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Almost a month later... A lot has been packed already and the house starts looking a little empty. I'll leave the Christmas decorations out for now, so we can make the house look cosy during these cold and rainy days. The dates also continue. It feel quite strange to see "Well, see you sometime!" Fortunately, there are some that want to visit in Costa Rica.
The house has not been let yet. We expect that during the last 4-6 weeks, so we're not nervous yet. We hear nice stories from Costa Rica, though there was an earthquake this weekend (a lot of material damage). Through the forum van costarica.pagina.nl we get a lot of nice ideas. And we're checking Martinair for new promotions and last minutes. Now there's a promotion for € 299,-. Hold that thought! - Esther

So far we mostly just thought of the things we would have to do if we left. Now we really have to do them! And it's a lot! Enrolling at even more bureaus to let our house, start packing (it's incredible, all the stuff you have), making sure the house looks nice at the same time, doing bank matters, halting subscriptions - it's so much!
And in the mean time there are dozens of dates with people that want to see us 'just one more time' before we leave. Our weekends are completely book till the next year! But it's very nice to finally be working on this. The time really fies! 78 Days to go till January 15th, the day we start looking for a last minute flight. - Esther

WE GAAN, WE'RE GOING, NOSOTROS VAMOS !!
The counting down has started. We have made the decision to go to Costa Rica in spite of the fact that our house is not sold. We will let it from January 15th, so we can leave anyway. We will be gone before February 1st!
We have enrolled at several house-letting bureaus: it is an interesting appartment for expats! We are very busy with the preparations, travelling insurances (we've visited JoHo in Amsterdam), taxes, subscriptions etc... (and much more). We've also told our employer. They are now looking into the ins and outs of a sabbatical.

Esther has finished the website for Hotel El Mono Feliz. Have a look!- Joost


Through this website, we met Otto and Anja, a Dutch couple with the same plans as we. They've been in Costa Rica for over half a year now, and not too long ago they bought their own hotel: El Mono Feliz (the happy monkey), just south of Dominical in Ojochal. Now they're really busy getting it going, and it's already open - so have a look! For more information, see www.elmonofeliz.com. Otto and Anja asked me to make a new website for them, and it will be ready shortly... - Esther Not much has happend since the last (english) update of our diary. Not many people were interested in buying our house. It is already over a year ago that we decided we wanted to go to Costa Rica. Unfortunately our house kept us in The Netherlands untill now. BUT .... things are about to change !! We're thinking of new plans and are looking what our options are at the moment. Keep an eye on this site, because more's coming ...
- Joost
Since we decided to sell our house before leaving for Costa Rica, our departe date has become very unclear. For this reason, we're not so busy working on project Costa Rica right now. Therefore, we put this diary on hold until we have more news. We will then also send out a newsletter. Well. Another decision made. Yesterday we were at the firm selling our house. It all boils down to the fact that we can't and don't want to pay for an empty house in Holland when we're in Costa Rica. So we have to do what is wisest: keep on working and postpone our departure till we have found our buyer.
It's a shame, but we need the money. - Esther I checked out some flights we could take. The cheapest tickets I found on costarica-reizen.nl: € 548,- (+ € 90,-). However, since we plan to visit Holland in May/June 2004, we want to have a ticket that is valid for six months. The cheapest of those seems to be ebookers.com: € 740,- (+ € 54,-), flying with Iberia. - Esther Unfortunately, the first "job interview" didn't result in a job... But we'll just keep on looking and we're thankful for the tips we got.
Furthermore, I went to the bank to get some financial stuff sorted out. - Esther After a wedding of friends on Friday night (who gave a great party!) we met a Dutch couple on Saturday night. They have a hotel in Costa Rica and are looking for an assistant manager. It was a fun and interesting meeting! We know now how the hotel works and what the tasks for the manager would be. It all sounded very much like fun.... We're ready for it! - Esther We received a good message from a Costa Rican travel agency: they want to meet us - and they asked if we could send them our resumés. Sure! And soon we'll have an interview with a Dutch couple who have a hotel and want someone to keep an eye on things. All good possibilities!
And we have to start looking for tickets, it's time to book! - Esther I made some phonecalls: it's pretty easy to get an insurance for November (since I'm not insured after quitting my job). I just have to write a letter to ask how much I have to pay extra...
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we will keep our Dutch nationality unless you accept another nationality. And I made an appointment at the bank to discuss some things. - Esther Thursday I told some people in my orchestra about our leaving, they didn't know it all yet. Then you get some kind of 'kick': I feel like going immediately!
This weekend, we didn't do much: I 'created' some old paper and a full garbage bag. That's something!
Today I heard that a colleague of mine is going (back) to Suriname. It's fun to find some similarities between our stories and reasons for leaving the Netherlands.
Tips from other colleagues: check at a moving company if they have empty boxes that they don't use anymore. Can still be of good use to us! - Esther

We didn't do much the last few days. We are getting used to leaving a month later. It was so close and now it seems so far again. But ok, two more months and then we're really quiting our jobs. The first pioneers, Eddy and Bianca, are in Costa Rica and they mailed some of their stories. This makes the desire to go to Costa Rica even bigger. There are still people asking what we're going to do. We still have a lot of fun telling about it. Somethime however it seems very close and then it does become a big scary. It is a pretty big adventure, but we are going !!
We didn't have more people looking at our house to buy it, but we're very confident it will be sold. We don't need 30 peope visiting, we just need that one person that buys it. We did get an email from someone in Canada who found our site and asked about our house.
We still get emails now and then of people who react on our site or want to stay in touch. This way our network is still growing bit by bit. - Joost The past few days we've been wondering what to do: to work another month extra (untill November 1) or stop October 1. Wednesday we opted for the latter, because we really want to leave. Thursday night we decided to change our minds and work a little bit more, till November 1. It's just more sensible. It means we have another month extra to sell our house - and we only had one viewer so far. And there are some other financial advantages too.
So this means that we'll leave December 1 at the latest.
We will postpone all planned activities like legalisation and shots for a month. - Joost Yesterday, Joost figured out some things on the computer that might be useful for our website company-to-be. I passed by the 'wonder' travel agency that was supposed to have flights to Costa Rica for only € 200,-. But I think I misunderstood the people I heard it from. They probably meant that it was € 200,- cheaper to buy a return ticket than a one-way ticket.
And we have to, because a one-way ticket is (officially) no valid 'entry' to Costa Rica. When you're a tourist, you have to have a ticket out of the country (by any means of transportation).
On Sunday I spent some time on the attic, putting things apart that I haven't used in the last two years: toys and clothes. That can be more difficult than you think. - Esther Yesterday we send some emails. Today we had an appointment with the IRS. We got a lot more information about taxes. We also had a negative reply on our application of one of the travelagencies. Reason: we don't know the country enough, don't speak the language, have no experience in leading a group or are not available for a longer period. All bullshit, because it's just the oposite. We will follow this up. Yesterday we did nothing except moving a girlfriend from Venlo to Maastricht. It's a shame we're going to miss 'carnaval' in Maastricht next year. ;-)
Today we received another tip about a travelagency which might be looking for guides. We send our cv's immediately. Also the lawyer who's name we got from Otto and Anja mailed back. So we mailed him again.
For the rest today was a sad day. The concert of The Rolling Stones was canceled and we had a power failure in the centre of Utrecht so the server was down again for several hours. I arranged the new spot where we're going to move our sites to in a couple of months. We only have to think of a nice domainname. Tips? - Joost Esther emailed several spanish school in Costa Rica. Three already responded. I wrote a couple of letters to quit subscriptions. - Joost The 1000th visitor visited our site! This site is a much bigger success than we ever imagined.
Today we visited other people who go to Costa Rica. Very nice to talk to people about our and their plan. It give us much energy... - Esther Again, a bad day for our site: the plug for the internetconnection was pulled and it cost Joost a lot of time to try and get it going again. When he finally checked it, it had reconnected 'by itself'... - Esther

Unfortunately our website was not available for almost the whole day yesterday. The connection was terminated and the firewall was unable to reconnect quickly. The site was back online at 18:15.
Esther mailed a lot of people again and we already got a number of responses. A new address of a travel agency which frequently looks for Dutch travelling guides, and a possible job at a hotel. We also wrote our papers to apply for a job at another travel agency. Those will be posted today.
Our broker called the broker with whom the first visitors had a look at our house yesterday. Unfortunately they found some disadvantages and they will not procede. Up to the next... - Joost The city. You have to unsubscribe when your over 9 months abroad. And you don't have to enscribe seperately for a postal address.
Next insurrance. If we're not enlisted in any city, are we still able to get an insurrance? JoHo Company: Yes, Evlia: No. Made an appointment to talk about the taxes and taxsystem to see how we must arrange everything. Called about a EHBO course. It takes 13 weeks. We're not going to make that unfortunately. We're gone in 79 days !! - Esther Called the Rabobank about the account. It seems I can keep my account when I'm abroad. Well. - Esther Friday evening Tom, Eddy & Bianca visited us. It was very 'gezellig': talking about Costa Rica with fellow emigrants always gives a good feeling. We provided and received a lot of tips: about the bankaccount of the Rabobank (with which the creditcard will expire!). And where we have to go for a translation of our highschool diplomas (IB-group). For college and university diplomas :Nuffic. A diplom evaluation costs € 65,-.
On sunday I did a first try on cleaning stuff: a big box with old paper is the result. - Esther It's hot in the Netherlands: and I'm persistent in that the heat in Costa Rica is different. Better to cope with. And you can hide in the mountains.
Small modification of the 32 kilo: according to the travel agency I was today, the 32 kilo does not apply to Martinair, but only for American airliners. So .... something to remember when you fly. - Esther We visited the Consul Isabel Calvo for one hour and she provided us with a lot of new information on the sometimes complex rules. The most important one: You can request a temporaty visum in San José. We don't have to go back the the Netherlands for that, but you probably do need legalised papers, so we get them legalised here before we leave. Until may 2004, you can also still request the Rentista visum in San José. The Rentista visum has a number of advantages like importing your car and house stuff for free, but if you change your visum, you have to pay taxes about those goods after all. And changing visa is a long process.
According to miss Calvo it's best if we go to Costa Rica on a tourist visum. We can then officially extend our visum at the Migracion. In San José we have to find a lawyer and check if we can apply for a temporary visum or whether we should request a permanent visum immediately.
Next step is to make an appointment at the Ministery of Forreign Affairs and the Costa Rican Consul (on 1 day) to legalise all necessary documents (passport etc.), but also highschool, college and university diploma's. At a travel agency I found out that you can bring 2 suitecases of 32 kilo. Per person! That's interesting. So we can have our future visitors carry a lot of stuff for us... - Esther Gave my parent an inflatable globe. Now they can track their children all over the world (Costa Rica, South Korea, Netherlands: the world divided in three parts)
Made a couple of visits on sunday. It's very useful for us to talk to different people, because everybody, even if they don't know Costa Rica, has other ideas and tips we can use. On monday we gathered questions for the Consul. We also inquired at Djoser whether they can use dutch travelagents in Costa Rica. - Esther

Tonight we had diner with my grandmother and we told her about our plans. She was a bit shocked and didn't know what to see. During diner we told her al about the things we want to do and can do, what the country is like, enz. She finds it very brave and good of us that we're going, but on the inside she doesn't like it, I think. -Joost We finally got an answer back of one of the lawyers we emailed. According to him we can best apply for a rentista visum, but we have to apply seperately. At Philips more and more collegues get to know about our plans. Their reactions are very positive. Yesterday evening we visited my aunt because of her birthday. There we told my familie about our plans for the first time for as far as they didn't know yet.
We're going to meet Tom Dukers next week. We're also planning a date with Eddy and Bianca. Maybe they can come on the same evening. Would be nice. 1 more day at Philips ... - Joost Had a couple of nice emails and reactions today at work of people who have been on holiday. And a nice new contact : Joost en Esther (not us) have set up a project in Ecuador where the locals make bags. They're building a babycare centre of the profit of this.
Found a nice link in the Ticopaper of the dutch ambassy: an investor's manual of the Programa de Simplificación de Trámites. - Esther These days we have mailed and written a lot of people. Via via it seemed that in the village of my parent, a couple is living, Theo and Diana, who are going to Costa Rica in september. I passed by them with my mother. It was very nice to talk about a country that you know so well and where you want to be. They had some nice tips too, like a 'fake-retour' ticket. A ticket for €200 to Costa Rica that is valid for 2 weeks. At arrival in Costa Rica, the flight back is canceled so you actually have a one-way ticket. (But a real one-way ticket is very expensive!).
We also got the address of a animal-transport company Exel on Schiphol airport. We have 2 guinea pigs and we want to find out whether it is wise and possible to bring them to Costa Rica. Not immediately, but maybe after we have found our spot.

Had a look at the attic at my parent's place. Hmm. It has to be cleaned before we can store our stuff there. I said I will come by on a saterday and take a dustbath on that attic.

Found out more about insurances. For an Expatriate Insurance of the JoHo Company we don't need to be registered in the Netherlands. But it's very expensive. We need more good advice. - Esther Our house is for sale!
Today we mailed the laywer of Ruud and Odette. From Frans Lamers (former boardmember of the ARCR) we also got a name of a lawyer. We're sending him an email too. - Esther As you've probably heard by now, we are going to Costa Rica! Not just for a holiday, but for real! At the end of June we made our decision. We had been talking about leaving the Netherlands, living abroad for more than a year. And now was the time to decide: either we go for it, or we don't, and then we shouldn't have regrets - not now, not later. We thought that we would have regrets at some point, so we're going! The start
Since June 29, the official start, we found out a lot of things. First of all: there are MANY rules for immigration to Costa Rica. We found some information on the internet (see Links) but people in Costa Rica told us that there are many 'rules' that cannot be found anywhere.
We also wrote every one we know in Costa Rica. Since Esther lived there for a year, we know quite some people. And now they're all looking for jobs for us! Also, since we started telling people of our plans, almost everyone seems to know someone who lives, has lived, or wants to live there. This website also helps in that respect. Quite a few potential Dutch immigrants to Costa Rica have responded! That is great, because comparing experiences is very important. Every one knows something the other doesn't! Bye bye house
In the mean time, we also put our house on the market (it has never been as clean as it is now!). We eventually decided to sell it, although we love the house and its location (in the center of Utrecht). There is a lot of other stuff that we will have to get rid of, but we will store a lot of furniture at Esther's parents. We don't want to throw away too much before we know where we will end up! Another thing is that we have to figure out what to do with the money we earn with selling our house. We don't want to change it all to Colones of course. It seems that an Internet Savings Account is the safest way to keep it, and get a nice interest too. Being in Costa Rica
Residence Permit... those will be the two magic words for us the coming months. We know we have to collect a whole bunch of official papers, like a proof of good conduct and a extract from the Birth Register (we didn't know that you have to get that in the town where you were born). And all these (those are not the only ones!) have to be legalized by the Consulate of Costa Rica in the Hague. And some first have to be legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Pfft!
August 5 we have an appointment at the Consulate to receive some more information. Talking face to face is better, especially when it's about legal stuff - and in Spanish! Our health
Though we are a little stressy, we are in good health. Nevertheless they have to put a couple of (let's say three) needles in us with vaccins against Hepatitus A and B (is that English?!) and another scary disease. We'll start with them in September. Our jobs
Which ones? The ones in Holland? We just quit! The next two/three months are 'supplementary'. But they know we're leaving October 1st. In October we'll have time to pack, so we should be able to leave at the start of November. Esther has the opportunity to extend her job one month, she'll have to decide about that on August 31st.
About the ones in Costa Rica: we want to work! HIRE US! Without joking, we're looking for two nice jobs, in ICT (Esther is an internet interaction designer and Joost a Senior Java Developer) or in tourism, because our ultimate dream is to start our own little hotel eventually...
So far, we had some tips of companies (travel agencies) who might be interested, but we have to look them up when we get there.

So far for the update. It's shorter than the Dutch version, of course, but I assume you are not Dutch and therefore do not need to know all the Dutch and Costa Rican rules concerning this move. However, if you do want to know more, you can contact us!

Esther & Joost