Well we’ve finally arrived in Panama! It was an interesting drive to the airport from Peterborough to Toronto in the middle of a big snow storm, slipping and sliding! But our flight was only slightly delayed due to the line up to de-ice the plane, and we arrived in Panama City only an hour later than expected.
We were greeted in Panama by our landlord’s father, who took us to meet up with his son Jose Manuel and his wife Claudia. They are such sweet and wonderful people! They took us to a grocery store to get some basics for the morning, and lead us to our new place, ensuring we were comfortable until the next day.
Our first day in Panama, Sunday, was mostly spent making lists of the things we needed to pick up, and trying to get our home somewhat organized. By late afternoon we were anxious to get out and see something within our new surroundings, so off we went to Vera Cruz. The picture above was our view from the open-air restaurant that we had a wonderful seafood dinner, and Kirk enjoyed a couple of domestic beer for $1 each!
Monday morning we took Nathan over to the school for him to start his Summer Program (which is essentially just sports), and to meet with the Director about my role at the school. Nathan was quite nervous in the beginning, but by the end of the day he was happily reciting stories about their soccer game and his new acquaintances – stating that he couldn’t wait for school the next day! It’s a tiny little school with big dreams, and they are slowly inching towards those dreams. They are currently adding a music room, and I am hoping to help them acquire enough books to actually have a library. I will post pictures along the way.
We are painstakingly going through the motions of trying to get our Blackberry(s) up and running. The forms, and ID required are crazy! The cell phone rates here are amazing though. International calls are 9 cents a minute, and after the first 4 minutes you get 15 minutes FREE! Lol!
It’s hard to believe, when we are driving around, that we are here now, living our lives in the warmth and sunshine of Panama. The language barrier is a bit daunting at times, but we are trying in bits and pieces to learn the necessary words to get by for now. Hopefully we will all be bilingual/trilingual in no time!
We are hoping to journey to Coronado this afternoon to meet up with friends that we met the last time we were here. They were actually seated beside us on the plane ride down this time – small world it is!
Have a great day everyone!
