It's been a while...(june 12-16)

So I realized I haven't posted anything in four days so here's my update.
Thursday, June 12 Yolanda and I went to salsa dancing. I had such a GREAT time!! The way the classes are set up for beginners is that the instructor teaches you the basics and some elementary moves for 45 minutes and then you have a 15 minute break. It continues along that pattern from 630 until 1030. By the end of the night I was hot, sweaty and tired. My legs were hurting in places I hadn't used in quite some time lol. However it was so much fun. It was hilarious to see some of the people trying to find the beat and they had no grasp of rhythm or dance. It was a simple 8 count and there was even a recording playing in the background counting off the beats so you couldn't forget on 2 step with right, on 4 step with left, etc...but there were still some off beat lol. In the first break I was off to the side watching some of the more advanced dancers show off their moves and was kind of moving to the music and this guy grabbed me and wanted to dance. Clearly, this was my first lesson so though I had rhythm and had taken salsa lessons before, I was by no means ready to dance to a real song. Nonetheless, I olbiged and I'm sure I looked a darn fool out there but it was still fun. At the end of the night, they paired the ladies and men up to actually dance and practice what you'd learned the whole evening. Fortunately my partner was a good enough dancer and we had fun dancing and doing our own thing w/o really listening to the instructor. Yolanda and I plan on going every Thursday so I cannot wait for the next session!!
Friday was uneventful. By the time I got home from work Yolanda was already asleep in her room. It was raining outside so I couldn't go for a walk. So I just grabbed a new book and started reading. It was a very good book and I finished it around 10 p.m. Yes, I started a 300 page book and finished it that same evening. Yall know I love to read and have often sat in an airport bookstore and read a whole book while waiting for my connecting flight so this should come as no surprise. Reading is good for the soul. It gives you a chance to escape reality, expand your vocabulary. It also is great pleasure and let's you live vicariously through someone else's words. I really liked the book I read that night and tried conveying how great it was to my boyfriend and to Yolanda the next day...but they didn't seem as excited or enthralled by the plot as I was. Oh well...their loss :-)
Saturday was a very busy day. Yolanda and I finally went museum hopping to three different museums. First we visited the Afro-Caribbean Museum or el Museo Afroantilleano. This museum highlights the efforts of those West Indians who came to Panama during the Canal's construction. It displayed some of the old furniture, musical instruments, and newspaper clippings/stories about some famous people of this society. Our next stop was supposed to be a Colonial Religious Art Museum however upon our arrival we found it was closed. In its place, we joined a tour group entering an old Cathedral in Casco Viejo (the old city center). We found inside, tombs of former church officials and other adornments. It was a nice building. Next we stopped at an Emerald Museum. Apparently, Panama is along a trail that many settlers crossed with emeralds although they cannot be found in Panama. The tour guide gave us some history on emeralds and their journey from Colombia and other countries rich with the jewel. The Panama Canal Museum was our final destination but the appointment wasn't for another hour so we passed time by going to this wonderful French ice cream store. We'd had the ice cream at a dinner our first week in Panama and Yolanda had been craving it ever since. I had strawberry sorbet that was oh so sweet. We tried to make reservations for this nice restaurant next door however it was already full for the evening. By then it was time for our tour at the Canal Museum. The museum was very nice. It was arranged in chronological order so you learned information from the beginning of the idea of having a canal to the present day. The guide was very knowledgeable and gave us insight into not only what was going on with the Canal but also in society at that time. She spoke in all Spanish for the tour and surprisingly I followed her very well. If nothing else, my listening ability has improved drastically since being down here. YAY! We left the museum, stopped at the grocery store so Yolanda could buy detergent then went home. That evening we had dinner at a Panamanian restaurant next door to our apartment building. I ordered red snapper but unfortunately could not eat it. It was served whole...as in the entire fish was sitting there on my plate. I did not know that's how it was going to be served otherwise I would not have ordered it. When I saw the plate I was so disgusted I immediately asked him to take it back while I ordered something different. Yeah...that was nasty. The food wasn't all that great, the service wasn't all that great so we won't be back there. lol. After dinner we had plans to go see "The Night of the Iguana", a Tennessee Williams play in which two Embassy employees were performing. It took forever to hail a cab and when we finally did they didn't know where the theater was. The 2nd cab knew but less than a block after we got in the car, his engine cut off and wouldn't start back up. Clearly this was not our night. The 3rd cab supposedly knew the theater and we were on our way. However upon arriving at "the theater" we found this was not the right place. This theater was in a seedy neighborhood and not somewhere you'd want to be at night. He then drove us to another popular theater but that wasn't the correct one either. By then, we were upset and confused and just ready to go back home. On the way back, I finally saw the right theater from the road and so we made a U-turn and got out. Only to not like the play. With my narcoleptic self...I started to doze in the middle of it and also just wasn't intrigued by the storyline. One of our coworkers drove us home so that was nice.
Sunday was a relaxing day. I went to church and heard a great message about being justified by faith in God. The paster touched on the fact that God shows no favorites and that on judgement day the common man will be evaluated on the same scale as the rich man. Therefore none of us should think we are better than anyone else. Of course something I already knew, but to hear it and the practical examples he provided to support his sermon was good to hear reinforced. That afternoon Yolanda was going to get her hair done so I walked with her to the salon and then walked around the mall while she got her hair done. None of the stores really sparked any interest but it was something to do to get outta the house. That evening it stormed something awful and so we were both just relaxing, reading, cleaning until bedtime. Actually I didn't go to sleep until around 2 a.m. because I wasn't really tired but boy did I feel it the next day at work.
Monday, June 16 was a LONG day at work. I wasn't actually tired when I woke up but as the day wore on I could not stop yawning. By the time I got home that evening, my jaw hurt soo much from all the yawning I'd done. I went to sleep aroudn 6:30 p.m. and slept until around 11 p.m. I woke up, checked my emails, talked to a few friends on the computer, and then went back to sleep around 1:30 a.m. until this morning when I woke up for work at 6:30 a.m. I was soo incredibly exhausted I needed that rest.
Today is a good day thus far. I woke up refreshed and relaxed. We'll see how the day plays out. :-)