Just a little blurb...

I just wanted to ramble about living in Panama (because I've been here for a whopping 5 days) without a specific topic. So. !!! Inhale. Here I go...

I always forget how much I love traveling until I travel again. I'm not really a world traveler at all, but Chile last winter was so mind-alteringly wonderful and I'm already becoming obsessed with Panama as well. 

A few nights ago, we packed a picnic and went to the Panama Canal. We strolled along and looked at all the big ships waiting to get through (you know at certain points, only 1 ship can pass through the canal at a time? Panama is currently working to expand it, though, so that larger ships can get through. Businesses pay SO much money to use the Panama Canal, and ships sometimes wait for WEEKS to get through...isn't that crazy? Do I sound like a nerd right now?). Anyway, we ate our dinner while watching the sun set on the canal and whilst feeling the warm breeze, I realized how wonderful it is to go different places. I am so completely certain that I will remember more knowledge from this trip than the majority of the classes I take in college. Bad? Maybe.

Beyond the wonderfully cultural experience that was my New Year's, another really amusing asset of Panama City is its public transportation buses. They have these buses, you know, just city buses that take people places like any other city. But these buses are COMPLETELY stylized and painted and personalized by the bus-driver. They're all painted bright colors and have spray-painted pictures on the backs that range from portraits of their girlfriends to gangster Jesuses. It's really, really funny and bizarre. Some go so far as to add like red bumps to the top...I don't know why, it looks weird, but maybe it's some secret status message to the other buses.

On New Year's day, we drove to Palmar, a local beach, and stayed there overnight in a "rancho", or basically a cabana. We slept in a tent/hammocks right on the beach and Rina, Mon, and I got up to watch the sunrise. It was so beautiful. My dirtiness/non-showering threshold has increased to a scary level. But I don't mind, I don't mind.

Photos will come later, because....I don't feel like uploading.

Lastly, but soo not leastly, we have these two little boys in our neighborhood named Dennis and Moisis. They (obviously) speak spanish and little to no English, but they do know several phrases, including:

"I don't know"

"Sup, man"

and a personal favorite,

"Shakin' my ballsacks"

After realizing this last phrase caused quite the chuckle in us Americans, little chubby Panamanian Dennis would dance around bouncing his fanny pack full of fireworks, shouting "shakin' my ballsacks, shakin' my ballsacks". After a while, "ballsacks" turned to "ballsings", and the shout became "shakin' my ballsings". We came to the conclusion that "ballsacks" turns to "ballsings" when there are more than 3.

Good times in Panama.

Abrazos!