Meaning of our blog title “Pura Vida, eh?”
While we were living in Costa Rica during the past year, the title of our blog was “Pura Vida, eh?”. “Pura Vida” literally translates to "pure life", but the meaning is closer to "full of life", "purified life", "this is living!", "going great", or "cool!". Costa Ricans use the phrase as both a greeting and a farewell, to express satisfaction, or to politely express indifference when describing something. The phrase is used to express a philosophy of strong community, perseverance, resilience in overcoming difficulties with good spirits, enjoying life slowly, and celebrating good fortune of magnitudes small and large alike. (Wikipedia)
“Eh?” is a phrase that is commonly associated with Canadians. “Eh?” is often added to the end of questions asked by Canadians to confirm the attention of the listener and to invite a supportive noise. It essentially is an interjection meaning, "I'm checking to see you're listening so I can continue." "Eh" can also be added to the end of a declarative sentence to turn it into a question. Sometimes Canadians use “eh?” throughout sentences and they don't even know when they're doing it, eh? (Wikipedia)
Change of our blog title to “Plan de Vida”
To mark our departure from Costa Rica, we decided to change the title of our blog with this 100th post.
Some background on the name “Plan de Vida”…
A Blue Zone is a region of the world where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years. Scientists and demographers have classified these longevity hot-spots by having common healthy traits and life practices that result in higher-than-normal longevity. The name Blue zone seems to be first employed in a scientific article by a team of demographers working on centenarians in Sardinia in 2004.
In 2007, the Blue Zones team visited the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, a place with a cluster of the longest-lived people in the Americas. On the second day of their expedition, they interviewed a centenarian whose “Plan de Vida” (Life Purpose) keeps him going strong.
Part of our family’s “Plan de Vida” is to travel the world to enjoy the many wonderful places, cultures, traditions, and people. If we can help those individuals less fortunate than us in other areas of the world at the same time, our voyages and experiences are even more gratifying.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
