huevos felicidades

Panama City:  Where the eggs are friendlier than the people who work in the grocery store.

Christmas in Pedasi, I

My friends Andrew and Katrina were also staying in Panama for the holidays, so rather than staying in the dirty, loud, smelly city, we headed out to Playa Venao, a gorgeous beach on the Pacific Coast.  It is the prime surfing spot (I played with a boogie board for a while, but the surfers here were much too serious for a novice like me to get in their way) in Panama, and it quickly became my new favorite spot. 

 We found a great little Catholic Church in a very small town near Pedasi.  In true Panamanian fashion, the priest was 10 minutes late, so the 7p service began around 7:15.  And then he gave a 20 minute sermon in Spanish- I caught something about making everyday like Christmas Day, and bringing the Light into the world, but I missed the rest.


Also in typical Panamanian fashion, an un-neutered dog hung out during the service, scratching himself for the entire service.

After church, we went back to our amazing hotel, and had a fantastically decadent Christmas Eve dinner.  4 salads, roast turkey, beef filet, foie gras, roast squash and onion jam, fish, crepes suzette, and a lot of wine.  It was a really lovely Christmas Eve.

decorations in my neighborhood, proudly brought to you by Del Monte and Sip dishsoap

Del Monte's version of Santa is a parrot with a juice box?

There is the weird Santa again...and notice the tree topper.

If you look closely, the tree is made of tiers of Sip soap containers.

more Christmas glitter

For those of you who do not have Facebook, I enjoy this picture too much not to share it.  When you find yourself around life size ornaments, it's best to try to blend in...

Decorations in Parque el Mar

Go big or go home.

The three wisemen, complete with camel.

Strange little gingerbread/peppermint boys.

life size ornaments covered in GLITTER!!!

Apt holiday decorations

Christmas is huge in Panama... wait until I get some pictures of the decorations on my street posted.  My roommate and I do not want to deal with a live tree, but I had to decorate a little bit.  Here is my "arbor de luz" on our patio door. 

And here is my Kuna Yala (native Panamanian tribe who have managed to maintain many of their cultural traditions, including intricate fabric art) Christmas stocking.  I love that it has both Christmas bells and palm fronds on it. 

Two friends and I are going to Pedasi (a great little beach town on the Pacific Coast) for Christmas, and although we are not going to do a huge present exchange, both of them were on board when I suggested that we all bring stockings.  I have already gotten the stocking stuffers for both of them, and am excited for Christmas morning when my new stocking is overflowing with fun presents. 

Boquete

Thanks to the celebration of Panama's Independence from Spain, we had a three day weekend, so took a girls road trip to Boquete.  It is about 8 hours northwest of Panama City, but feels like a world away.  I wore a hoodie for the first time in six months, which was glorious.  We were surrounded by mountains, there were pine trees everywhere, and the 60 degree weather gave us a great excuse to drink hot chocolate with every meal.  We also got to visit a coffee plantation- all shade grown beans that are sustainably harvested.

Myself, Mallory, Denise, and Julia spent a lovely morning
hiking through the field of coffee beans.

This was the Hotel Bambito- it kind of reminded me of the Kellerman's
Hotel from Dirty Dancing.

The (seriously) rainy season

Normally, we have a really nice view from our 14th floor balcony.  We can see mountains in the background, as well as a lot of architecture.  







But, when the rainy season daily storm hits (usually sometime between 11a-1p), our view goes away. This is not fog, but sheets of rain that obscured all visibility.  The cats and I were happy to be inside watching movies during this morning's storm.