A Much Needed Update

I think it's becoming a theme to start my blogs with, "I know I've been a slacker," but, let's be honest, it's true.  I have really neglected the blog lately.  I apologize.

Lots has been going on down here in Panama.  School started and it's been busy, of course.  I'm coaching soccer, which I thought, going into it, meant coaching 1 team.  It quickly turned into 3 teams...and a whole lot of work and headaches.  Alex has been building away, making bookshelves, hammock swings, wine racks, and more for teachers and other expats.  He has had to battle a lot of Panama's inefficiencies.  It's been a frustrating experience for him, but as with most things around here, we just have to laugh through it.

The biggest news to report is that we decided to sign on for one more year.  I will finish out this school year, teach one more full year, and then we'll see where we feel like going after that.  We plan to come back to that states for a long visit in June/July and look forward to seeing as many family and friends as we can, eating as much American food as possible, and hiking.

Alex has also continued volunteering for Engineers Without Borders.  Naturally, he has become pretty well-respected by the main guy in charge due to his knowledge of building things and making things work.  The program has a strong relationship with the University of Pittsburgh and brought down about 20 students for an internship.  As part of the experience, the students were able to go into the Panama Canal Expansion project for a tour.  They invited Alex along as well.

Inside the Canal lock

University of Pittsburgh students 

Heading into where the water flows in and out of the chamber

Where the new lock gates will be 

Pretty incredible experience for him.  He is one of very few in the world who can say they've walked in the Panama Canal expansion lock! 

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Another fun thing we've done includes a trip to Palenque with a bunch of teachers.  Palaenque is on the Caribbean coast, about 3 hours from the city.  We rented a house for 2 nights, which included 2 maids who cooked and cleaned for us.  We had the genius idea of having a slip'n slide flip cup tournament.  It was amazing. 

And enjoyed some relaxing in the shallow lagoon...

We played Beersbee and put our chairs in the water. 

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Santiago has been working on a project in Bocas del Toro, and has been able to fit in a quick stop the last two times he's been down!  Was great to see him!  We will get to see him, Anna, and meet baby Francesca in December when we go to Ecuador! 

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In other news, the Panamanian President and the whole Varela family met the Pope.  Two of the three kids go to my school. Exciting stuff.    

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I still need to update about our visit with Doug and Brittany, and our quick trip to Peru.  Both will come in time.  Until then, Go Hawks! :)

Largest Urban Zipline....at the White Tower!

There are a lot of crazy things that happen in Panama, mostly related to driving and parties.  There aren't very many rules that are enforced, although it seems the policia is trying to crack down on some things lately.  The amount of things people can get away with here compared to in the US is shocking, including this awesomeness:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcwrRA2BIlw&sns=fb

It was a normal Wednesday.  My carpool was heading home from school and we all thought it was a good day to meet at the pool for some pool beers (5 of us live in the same building).  We invited a couple other people over who live in the neighborhood and had a little party.  When we arrived at the pool, we noticed big cables running from the roof out to the helicopter pad in front of our building.  We saw another group of people at the pool having some pizza and sodas and they were speaking English.  "Hey, do you guys know what's going on with the cables?" I asked innocently.  "Oh, we're filming a YouTube clip. Our buddy, Devin Supertramp, does extreme sports videos and is ziplining off this building for Speedstick," the camera man replied.  WHAT?!  We conintued talking with the guy and he informed us that in about 30 minutes, they would be jumping off the building and landing in the middle of the road on the Speedstick sign.  That's freaking awesome!! We waited eagerly for them to start.  They had a small drone flying around the top of the building, and some camera men down across the street filming upward.  We were all looking over the edge from the pool deck and noticed a few groups of policia scattered in the area.  The policia walked out in the middle of the road and held their hand out for traffic to stop. Remember, this is a work day, and by this point, it's prime commuting time, 5:30pm. Traffic stopped and it was eerily silent for a couple minutes.  

The camera men, walking out to the Speedstick circle 

All of a sudden people started jumping off the roof of our 62-floor building.  They ziplined for about 10 seconds, then let go.  They pulled their chute and navigated their way to the small circle in the middle of Avenida Balboa.  It. Was. Insane.  There were five people that we saw jump, but apparently they had been jumping all day.  Twelve times to be exact.  

Once they were done, they all came back to the pool area and we were able to give them some high-fives.  The camera man had us re-create our reactions and filmed us watching from the pool.  If you watch the video closely, you can see us standing at the pool, a big group of us with a baby.  Pretty awesome.  

Not only would that NEVER happen in the USA, jumping off a building into commuting traffic, but we also would never get to say, "Yep, we live in that building.  And yes, we watched it all happen.  In person."

Good ol' Panama :) 

30th Birthday

We went to the Riu at Playa Blanca for my 30^th birthday in May.  We also had the pleasure of having Tyler visit us for a few days too!  Ty arrived on Wednesday and I had to work on Thursday, so Alex took him around to all the sight-seeing spots in the city.  On Friday, we headed out to Playa Blanca to start the birthday weekend.  It is only about 1.5 hours down the PanaAmerican Highway.  Very easy to get to.  The Riu is a new all-inclusive resort that just opened in April.  We were able to find an awesome deal through http://www.sunwing.ca/, which our Canadian friends told us about.  They have great deals all the time for top destinations.  We were able to stay at the Riu for 2 nights, all-inclusive, for $120 a person!  That's a deal! 

The place is so new that the palm trees were just barely starting to grow.

When we arrived, we were greeted with great customer service and beverages.  The people who work at the Riu were extremely friendly and helpful, not a normal occurrence in Panama.  When we got to our room, we discovered this amazing set up….

The storm clouds were rolling in, but that didn't matter to us.  The swim up bar was refreshing and had a covered area for us to enjoy the rain with a cocktail!

There were about 20 other friends coming for the weekend as well, some later that night, and the rest on Saturday morning.  Once people started showing up, it became quite the party.  

The resort has a 'Riu Fun' group, which is a group of young, probably early 20s, Panamanians who's sole job is to have fun with the customers.  They form water polo games, volleyball games, work out classes, yoga, excursions in the ocean, whatever you want.  Since we had such a big group, we were able to form all of our own games with one of the 'Fun' members, Alvaro.  He became our friend by the end of the weekend :)

It was Ryan's birthday that weekend too, so we had some birthday buddy glasses and mugs.

I feel lucky to have so many great friends here in Panama to help me celebrate my bday!  And, OF COURSE, that Ty came down to hang with us too!  Always great to see that guy! :)

A Little Taste of Home....Seattle Crew Comes to Panama!

I work, I really do.  But blogging about work is boring, and that’s not the point of the blog.  So let’s fast forward from Carnival to Semana Santa, my next week off.  For this vacation, we had our Seattle friends visit!  Jess, Stefan, Tanner and Kenny came and the week was a total blast!

We swooped our friends up from the airport and headed straight to our place.  I think the first impression they had was regarding the driving.  We’re not kidding people, the drivers around here are insane.  I often wonder if I’m becoming a better driver or a terrible driver.  We do whatever we want and whatever is going to get us to our destination faster, including driving on the shoulder on the highway, cutting people off at the toll, you name it.  So, I think they were a little scared until we got to our place.

We started the week off just right by cracking a couple Balboas by the pool at our place.  Stefan brought his GoPro so that was the beginning of the GoProHomo experience.  GoPros are super awesome, and he was able to capture some amazing moments from the trip!

We got up early the next morning and drove to San Blas.  

This was our third time to San Blas and it was still just as beautiful as the first.  The most shocking thing about this time was the difference in the island.  The exposed sand was very different this time around than the first time we went in September.  Fascinating that water shifts and creates a totally different island.  As I’ve said in other posts, there’s not much to do on the island other than swim and relax.  Pretty nice life.  We did some snorkeling and took naps, and after lunch we were able to have a guy take us around to some other islands nearby.  

Stefan, tapping into his European roots. 

We went to Starfish Island, which is no longer an island but more of a sand bar now.  There were starfish and sand dollars everywhere.  The water only went up to your ankles in some areas.  We checked out another island and then went back to our island for more beverages and relaxation.  

STANDING in the middle of the ocean! 

Once it gets dark on the island, there aren’t many lights to see yourself around, not that there are many places to go anyway.  We decided to play some cards at the main table where everyone eats dinner.  Others decided to congregate around us as well, and before we knew it, we made a little island party.  Unfortunately, the next morning was overcast and a little rainy.  We were still able to enjoy some relaxation and swimming before we decided to head back to the main island. 

We spent the next day in the city doing some sight-seeing.  Our tradition when visitors come is having a big seafood dinner from the fresh fish market.  Going to the market is always an interesting experience.  The fish is iced down, but not like you would see in the states, or at Pikes Place, and it’s much dirtier and rugged as well.  If you go later in the day, the smell can be pretty strong, which is gross.  But, the fish is super delicious and extremely cheap. 

The boys outside the Fish Market

You can’t come to Panama without seeing the Canal, so we headed to the Gatun locks.  We have decided this is the best place to see the locks and see the ships come through.  Of all the times we’ve gone there, we’ve seen ships every time.  The Miraflores locks are closer, but the last two times we’ve gone there, we haven’t seen ships.  No point in going if you can’t get the experience of seeing the massive vessels pass through with only inches on each side while they’re in the locks.  So amazing.  The Gatun area also has a new museum and observation deck on the expansion project as well.  Since they’re still working on it, you can see all the construction and work that is going into just one of the three new sets of locks.  From the deck, looking down on all the workers and trucks, they look like little ants running around, which gives you an idea of how incredibly large the project is, and how much bigger the ships are that will be coming through that side of the canal!

You can see the ship leaving the locks behind us.

The water is full in the locks, waiting for the next ship to come through. 

The next few days were spent at an amazing house on the Pacific Ocean, which also came with a maid, a gardener, and best of all, it was FREE!  Remember my post about when the Demers visited ?  Well, we were lucky enough to get in contact with Kevin again, and he let us use their house for a few days, asking only that we leave some money for the AC and treat the maid and gardener well.  Easy peasy!  The house was absolutely beautiful and huge.  The maid had her own house on the property, behind the main house, and Tanner stayed in his own detached room as well.  The house was equipped with an infinity pool, pool toys, surround sound speakers, and a huge beach and ocean just a step away.  The maid cooked our meals and cleaned up after us.  All we had to do was relax and enjoy ourselves!  It was quite the place. 

We took a day trip from there to El Valle to show the crew some rainforest hiking.  We hiked to the top of the Sleeping Indian Princess, which was much harder than any of us expected. 

One of the most entertaining parts of the week was the three (maybe four…five?) hours we spent making Balboa commercials in the pool, and recording ourselves falling into the pool with the GoPro.  Tanner decided that Balboa needs to work on their advertising and started coming up with strange ways to drink a beer in the pool.  Kenny decided to be creepy in the background.  This website is having trouble uploading any of the videos, but you can check out the Balboa commercials by looking up Stefan's instagram, @seattlethetuffin. 

The end of the trip is always the worst, especially when Panama decides to not sell alcohol!  I guess they figured we had consumed enough for the week.  Tanner flew out early Saturday morning, and the rest of the group not until the afternoon.  Alex and I took Tanner to the airport and also dropped off our rental car.  At 7:00 in the morning, there was a stupid documents check right before the airport.  Panama has these often, especially on holiday weekends, where they block the road and make sure you have all your car papers, license, and passport with you.  Well, Alex didn't have those things.  Car papers, yes, but passport, no.  I always keep a copy of them in our car, but that was not acceptable for this officer.  It's actually better that Alex didn't have his passport because his 3 month driving had already expired on his tourist visa.  

We spent some time talking to the officer.  We always try to pretend like we don't know what they are saying to us in order to heighten their level of frustration, in hope that they'll just let us go.  It didn't work this time.  After lots of broken Spanish BSing, the officer finally looked at me and said, "So what are we going to do with him?"  I mumbled some things in Spanish and eventually blurted, "Dinero?"  The officer smiled and said, "No problem here?"  I smiled and laughed and told him there was no problem at all.  He shook my hand, then shook Alex's, and he walked away with $20.  Damn corruption.  I guess it's better than a ticket....or getting arrested...

We were happy to provide Tanner with that last minute moment of excitement.  He was relieved to get the airport on time and get back to US soil. 

We took the rest of the group on a couple last minute excursions as well.  We went out to the Amador Causway, and then to the top of Ancon Hill.  

The last thing we saw before heading to the airport was a sloth! Sorry you missed it, Tanner! 

It was SO sad to see all these guys go.  We had such a fun week and we hope they'll come back soon!! Thank you for coming Jess, Stefan, Kenny, and Tanner!!!