A Busy Afternoon ~ Varios Cosas

We had a crazy day today running around completing tasks for our student visas in order to stay in Costa Rica for the rest of the year. We have had several problems getting things validated with the Costa Rican consulate and are now racing to beat our "Tourist Visa" expiration date of April 1. We took taxis today in two phases to a photoshop in order to get our "Mug Shots" (shown above) for our police records here and for our visas. We don't all fit in a normal taxi! We then had to go to the police department for complete fingerprinting (we felt a bit like criminals) and registering everything about each of us with the Police. They were very thorough. They now know everything about us...our height and weight in meters/kilometers, our scars, our shoe sizes (just kidding) and all of our other vital statistics. Tomorrow I will present our validated birth certificates, marriage license, police records, passports, photos and complete bio sheet to our representative at the institute and they will attempt to get our visas processed. Please pray for everything to go through quickly and without any more hitches. Thank you Dad and Mom, again, for all your help in getting things back and forth from the Secretary of State and the CR consulate in D.C!!!

After all that, Eve needed all of her vaccinations in order to be current here in Costa Rica. She had 6 in 2 shots...all at the same time. (pray that she takes well to them) Here in Costa Rica, doctors, hospitals and/or offices do not administer shots. Pharmicists do. Eve had her shots in the dark back room of a small local pharmacy... I felt like we were doing something illegal! It was actually a great experience with a wonderful pharmacist that we were happy to get to know. Leaving the pharmacy we met up with Debra and walked her home, picked up some groceries and then walked back to the house. Phew! Now Mary and I both have to study for exams that we have tomorrow and then will look forward to plopping into bed.