Casco Viejo (july 21)

Panama Viejo is Old Panama in English. This is where Panama City originated but as you can see it is nothing but ruins now. The city was attacked by pirates, burned to the ground and left to rot. The residents fled to Casco Viejo (I've uploaded pics from there) and rebuilt their city. The large tower you see is the remains of a famous cathedral in the area. In one of the pics you can see a model of what the cathedral looked like when fully constructed. They have done reconstruction work on the tower to allow visitors to climb up to the top. The skeletal remains are of a grave unearthed during the renovation of the cathedral.

Chef Drakeardee (july 23)

So I'm going to have a maid when I have grown folks money, but until then I have to eat and thus learn how to cook. I know how to read and follow directions so I guess I can cook somewhat. Here's one of my creations: Shrimp Stir Fry.

What a Weekend (july 20-22)

I had a great weekend!! This weekend was the first time I'd gone out to experience Panama's nightlife and I must say they know how to have a good time. Friday after work I went straight to Happy Hour because the Embassy was hosting it at Bennigan's. I stayed there socializing with my coworkers until about 8:30p. At Bennigan's I met up with a friend of one of my neo's. She, TJ, is studying at FSU's campus here and so I invited her to Bennigan's so we could meet each other in a relaxed environment. She seems to be a very cool person and I'm sure we'll have plenty of fun times until we leave. After happy hour, I came home and talked on the phone, took a quick nap then went back out to a club around midnight with TJ and 3 coworkers. This was my first time going to a club here. The music was decent and I was happy because I got to practice my salsa from the weekly lessons I've been doing. Saturday my roomie and I went to visit the ruins of Old Panama. It was fun, we took the pictures you see below, bought souvenirs, etc. We got stuck in the rain and I had to stand out in the pouring rain trying to hail a taxi. It was a hilarious sight...but not that much fun at the time because I was freezing and dripping wet. Afterwards we went to a bbq that the Marines were hosting at their house because one of them is finishing up his tour here on Tuesday (today). We stayed there from 2p-6p just eating and sittin on the porch chatting. After leaving there, I relaxed at home then went out at 10p to a bar to meet up and continue the going away celebration. We left the bar around 12a to go to a club and I stayed there until about 130a but had to leave earlier than everyone else because I was quite tired and had to wake up early for church the next morning. Sunday I went to church & Sunday school. After church I relaxed at home then went out to dinner at Benihana. My experience was horrible to say the least. Long story short: the chef was very sloppy and couldn't cut the food well. He cooked the meats before he cooked the rice so my shrimp was sitting on the plate getting cold and he still hadn't cooked the rice yet. He finally cooked the rice but it has chicken in it so I couldn't eat it. I ask the waiter where my rice is and he says, most panamanians dont eat white rice so he didnt think I'd want it and therefore didnt bring it out. WHAT?!?! He finally brings me the rice and the rest of my food is completely COLD now. so clearly I couldn't eat it. I complain, ask for a discount or SOMETHING and he tells me no he can't do that because the rest of my meal was fine. NO i couldn't eat the rest of my meal because I was waiting for the rice. All I ate was the soup & salad. He tried to pacify me by bringing a bowl of ice cream (which i didnt even touch even though it was lookin good but it was the principle), the manager was LAME and didnt help at all, and i ended up having to pay for the whole thing. I was so IRRITATED by the end of the night by the incompetent service I just came home and did some sudoku puzzles before falling asleep.

Same ol Same ol (june 17-20)

I've been having good days at work. They're going by much quicker. I've actually had a lot to do which always makes my day go smoother and faster.

Wednesday night (june 18) I didn't go to the night of jazz with Yolanda. Instead I went out to the airport with a coworker to pick up some Americans who were coming to retrieve the remains of their family member. My coworker and I arrived maybe 10 minutes before the flight was to land but when we got inside we learned the flight was 40 mins delayed. We stood around waiting for the flight to land and when it finally did we stood at both doors to ensure we didn't miss them. However...they never came out. Apparently, the gentlemen were detained by the Dept of Homeland Security...customs...whomever... because they did not have the necessary travel documents. So all the while we were standing there they were right on the other side of the wall being questioned and whatnot. All in all, it was a long evening. I wouldn't say a complete waste because I still got out of the house and did something. But not the best way to spend my night.

Thursday (june 19) Yolanda & I went to our weekly salsa lessons/class. I decided to join the big dogs in the intermediate class instead of going to the beginner's class. Now, I know i'm not the best nor most knowledgeable salsa dancer but I know I can do a lil bit with a lil bit. However...if I don't have a good partner...I can't do ANYTHING. That was the case last night. My partner had 2 left feet and could barely hold the rhythm. To top it off, he started drinking at the bar in between the dance sets and so he was a lil wobbly on his balance. I was getting frustrated but kept a smile on my face and went thru the rest of the evening. I barely even worked up a sweat whereas last week I was hot, sweaty and tired. The good part of the evening, I met this teacher from NY who's down here taking Spanish classes. She walked up to me and was like, "are you american?" Unsure of who she was, I hesitantly answered yes and then she burst into a huge smile and said I knew it. You just didn't look like a Panamanian! lol. Long story short, we exchanged information and will hopefully meet up this wknd to hang out. She introduced Yo & I to some of her fellow classmates, all adult professionals down here taking classes.

Tonight (june 20) the Embassy is hosting a happy hour at Bennigan's so we plan on going to that to mingle with our fellow employees. Should be a good time and the start of a fun weekend :-)

Houston Here I Come!! (july 17)

Sooo today I received GREAT NEWS! I had a conference call with a recruiter from the Ernst & Young office in Houston and she informed me that I received a final offer for employment there!! I will be working in the Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services practice, the same one in which I worked while in Miami last summer. I am ELATED by the news because there was some confusion this summer about my placement and it was looking kind of sketchy however with prayer and patience, everything has worked out smoothly. I start in August 2008 and so if you are ever in the area...know that you'll have a place to stay!

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. :-)

Panama Canal & Night of Jazz (june 10-11)

I had my first trip to the Panama Canal yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We left work around 2:30 p.m. as a group because there was a US navy hospital ship going through the canal. Many Embassy employees went out there to wave lil American flags at the ship and take pictues when it went through. The ship was called the Comfort and it used to be an battleship (i think the announcer said that) but was transformed into a hospital ship. The Comfort was making its rounds around Central America to provide out-patient type of services. It was very interesting to see the boats coming into the Canal at one height, then dropping through the locks down to the 54 feet below. The part of the Canal I was at is called the Miraflores Locks. This is the Pacific Ocean side. The process takes awhile but it was still something worth going to see. During the 1.5 hrs I was there, I actually was able to see four huge ships traverse the canal. The first one that went through paid $150,000. Yes, the fees to go through the canal are quite hefty. The Comfort paid $91,000. Can you imagine being the accountant for the Panama Canal? The ships must pay their full fees at least 48 hours before their transit begins. In one of my former pics, you can see the boats lined up by the Amador Causeway waiting to enter the canal the next day. Some random facts I learned about the Panama Canal: (1) the entire process is electronically controlled by the click of a button, (2) the locomotives that guide/control the ships cost $2.1 million, (3) when the largest ships go through (called PanaMax) they have only 2 ft of space on either side of the boat & the wall, (4) gates controlling the water weigh 730 tons (1 ton=2000 lbs), (5) the Miraflores Locks raises/lowers the boat in 2 steps, transferring it 54 feet, (6) the current gates are the original ones from the Canal's opening in 1914. Actually, I'm good on the Canal now. Yolanda and I had planned on doing a 1/2 transit of the canal which is where you get on this ferry boat and they take you from one end of the canal to the middle point and then bring you back. You eat on the boat and can take pictures and just relax. However it costs $100 and though it was something I wanted to do - it's not necessary.

Wednesday night Yolanda and I went to Casco Viejo (old Panama) and listened to some jazz music. It was held in this old building and was very simple. There were chairs & tables and easy lighting. No food or anything was served unless you brought your own. The band performing last night was a 3-person group playing an electric guitar, a guitar and a harp. I wasn't quite sure how they would sound at the beginning but it turned out to be enjoyable music. The electric harp produced sounds much like a piano with all white keys. When the musician strummed 2 strings at once or moved up/down the same string he was able to create the sharp & flat tones of a note. The event only lasted an hour but it was still a nice time. I would like to go every week and I think I've convinced Yolanda to do the same. It's not as though we have much else to be doing. Moreover, it's a different band performing each week. Oh there's also artwork in the gallery leading into the music room. The artist was very talented and I enjoyed her artwork. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me but Yolanda did so once I obtain the pics from her camera I will upload them onto this blog.

US Navy Hospital Ship Comfort in the Panama Canal

The US Navy Hospital Ship Comfort crossed through the Panama Canal on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 around 3:30 p.m. The US Embassy employees welcomed the ship by waving small American flags and clapping for the crew. The pictures are below and the captions are to come. Enjoy!