Empty suitcase

Christmas is just around the corner and it is time to make Christmas fudge.  We went to 8 different stores in search of semi-sweet chocolate chips and the country is apparantly sold out.  Sarettos in Escazu usually has many of the American staples that you can’t find anywhere else as well as Auto Mercado but after searching these stores…all of them…we found that there were no semi-sweet chocolate chips to be found.

For you bakers you probably already know that bittersweet chocolate is not the same as semi-sweet when it comes to making fudge, but me in my desperation to find chocolate for my kids tried it anyway.  How many ways can you say discustingly sweet.

So John is in the states this week and what is he bringing back but semi-sweet chocolate chips among other things that we can’t find here in Costa Rica.

When one of us travel to the US we always travel with at least one empty suitcase to bring back all the things that we think we can’t live without that can only be found in the states. This time with Christmas coming it is things like peppermint extract, candy canes (special flavors) and semi-sweet chocolate chips and of course Christmas presents.

Normally we travel with one large suitcase inside of another then break them all out when it comes time to make the trip back to Costa Rica.  Never fails that we are dangerously close to overload weight so the night before we travel we are weighing all of our bags to be sure we don’t go over the 75 lb limit.  Often shifting and repacking more than once to get everything evened out.

My last trip home, I had 2 large suitcases both of them loaded to the hilt but both weighed in at 70 lbs.  You must pay $25.00 per suitcase if you go over 50 lbs but that is a given for us.  I can’t imagine having a bag that only weighs 50 lbs….who can do that?  If you go over the 75 lbs you pay $100 per bag and that really stinks.  If you have a 3rd bag which we have done in desperate times the charge is $100 for that bag provided you keep it under 50 lbs.

So if your going to the states, try the one bag inside of the other to leave you more room to pack your goodies.  This has paid off more than once for us.