Caerle bien a alguien

This Spanish phrase means "to fall well to someone." This literal translation fits me fine, I suppose, considering my propensity for klutziness. But it is the idiomatic meaning, to "seem pleasant," that I thought would best introduce the explanation of this blog's title.

In Spanish, simpático, con acento, is an adjective used to describe a person as pleasant, nice, kind, likeable, etc. Clearly, this word does not describe me, so I capitalized the T in order to emphasize "Tico," the slang word a Costa Rican uses to describe his or her nationality. In other words, I am trying to practice good karma by complimenting my new neighbors before I even meet them. But in case this paronomastic plot doesn't work, I also wanted to reference the word sans accent, in terms of its English connotation of "having a like mind or temperament." It is my hope that, unlike the clear outcast I was as non-religious, lower-class German progeny at an upper-class school in the "Jewish state" of Israel, I will find a more comfortable place in this new country and school.

I did hope to establish some syntactical synchronicity with my previous blog, but "Gringa in the Mayanland" (thanks Evan) and "Girl in the Gringolandia" (thanks Tim) just didn't sound as good, despite the parallel alliteration of the latter. Plus, I love puns. At first, I tried to combine my temporary home abroad with a play on the Costa Rican catchphrase for "this is the life," until I realized that "TemPura Vida" sounded more like "this is the lightly-breaded and deep-fried life." So in the end, even if the title is not original (at least a dozen albums, one play, one movie, and even another blog share the same name), I hope these posts eventually seem pleasant to you.