Pizza and Culture

I never imagined that I would have a cultural experience in Costa Rica regarding Pizza. But then again, I never thought I'd have any experience in Costa Rica.

Yesterday when I got home from school I was greeted by an extremely sick wife. Dena hasn't been feeling well since Thursday, but yesterday was definitely the peak of her sickness. It's nothing to be to concerned about, just a cold (refrio in Spanish). Anyway, if those reading could please pray that she feels better soon, that'd be appreciated. She definitely doesn't want to go into labor while she feels so drained of energy.

Well, needless to say, she was not in the mood to make any lunch, and, let's just say that I messed up Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft Dinner for those Canucks reading) this week, so my culinary instincts were not primed and ready to go. So I decided we would order pizza from 2x1 Pizza. It's a pretty good pizza shop that give you 3 pizzas (despite what the name suggests...) for what you'd pay for 1 at Pappa Johns (yes, we have a Pappa Johns here). Well, 2x1's scooters and trucks all say the pizza will be there in 39 minutes or you get your pizzas for 1 colone. That would be the equivalent of 1/5th of a penny.

After placing the order, we settled in for the anticipation of meat, cheese and pineapple (no, not cause I thought the pineapple would make the baby come). And long behold, 39 minutes passed... no pizza. 45 minutes... no pizza. And finally we got a call from the delivery guy stating that he couldn't find the house. And I can understand this to an extent. Addresses in Costa Rica, if you don't have a PO Box are... different. For example, whereas in Canada, our address was something like 69 Pleasant Ave., our address here is as follows:

At the middle of the Park of Sauces, go west for 2 blocks, north for 500 meters, it's the white building on the left, apartment #1. (Please just send mail to us at the school as I have no intention of giving our friends and supporters wrist spasms by writing this out).

Anyway, you can see why the guy may have got lost. But we had ordered from them 3 times previously and they even had our directions in the computer because the last person who lived here had ordered from them. Well, I finally was ask to meet the delivery guy at the corner. I did. Our pizza arrived about an hour or so after we ordered it and I asked that they would honor their ad about the pizzas being here in 39 minutes or less. I guess that only applies to when they can find the address though because the delivery guy started arguing with me and demanded I pay. This was extremely difficult for me to work with as I now know a fair amount of Spanish as far as for hailing a cab, or greeting someone, but arguing... nope, haven't learned that yet.

Anyway, long story short, he left without giving me our pizzas, we called the store again and explained the situation. The jefe (boss) promised our pizzas would be here within 10 minutes, but we'd still have to pay for them. I said no thanks and we hung up.

I don't know if it was my frustration with my lack of language, lack of what I felt was deserved service or what, but I must have forgotten at that moment when I said we didn't want the pizzas, that I HAVE A PREGNANT WIFE... A HUNGRY PREGNANT WIFE.

We called back and apologized, and asked for our pizzas again, agreeing to pay. The pizzas arrived 38 minutes later.

It was just another reminder, that though it's great here and we have a lot of the same comforts as Canada and the U.S., things are not the same here as home. The customer is not always right in every situation. And above all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.