have to wait until I return- but I will keep trying!