A miscellany of know-it-all-isms by Geoff Sowrey

Posts tagged moving

A year in Canada

Dec08
2010 Written by Geoff

A year ago tonight, my family returned to Canada from Costa Rica. We had lived abroad for a year and a half, and had done our best to make a go of a new life in a new country. But it wasn’t to be, and we finally came to the reality that we had to move back home.

So, a year ago, we packed up a highly uncomfortable hour of the morning, boarded our airplane, and spend nearly 16 hours travelling north. We arrived late in the evening, with an irate kitty, to the most amazing -18C weather I’d ever felt. Within days, we’d tried to reinsert ourselves into a society that we’d — at last in some part — tried to forget.

A year later, I’m starting to forget that we ever left.

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Posted in Careers, Costa Rica, Family

12 things I miss about Costa Rica

Mar03
2010 Written by Geoff

It’s just shy of three months since we left Costa Rica. Many people still ask us what it’s like to be back, if we’re happy to be back, and if we’ve acclimatised yet. There’s no quick or easy answer to all of that, as we’re not dealing with something as simple as changing from one temperature to another. As anyone will tell you, moving to an entirely different country (outside of North America) involves more than a physical location. Costa Rica was more than just a place, it was a way of life, and an experience that has changed the way I live now.

Almost right away, we missed some things, though most of that was due to the roughly 40 degree Celsius shift in temperature. Other things soon made themselves known, each time with the all-too-familiar pang of loss and regret.

But like when we moved down to Costa Rica, this is just something we’ll have to get used to.

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Posted in Costa Rica - Tagged , ,

There and back again, a Monkey’s tail

Jan08
2010 Written by Geoff

This is a joke you might not understand until you’re older, Monkey. For now, it’s one many of my friends will have a good chuckle at…

You’re asleep right now, in your own room, on the mattress from one of our sofa beds. A month ago right now, you and we were standing in the immigration line, waiting to enter your country of origin, and go to your new home. I can’t say “home” the way Mommy and I say “home”, because for you, this isn’t your home. Costa Rica is more your home than here.

You still look at video of our condo in Santa Ana, and you ask when are we going home. Because that’s what you know more of. We left Canada when you weren’t even a year old. You learned to walk in Costa Rica, to swim, to talk. Almost all of your friends are in Costa Rica, you went to school there. You ask for “schoolday”, and talk about your teachers.

But you came a long way to be able to say these things, and have these memories.

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Posted in Children, Costa Rica, Family - Tagged

You can never go home again

Dec14
2009 Written by Geoff

When I was a kid, I heard the phrase “you can never go home again”, but never understood it. I mean, I went home every day after school, so what was wrong with that? It wasn’t until I went to university that I started to appreciate it — I was regularly amazed at how much my hometown seemed to change whenever I was away at school.

When my father died in 2002, the term gained a whole new meaning for me. Suddenly, I couldn’t even go home. My home was where my family lived, which was now only in the past. When my mother moved away, my home became a sightseeing stop.

Then I moved home from Costa Rica, to a house we own. Man, talk about change of perspective.

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Posted in Careers, Family - Tagged

Adios, Costa Rica

Dec08
2009 Written by Geoff

Eighteen months ago, I set foot in Costa Rica. Not as a tourist (despite what my visa said), but to make a new life abroad. My family (Alex, Monkey, and Asia the Cat) would join me a month later. One big, happy family, living less than 10 degrees latitude from the equator. Life in paradise.

Assuming the rest has gone to plan (I’m pre-publishing this entry), the moment this is visible to the world is the moment I leave Costa Rica … likely forever. It’s a bittersweet moment in my life, probably the happiest and saddest moment I can think of, really. I’m happy to go home, but I’m sad it didn’t end the way I had wanted.

There’s very little limonada in this story, unfortunately.

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Posted in Costa Rica

T-minus one week and counting

Dec01
2009 Written by Geoff

One week from … well, right now, our plane leaves Juan Santamaria Airport, bound for Houston. If all our cards fall into place (which, so far, they are — I just hope they keep falling!), we’ll leave in good order. We’re not perfect yet, but we’re getting there.

The biggest point, really, is still the car. Sigh. READ MORE »

Posted in Costa Rica, Travel - Tagged ,

Taking a pet from Costa Rica

Nov28
2009 Written by Geoff

It figures, just when we thought we’d started to have everything figured out, we hit another snag. (There’s always another snag.) This time, it’s with Asia, our cat.

Our problem is not with Canada — all they need is a valid rabies vaccination, which we have. Our problem is not our airline (Continental) — we already have a reservation that allows us to take our cat. Our problem is with Costa Rica.

I’m so not surprised.

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Posted in Costa Rica, Family, Travel - Tagged , ,

Anyone want to buy a used car?

Nov24
2009 Written by Geoff

That ticking is getting louder, I tell ya.

We’re officially out of the “long vacation” timeframe, and into the “standard” two week vacation timeframe. You know this one: enough time to fly to a distant land, see two or three different places, get really drunk in a bar and get robbed blind, realise you’ve actually got a funky disease you’re not sure if you got from the food or that person you swore looked like a woman the night before…

What? Why are you looking at me like that? You make it sound like no-one else has vacations like that.

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Posted in Costa Rica

To end, this shall

Nov18
2009 Written by Geoff

Today
I watched the setting sun
Golden fringed clouds
Mustard streaks over the horizon
I thought

This, too, shall end

I count in weeks
Soon to be days
Soon to be hours
Then minutes

The arms swirl forward
Tickticktick-twirling by
Counting out
Running down
Dwindling

Time
The end of time
My time
My awful inevitability

This end, too shallow

I sit on Temporal Row
I struggle to draw out each breath
Consume my last meal
Crumb by crumb
Measure my last mile in
Millimetres
Dread the final flick

Things I
(W)(C)(Sh)ould
Have done
Wishes, dreams, chances, decisions, regrets
…if I could do it over?

To end, this shall

Posted in Costa Rica

3 weeks remaining in Costa Rica

Nov17
2009 Written by Geoff

Today marks 21 days until we leave Costa Rica. Three weeks. We officially enter a period of time that could be a “long vacation”.

Sadly, a vacation is something we’re not going to be having. Instead, we have a lot of things we have to do. Not just here, but also in preparation for our return to Calgary. In some ways, it almost makes leaving Calgary look easy…

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Posted in Costa Rica, Family
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