Costa Rica Cost Of Living Update:   New cell phone- $50      New Soccer Stadium- $0

It is time to buy a new cell phone.  My last one was purchased before the Free Trade Agreement passed and so I paid a whopping $300 for it.  To my surprise the new one only cost $50 and it is a pay as you go kind.  It even has an FM radio upgrade.

It’s an impressive sleek Alcatel, a brand the salesman emphatically defended as a phone made in China but not by Chinese people.  The apparent hostility could be because the new Costa Rica  stadium was funded and built by the Chinese. Literally…they used only 100% Chinese workers. A nice gesture except they built a parking lot for 200 cars, suggesting that each of the 35,000 attendees carpool with 172 other people.

With that in mind, I scoured the internet to find this gushing review of my new phone,  “Absolute rubbish.  COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY!!!”

I’m not sure what China got out of building the stadium but I am guessing it was the right to sell me this crappy phone.

Costa Rica Cost Of Living Update: Cell Phone Bill  $7/month

I like to brag about my cell phone bill since I paid ten times that while living in the states.  But what I don’t like to tell people is that the cell phone cost us $300. What made this purchase all the more worse is that it looks like a refurbished Fisher Price phone my two year old niece might play with.  Even Barbie and Ken sport better models.

Within three months all the “extra” features stopped working: calculator, alarm clock, and solitaire game.  I was left with a phone that could only make calls. (What is this…1995?).  We thought this phone would only last six months but it’s been around for three years. No matter what we do, the damn thing just won’t break.

Now the Central American Free Trade Agreement has passed and competition for cell plans has been introduced to Costa Rica.  Maybe I’ll get a new one that texts or have apps I can download.  Or maybe I’ll just stick with mine and forget about all the high falutin features. 1995 was a great year for me, do I really need more?

Best selling album 1995- Cracked Rear View by Hootie and the Blowfish