April 13, 2007 - Juán Santamaría day, Orosi houses (part 1)

I saw a picture in the paper last night that showed a parade in Alajuela for Juán Santamaría day - apparently Alajuela *does* make a bigger deal of the day than Orosi.
The holiday was Wednesday, but usually legal holidays are the Monday following the actual holiday. So we expect to see banks, etc. closed then. We were originally told that there would be no Spanish school on Monday, but today we found out that most teachers here like to have the Saturday off, and so prefer to work on the Monday holiday. So, school on Monday! We also worked it out with our teachers so that we get tomorrow off (we were going to have school this Saturday because we had no school for two days during Semana Santa) - we´ll make up the classes later. Since we will be living here for quite a while, this presents no problem.
We looked at a house for rent yesterday, and another today. Neither was advertised - we heard of the first one from an administrator at the school, and the other from our Tico family.
The first house is "normal" sized, and fairly typical for a Tico house. It is about a 10-minute walk from the center of town. It has three bedrooms, one bath, a combination living/dining room, and a small kitchen. The bedrooms are small by USA standards. It comes fully furnished, with a telephone, kitchen utinsels, towels, etc. - basically, everything we need. The electricity, water, and telephone (etc) are bills we would have to pay separately. Asking rent is a bit over $300/month (our Tico family says that is a *lot*!!).
The second house is on the same block as our Tica family (essentially in the center of town). It is a bit fancier, with a bigger kitchen, 3 large bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms, and it has an electric gate. It also is fully furnished (but we didn't ask about towels and other similar items). The utilities and telephone (and cable) are included in the rent. We will talk to them this evening to find out what the rent is (we suspect it will be too high tho...)