Today we took the train to San Jose to explore the city. After walking around for a bit, we went to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. The museum had a lot of really cool pieces and it was interesting to compare and contrast the museum to the ones in the United States. I found all of the art to be very unique and enjoyed the butterfly garden. Our next stop was outside La Casa Amarilla (the yellow house), which was formerly a government building. I was surprised to learn that this building has a connection to Pittsburgh! Andrew Carnegie, best known for his work in building the steel industry, set up the original International Court of Justice in Cartago in 1909. Unfortunately, this building was destroyed, but Carnegie responded by donating money to build a new building because he believed in world and regional peace. In a way, this led to the idea of getting rid of the Costa Rican military, as Costa Rica began to act as an arbiter of peace for Central America. To this day, Costa Rica does not have an army. We were also able to walk through the Teatro Nacional, a historic theater, which was amazing. The parts that I found to be the most interesting was that the floor of the theater could be raised to be level with the stage, and the specific artwork on the ceiling that depicts the same artwork found on the old 5 colones bill, which is no longer in use.

The influences of the banana and coffee trade in San Jose can be found in the Teatro Nacional, as the government implemented a tax on coffee exports, and this money was used to fund the construction of the theatre which is still in use today. Additionally, the city of San Jose was built on the site of the first coffee farm here in Costa Rica. San Jose has some similarities to Pittsburgh – being here today reminded me a little bit of life at Pitt. The urban setting is the most obvious one, and having actual crosswalks and pedestrian traffic signals was very different from our life in Heredia, and was very helpful while we walked around the city. However, they are also very different, as San Jose definitely caters more towards tourists and is the hub of Costa Rica – for example, the government is completely centralized so you have to come to San Jose for any government related issues. There is a central market and lots of stores along the streets. In addition to these shops, there were also a lot of American places like McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. I also noticed a few stores with “Ropa Americana” signs, which shows how these stores really are trying to cater mostly towards tourists. We ate lunch near the central market where I enjoyed an empanada with cheese, a chicken chalupa, and a mango smoothie. Everything was delicious!

One thing that we all noticed upon arrival here in Costa Rica is that there is a lack of street addresses here. Even for our homestays, we don’t have an exact address for our home. What Costa Ricans usually do is they pick a nearby landmark and navigate based on that. The best way to navigate for us as tourists is to drop pins on Google Maps and figure out directions using that. When we Uber home, we usually pick a nearby landmark that is close to our homestays, and just walk the final 1-2 minutes home. When comparing this to our life in the US, the difference is clear. In the US, people are continually increasing their dependence on e-commerce, so street addresses are necessary for Fedex, UPS, and other delivery drivers to locate the exact package destinations. Here, our homestay houses don’t even have mailboxes, implying that e-commerce doesn’t have the same big presence as it does in the US. I am also used to relying on Apple Maps and my GPS when navigating in the US, however, here I either need to drop a pin on Google Maps, or manually read Google Maps and try to figure out where to go from there, almost like pre-GPS times. I think this system holds San Jose back, because with countries like the US heavily relying on e-commerce, and San Jose’s economy depending on tourism, it would be more appealing for tourists to have specific directions to make navigating an unfamiliar place easier.