Costa Rica Costa of Living Update— $59 /month for Internet Service (2Mbps download speed and 1Mbps upload speed)

Welcome to the Happier Than A Billionaire reboot! After careful consideration, I decided to overhaul my website so that I can share more information with all of you, preferably in one easily navigable space. In the process of doing so, I deleted an entire database, screwed up the margins on most pages, and created collateral damage across the blogosphere. So, if you were trying to contact me or visit my page in the past couple weeks, it was a mess and basically reflected how my brain works, like that guy in A Beautiful Mind, but without the fancy equations and high IQ.

Yesterday was the day of the website launch, and with much excitement I pressed a button and my site went live. This reciprocally caused the Internet to crash. I quickly logged onto my phone (that has a different Internet provider) and checked my emails. Apparently, the Internet company for my house had sent out a message that they had blown a fuse. In fact, this was their exact wording, “Our primary fiber connection seems to have gone down this morning.” Quite the timing.

One of the most frequent questions I get from those who want to move to Costa Rica is if I have fast and reliable Internet. And for the most part I do… except for the day of my launch… and then I didn’t. But I remember moving here and having to drive down a mountain, to an Internet café, so that I could send emails to my parents to let them know I have not been kidnapped… yet. Then when the Internet did come to my house, it was really bad dial-up. Do you even remember what really bad dial-up was? Exactly. You’ve blocked it out of your subconscious. Sorry I mentioned it.

Technology has come a long way here. Although you still may need to buffer a little, you eventually get to watch all those cute cat videos in a reasonable time frame. And for the most part, I have enough speed to download and upload all my monkey pictures with ease.

One of the traits you acquire in Costa Rica is patience. All sorts of patience, whether in line behind a dingbat at the bank who can’t understand how to pay her water bill (that would be me in that example), or sitting staring at a blank screen on your computer for an indefinite amount of time. Some would say it’s part of the charm of living here, and I have to agree. Because having more patience generally makes you a nicer person. You don’t snap as quickly at people, and you cultivate a “we’re all in this together” sort of attitude. It’s a nice way to live, one that I would prefer never to lose.

Eventually, my Internet returned and I called my parents to look at the new website.

“The blanket on your bed is wrinkled. Don’t you have a better photo?” my mom said.

“Okay, I’ll use another picture. In the meanwhile, what do you think about the rest of the site?”

“Unbelievable! I touched something and now I’m on a New Jersey newspaper.”

“Mom, you must of hit a link on your iPad.”

“It’s broken.”

“Your iPad is not broken. Just hit the arrow and go back.”

“What arrow?”

So the rest of my day was spent teaching my mom where the back arrow is located, and learning that I should be ironing my comforter.

This is then next phase of our happier story, one that finally includes The Happier House. I’m diving into this new chapter with a few of the lessons I learned since moving to Costa Rica:

• There are infinite amount of adventures one can cultivate in a lifetime.
• Believe, even when you think you’ve stop believing.
• Sometimes you have to last through the buffering to get a clear picture.

And thankfully, all that buffering was worth the wait.