Feliz ano!

Happy New Year's!

I have little itty bitty ants crawling on my laptop. Supreme.

So, my New Year's was absolutely ridiculous, in a completely enjoyable and culturally-immersed way.

So, during the day yesterday we just went on a little hike to this really pretty viewpoint (I don't know if that's the right word?) where on one side we could see almost the entire city of Panama City and the other side we could see the Panama canal... very, very cool.






Then we cooked some food and stuff for a little planned New Year's "fiesta" but got really, really tired. So we decided to take a walk and sat by the pool for a bit (this was at like 8 pm) and went back to the house to try to re-energize ourselves. We didn't know how so we decided to lay out back and watch the Jungle Book. Then Monica and I fell asleep (who would've known?) and woke up to the abrasively loud, violent sounds of kids in the neighborhood lighting fireworks..they legitimately sounded like bombs exploding it was SO loud. These 2 neighborhood boys, who are adorable, had duped Allen (Suz's son) and into giving them $2 so they and a bunch of other kids were lighting fireworks, causing car alarms to go off and then dogs to bark like crazy. So at around 11:55, instead of lying out back listening
to all the noise, we decided to go out front to see what was going on...

It was RIDICULOUS. From like 12-12:30, maybe not that long but a really long time,
was the most intense firework display I have ever seen. We were so scared because they were lighting them on our road! Like in the neighborhood! Like...10 feet from where we were standing/shaking and maybe 2 feet from the nearest vehicle. Since a child, my naive mind always thought that only professionals could handle real fireworks. Traveling continues to prove everything I always thought, wrong. 

The big, fancy fireworks were going on ALL around us. And we could see so many from a distance because they were being lit all around the city. It was sooo cool, the combination of awe and fear that we would see something catch on fire. We decided Panamanians aren't concerned with things catching fire. Little kids would walk by and give us all kisses on the cheek and say "Feliz ano" (happy new years) and then light a fire work, drop it on the road, and calmly stroll away as it crackled. It was so amusing. But, parties were happening all around the
neighborhood and none of us could get to sleep. The music was SOO loud and we were hearing fireworks sporadically until like 10 in the morning.

But I definitely, definitely, will never forget this New Year's.