Ask any Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica resident "How many times have you moved since your arrival?" and it goes something like this: "Five times in the past year," "twice this month," "I've lived in 18 places since i got here" and so on.

Between the biking, snorkeling, surfing, lazing in the hammock and cocktail mixing in Costa Rica, we kinda like to eat. Back in New York, I put at least one hot meal on the table every day for 30 years and had a robust repertoire of family-pleasing recipes -- few of which, for various reasons, can be reproduced here.

When you're standing in the store with a line of people behind you and the cashier mumbles something like quatromilledoscientoscinquenta and it sounds like quatromillcan'tyouevencountyoustupidstupidgringo, it's a bit nerve-wracking.

Of course, we didn't move to Costa Rica to watch TV, but sometimes in the midst of a three-day downpour, it'd be nice to see something other than each other.

One big reason to have a dog in Puerto Viejo is security. Pretty much anything that isn't nailed down is fair game around here, petty burglaries aren't uncommon -- and we determined we wanted... a beast.

There was the House of Fleas, the place right next door to the House of Pit Bulls, a one-of-a-kind home on a beautiful property featuring the perfect howler monkey habitat but little to no indoor space.

Three days of dumping our possessions on the street made us extremely popular in the East Village. ("Do you have any MORE books, man?" "Wow! A dulcimer!") The king bed walked uptown.