Lazy Weekends and The Caption Game

So apparently Friday is the day the ISA group is supposed to get together and do some cultural activity.  I didn't know this, so when Vanessa called saying she was going to pick me up at 8:30 this morning, I was fast asleep.  I mean we've been going out together the other Fridays, but I thought that was just a coincidence.  Either way, it means I get  to tell you guys about two Fridays worth of activities.

Last Friday's activity was supposed to be biking on the causeway.  The causeway is sort of like a boardwalk, I guess.  It's on the water and there are a ton of bars and restaurants.  And you can see all these little islands and boats. Also if you take my host dad's word for it, it's full of mobsters that hang out at this yacht club.  I don't know if I believe him, I think those people are just rich, but an undercover mission to see what goes on inside is not out of the question.

Anyway, people like to ride bikes up and down the causeway so that's what we were going to do.  At first I was excited but then when we actually go there I realized this was utter folly.  I'm very unatheletic and I don't know why it took actually getting to the causeway to realize physical activity when it's hot as hell would be unpleasant.  Luckily for me there were no bikes to rent when we got there.

After that we drove around and for some reason ended up in the ritzy part of town.  We ended up in the part of the city that makes up the skyline.

 Fancy!

I took some pictures of Trump's massive hotel.

 I didn't say they were good pictures.

Then after that we went to a fancy mall where everything was overpriced.

 Even whatever this is

Though on the plus side at the food court Ed, Edd, and Eddy was playing in Spanish.

It ended up being a longish day and most of it was spent driving around and being in traffic.  It was nice getting to see more of the country side.  And Vanessa's adorable son joined us.  He decided it was his job to teach me Spanish as we drove and six-year-olds are the strictest of teachers.

Finally, although I desperately tried to get everyone to go to a movie instead we ended up going back to the causeway.  It was the middle of the afternoon at this point and even hotter than before. But then in a stroke of lazy genius I was able to convince Vanessa that we should get one of these things.

And she did.  It ended up being just me and one of the other students so ours was smaller.  It was still a ton of work to peddle but at least we had shade. On the way up the path I got a real wolf whistle, from an actual Panamanian who I think was a construction worker, so that makes up for the earlier nonsense. As the others raced past us, we discovered that the contraption would always go the same speed no matter how much we peddled. The only thing that kept us going, both on the way up the path and returning, was the fact that after we were done we were going to go to one of the million bars/restaurants and get a nice refreshing drink.

All I wanted was a mojito.  I don't really like minty drinks, but I was parched and tired and it seemed like the best option. I'm not sure what was up with the bartender woman.  Every time we asked her a question she got all panicky and had to call someone on the phone.  Apparently, they had mint at some point, but now all they had was mint leaves that were clearly dead.  I wasn't really sure what else to order.  All I could think of was secco, which I'd already had.  So I had to get a rum and coke like my bike buddy ordered.
I'm not taking this as my go to a bar and get a drink experience, because it wasn't a cocktail, but the lady did make bike buddy pay for me so I'm still taking it as a win.

Besides that it was another lazy weekend for me.  I did get my mother to e-mail me some stories I'd started but forgot to pack and I've been writing non-stop since.  So I didn't feel too bad about my lazy weekend especially since bike buddy told me he also was going to have a uneventful evening.

This, however, was lies.  On Monday when we saw each other at a school he told me he'd had a weekend filled with action-packed adventures.  He hung out with his host mom's nephew (who he'd been advised to stay away from).  And they got into all sorts of shenanigans.  They got to see illegal street races and gamble.  And they went into the bad neighborhood I mentioned a few posts back, and prostitutes ran at their car yelling out prices.

And on the inside I was like WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH HOW COME I DON'T GET TO ENGAGE IN DANGEROUS STREET RACING HIJINKS?!!!!

But on the outside I was like that's coo'.   

Today, we were supposed to go to the president's house in the morning, but we ended up being late (surprisingly not my fault) and had to wait for the later tour group. This has been the one day it hasn't been a relatively nice day.  It was really cloudy and pretty windy.  We had to dress 'formally' for this and the dress I wore decided it wanted to do this stupid Marilyn Monroe thing, so much time was dedicated to trying not to flash anyone.   

At the president's house there are these giant birds that Panama received as presents, so I got some pictures of those guys because they are huge and will not blink.

Then it was time for the tour.  The president's house was pretty nice and I got some great pictures. Also I'm pretty sure I saw a ghost.  Through a glass door in a mirror I saw a woman with an elongated head and red hair and no one in the group had red hair so I call ghost. I didn't take a picture though because I'm not sure about ghost rules, but I'm pretty sure it's bad business to take a picture of one.

Unfortunately, the tour structure was very rigid.  You had to stay with the group and look at things when you were told.  Also tour guide spoke exclusively in very fast Spanish.  I think I would have tuned out even if I could understand it because the whole thing was making me feel like I was in middle school.  So to occupy my time I started making little games for myself.  Like the duck lip game, where I took advantage of the numerous mirrors in the house to take stereotypical internet pictures.

 Oh yeahhh

 Look at that forehead, yum yum

 It was hard to do this without getting caught so then I switched to the caption game.

The Caption Game
The caption game is easy, just take pictures of things and add dumb captions to it.  Works best with old art.  Warning there is some nudity, but it's okay because it's symbolic.

 Is she looking at my butt?  She's looking at my butt, isn't she?

 I claim this land in the name of-- oh you're still here...this is awkward

Oh man, is that a centaur?  I think I took too much...

 We can never forget the Great Mustache Battle of 1837

 Though it's nothing compared to the Beard Wars of 1860

 The secret to architecture? Waffles.

 This room was designed right after the first Harry Potter movie.

 Don'tlookathispenis. don'tlookathispenis.  Dammit, I looked.

 Wiiiiiiiilsonnnnnn!!!

 No real caption for this one, I just thought it was funny that she was naked but still has designer shoes.

So I took this picture because I understood enough to know that this table was important.  This guy and the other tour guide kept pointing and were very emphatic about it but this was the only good picture I could get.

Bitches.  Bitches just up and down the whole table.

Did you tell the camera crews where we bathe?! 

Ooops I'm so zany, I need a spin off.

Then the tour was over so my game ended. We looked for food, ended up buying hotdogs for a dollar and now I'm back home blogging.

I'm hoping this will not be another lazy weekend. I really want to check out the nightlife here or at least go swimming or something.  Well until next time here's a picture of some Panamanian food.

Things They Should Tell You About Living In A Tropical Country

I'm constantly learning some new thing about Panamá.  Sometimes living in a tropical country like this one really is like living on another planet. I don't think you can ever really be prepared for it.  Still, I did get guides about things I should be aware of before I depart. These guides were helpful, but there are some things they fail to mention like:

Gum is a waste of money.

Or maybe it's just the gum I buy.  Since it's always hot all the time, there isn't really a place you can store gum where it won't become a melty, gooey, mess. Switch to mints.

You will be sad when it doesn't rain.
I think I've talked about this before, but I really like the part of the day when it rains.  It's like a little relief.  The downpours are like an exciting vacation.  But it hasn't rained like that in a few days and it's actually a little depressing. It just hasn't been raining, and when it dos rain it's just a little drizzle or it rains in the middle of the night when I can't even enjoy it.  Sometimes in the middle of the day everything starts to look cloudy and ominous and I'm like "Oh boy, oh boy, rain is going to happen!" But then nothing happens.  Get it together, rainy season, I bought two umbrellas and I intend to use them.

If you need to walk somewhere, and chances are you will, just walk there, put on makeup after.
This is a lesson I learned fairly quickly.  I have to walk to and from school everyday.  Putting on even the slightest bit of make-up is detrimental even for the 10-15 minute walk. Even on days when it's cloudy by the time I reach my destination I'm sweaty and my face looks like it's melting.  So if you need to wear make up to be presentable like I do, wait until after the walk and put on makeup in the bathroom after you arrive.  Otherwise you will look like a sad monster that eats children.  

 This is what I got when I Googled sad monster that eats children, even though that is a puppy and not a child and this monster is clearly too depressed about his break up to eat it.

Time passes differently.
I am a night owl.  I have most of my energy at night and I often don't go bed until the sun comes up. If I have to wake up early I will be irritable for hours. But all of that is different here. Here, if I start to get drowsy at around 10 and if I try to stay awake past midnight my body will fight me. I have my phone alarm set for 10:30 am but everyday I wake up some time between 7:30 and 8:15 without assistance. I never realized there was so much daylight to do activities in, and more than that I want to be awake and doing them. I remember one night I was absolutely exhausted and it was only 8, Mama Dora explained that people from other countries, particularly America think Panamanians are lazy, but this isn't the case at all.  Something about the environment around here, especially how hot and humid the weather is, makes you want to go to bed early or move a little slower.  It's really something hard to describe.  Everything is a little slower and more laid back here.  It's as if time itself has slowed down.  And it's weird but you adjust remarkably quickly.

Here's a happy baby that eats monsters to make up for the lack of pictures

There might be a lizard chilling in your shower.
You might go to turn on the water and see a lizard in the shower, and even though up until this point you'd been ambivalent towards lizards, it's in this moment you will realize you are afraid of them.  Two days ago I saw this guy chilling in the shower.  

 He is the terror that stalks the shower.

I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me so I left for a bit and came back.  I didn't see it this time but I was fairly certain he was hiding under a shower cap that had been dropped there so I could not get in.  I stood for a while frozen with shockfear.  Then I decided I need to get clean but was not willing to be in an enclosed area with the lizard.  So I sat on the edge of the shower and bathed from there.  

Today, I was certain the lizard would be gone but lo and behold, there he was again.  This time people where home so I told my host mom and sister.  They were surprised I had only just noticed and told me he'd been there for a week.  I find this hard to believe as I always look for bugs before getting into any shower and wouldn't have been unaware of Bradley (this is what I'm calling him) for a whole week.  Anyway they didn't seem to think it was a big deal.  Apparently there are little Bradley's in houses all over Panamá.  They even have a special name that I didn't process because my brain was too busy trying not to show my internal freaking outness on my face.  I think they also said they were good to have in your house because they eat all sorts of little bugs.  They explained that they had tried to get him out, but nothing they did could get him to leave so they were going to just live with it.  

So after that little lesson I had to attempt the shower again.  Once again I stood there for several minutes contemplating what I should do.  I needed to take a real shower today because I had to shave legs (since I only where shorts or dresses it's muy importante that I shave my legs).  Finally, I decided that I could get in the shower if Bradley agreed to not move around.  Unfortunately, it was at this point Bradley decided to move wriggling about and dart around like crazy.  It made my skin crawl much like in the way it does when I see an insect moving around except 10 times worse as lizards are much bigger and you can see their eyes.  So at that point I was like screw it and proceed to take another outside the shower, shower.  I also shaved this way.  The whole thing was this big stupid mess and I'll probably have to deal with it again tomorrow.  I haven't figured out a game plan yet all I know is that if I see it's tongue I'm coming back to America. 

Anyway I would tell you all about my (lazy) weekend but I fear it would take to long and I actually have homework (ick) so I'll probably write about it later this week.
Until next time here's a picture of a ridiculously named store I saw in the fancy mall.      

   

Cómo Se Dice Syllabus Week?

Just finished my first day of class and I am exhausted.  I'll have to get more sleep next time.  Today has certainly been an interesting day.
 First, there was getting to school.  I'm not great at getting from Point A to Point B.  I've got a terrible sense of direction so I'd been dreading having to walk to school.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do a dry run and I desperately didn't want to be lost in a foreign country.  So, I woke up extra early both to psych myself up and to give myself enough time to get help and not be late for my 3 pm class.  First, before I was ready to leave, I went outside to see if I could see a path from the house.  I could, but I could also see some sort of animal.  It kind of looked like a badger mixed with a lemur.  And my brain was telling me there was no reason to be afraid, it doesn't look menacing and if I saw it on TV I would probably think it was cute, but my stomach was like let's go inside and never come out again.  But it's kilometers away, my brain protested, at least get a picture for the blog!  But my stomach told me that's how people get eaten so I went back to the safety of the house.

After unsuccessfully trying to find a route on Google Maps I left the house at 1:15.  I was told there was a hill behind the house that I'd have to go down to get to the university.  This was a lie.  What was behind the house was no less than a mountain.  I stared down this hill mountain for a while.  I didn't want to go down for a number of reason, gravity being number one.  Then I took some pictures, but it's really hard to tell just form those. 

Given it's size, there seemed to be no way to go around.  To get back to the path I'd have to go around the neighborhood and I didn't want to explore when I hadn't mastered the original path.  Still, I figured getting to the bottom must have been possible because apparently the last student did it every day.
So I started down the mountain, felt like I was going to fall, and shuffled back up.  I found a part that was more flat and looked like it had been walked down before.  Luckily, no one was around for my arthritic crab walk down the mountain.  Two steps, stop, two steps, stop.  Somehow I made it to the halfway point and was able to shuffle the rest of the way down.

I took another picture of the mountain, partially to gain sympathy from whoever happens to read this, but partially to delay from my next obstacle.  Someone decided to build a medieval style moat at the bottom of the mountain.

Tell me you couldn't see this filled up with water and crocodiles.

Once again I had there was no way around it (unless I went back up the mountain).  So with reluctance I climbed into it and had to pull myself up over the giant hill on the other side.  I was really glad I was wearing sneakers and shorts, but then I remembered a lot of the clothes I brought were dresses and that most of my shoes are sandals, many of those with some sort of heel.  Looking forward to that mess.

The rest of the walk was relatively uneventful.  It was actually a really simple path and much shorter than I thought it was.  So then after a quick stop to the ISA office I was at FSU. 
There are a lot of Americans at the university or at least a lot of people speaking English that have bleached hair so I'm making some assumptions.  But all in all it seems to be a mixed bag of people from all over. 

I've come to the conclusion all of my professors have some weird secret or quirk.  I guess I still have to met two of them, one tomorrow and one in 6 weeks.  Still I think it's a pattern 

The Spy. My first professor's accent was all over the place.  It's not that she didn't speak English well, she did, it is an English class after all.  I definitely picked up at least five different influences though.  It was like she couldn't make up her mind, and it got more noticeable as the class went on.  First it just sounded normal, with some hints of a British accent for some words, but then it sounded more Spanish which I thought made sense, then it was a little Russian and from there things just went wonky. It was never the same thing five minutes later. I'm pretty sure she either is or was a spy.   

My next class was not taught by a spy.  For a little while I didn't think it was taught by anyone at all.  There were no students in the room and no teacher in sight.  I checked several times that I had the right room, I even asked someone.  Finally, I went and sat down.  Another girl followed shortly after me, then a boy, and then the prof.  And that was it.  Smallest class I've ever been in.  The professor said we were supposed to have 5 but they never showed up.  I like small classes, but not this small.  It's way too personal.  It's like the professor is having a conversation with you during the lecture, and you've got to make all this eye contact and look engaged.  The boy checked out pretty quickly so it was up to me and the other girl to prove that yes, we were listening. 

What's my country again?  I don't think this professor had a secret so much as a quirk.  At first I thought he was just trying to acknowledge the fact that he knew I was American.  This was my History of Mexico and he kept making references to Mexico in terms of American things.  Just like this such and that such in the United States.  And I thought, that's nice he's trying to water things down for me.  But as time went on it stopped being just for me.  I think he's taught in the United States recently because he kept mentioning the US and explaining things from that perspective.  It was the strangest thing because we're in Panamá and he barely mentioned it and when he did often as an afterthought.  He kept making these mistakes like saying, "...actually a lot of the cars we have here, in the US, are made in Mexico...and Panamá, many of the cars here as well." He's a big fan of Mexico as well, I'd hope given his field of study.  He really did talk it up quite a bit, and made me want to visit even though I'd never wanted to before, even if he did do it in this weird "Mexico is actually better than the US thinks" kind of way.  He's really passionate about teaching, so much so that he becomes disturbingly animated.

I already feel like I'm the worst student in there because it's been forever since I've taken a history class. And he kept saying "as you know" in reference to things about Mexico and I didn't know them.  He said that about US things too, but it was about the southwest and the west coast which I know nothing about.  The furthest west I've been is Alabama.  There was this wonderful moment when the kid on the other side of the room had fallen asleep.  He did it in a sort of inconspicuous way, so that the prof might not be able to see if he was at the front of the classroom.  Except this professor moved around quite a bit.  He was asking us about the richest man in the world, who apparently lives in Mexico.  He kept getting closer to us trying to get one of us to answer.  Well, really I think he was just trying to get one of us to say Bill Gates so he could correct us.  And just as he was about to be in the part of the room where he could see the sleeping guy, sleeping guy wakes up and gives the right answer.  It was just like a movie.  Anyway, my point with this is that even sleeping guy knows more about this class than I do.     

The Super Villain.  My last professor of the day was definitely the most interesting though.  He too had some sort of accent thing going on.  It was more consistent, but seemed to be a strange mix of things.  It was mostly British sounding though at times it seemed German but I think it's because he always spoke in clipped tones.  He kind of reminded me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.  He's very...particular that way.  He gets real up close and personal with everyone (not hard in a class with five people).  And I think he just wants to be a hands-on professor but he definitely comes across as a super villain.  He's tall and bald and wears a suit plus he's got all these little mannerisms and says words like 'detestable' and 'lamentable' regularly. It's really funny. If he were to suddenly say "I'm going to teach you about Panamá...while you're hanging over this shark tank" I wouldn't be surprised.  That's not to say he isn't friendly.  He's strict with course work, but after explaining what the class would be about he tried to get to know everyone personally.  He asked us all where we were from and why we were taking the class and engaged in a little dialog with everyone.  He's one of those who knows a little something about everything so he always had a lot to say about whatever we said.  So he's more like one of those Bond villains that's going to serve you dinner and be affable.  Either way his deliberate manner of speaking made even the most innocuous things sound like they were laced with double meaning.

"I have lots of fun things to do."
"That is why I am the professor...and you are students."
"I needed him to *pause* be aware of certain things."
"Normally, I have better things to read than student papers. *long smile* Well that wasn't very nice, was it?" 
    
 Still I think it's going to be an interesting class.  During my Q + A session, I found out he'd heard of University of Richmond, he has a colleague there and he has a really high opinion of the place.  Then he was even more excited when he found out I was a philosophy major because he says they do better in his classes.  So after really talking up UR and philosophy majors he told everyone he has really high expectations of me.  Which along with probably making all the other students hate me puts me in this awkward position where I can't just leave. 


So after that long day (each class is almost 2 hours long) it was time to come home.  It was really dark, but there were street lights and Mama assured me it was a safe neighborhood, so I wasn't that worried.  One guy wolf whistled at me, but it was a really half-hearted wolf whistle, like he wasn't really sure how to do it and he felt he had to because that's what they tell women to expect.  Part of me thinks he was actually just some other American trying out whistling to see how he liked it.  And while I don't appreciate that he used me for objectification experimentation he stayed a good 20 ft. away from me so I didn't have to jack him up.

Soon I was back in the part of the neighborhood with residential houses again.  But the thought of climbing the mountain again in the dark seemed less and less inviting the closer I got.  By the time I was at the foot, the prospect of both climbing and not being able to see if there were any critters around turned me off completely.  I decided to go around in the streets until I found my way back home.

At first I was nervous because as I walked there didn't seem to be any path leading in the direction of my house and the house numbers appeared to be going further and further away from where I wanted to be.  I worried that I'd have to head back and climb the mountain after all.  But then jackpot!  I found a flight of stairs leading up the mountain and was now back in area I belonged. 

I saw an animal in someone's driveway that turned out to be a cat, but I didn't baby talk at it because I didn't want to become the subject of a horror movie.  Soon I was minutes away from home, I could see the cars and everything.  Then I saw another critter.  I was pretty sure it was a cat, as I'd just passed a house I knew had at least 3 cats, but still I started to get nervous.  I suddenly couldn't remember what ocelots looked like and wasn't sure if I'd just seen one or not.  Then I became convinced that an ocelot or a lynx or some other wild cat was waiting for me around the corner.  But then by the time I got there it was gone.  When I got in I remembered that ocelots look like this:

and what I saw looked like:

Either way I'm glad to be back, but still very sleepy so I'll actually post this tomorrow.  Until then here's the Panamanian version of Phoebe from friends.

Exploring La Ciudad

So, I've spent the past few days running around non-stop.  It's been exhausting, but I've gotten a chance to see the city so it's been fun.  Mostly, I've been with Vanessa and Christian and the two other people in my program.  On Thursday we had orientation.  We learned all sorts of things about the program and Panamá itself.  There are apparently a ton of cool places to visit.  There are also loads of tropical animals which I've not had the fortune/misfortune of seeing yet.  Also, there are square watermelons which was something I was pretty sure Farmville made up. We got to see the FSU campus for the first time.   We went on a tour of the school and it doesn't seem too big so I'm going to try to do my absolute best not to get lost on the first day of classes.

 

Look Ma, I'm in the blogs!

The University as well as the ISA (the program that brought me here in case I haven't previously mentioned it) office are located in city called Ciudad del Saber which means City of Knowledge.  All of that is located in Clayton, which used to be an Army base.  In fact all over Panamá there are cities that used to be military bases.  Fortunately for me, my host family also lives in Clayton so I can walk to school instead of having to take the bus. 

On Friday we got our first official tour of the city.  There are these giant red sight-seeing buses that drive all over.  Once you get a 24-hour pass you can sort of "hop on" and "hop off" where ever.  The bus went kind of fast for a bus that was supposed to be dedicated to sight-seeing (when we weren't stuck in traffic) so a lot of the pictures I took are of me just missing something.

Though I could just be bad at taking pictures.

 First place we went was the Canal obviously.  And I managed to get some not terrible pictures of it.

   

After that there was more driving around.  I think a lot of the fun of driving around the city is spotting the great road signs.  I think one day I'm going to dedicate an entire entry to the road signs.  I didn't get a ton of good shots because the bus thought it was a Ferrari, but I did manage to get my favorite one.  

 It's got a donk.

This one is all over the city.  At first I was confused because I thought it was a little kid and I thought it was weird that they gave it such a butt, but apparently it's just a normal person.  Either way I don't think I've ever seen a street sign with an ass so every time I see it I think of this song.  And it's stuck in my head forever.

I did manage to get some non-silly pictures of the skyline and the water while we drove too.

At some point, we drove through what Vanessa called a bad neighborhood.  But I think we would have been able to tell even if she hadn't told us.  I guess ghettos look the same where ever you go.  It kind of reminded me of the worse parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx.  It was crowded and dirty and graffitied to death.  There were some intense bars on the windows.  So that's one of the places we're supposed to avoid.  

Then if I recall correctly, we got off the bus in Casco Viejo.  After the city was destroyed by pirates in the 1600s a new city was built to protect the citizens from those sorts of shenanigans.  Today it's mostly a tourist attraction.  Restaurants, museums, endless amounts of people selling things.  Also some of the structures from back in the day are still around if you're more into the history parts.  There is a ton of construction going on right now, so we had to do a lot of maneuvering to get around, which made it feel more like an adventure.  

First we went to a cathedral.  That was a really weird experience, because it was this tourist attraction but it was still a church, you know and it seemed like some people still treated it as such.  So part of me felt like I was in some way being disrespectful by being there.

Having a private moment with your God, sir?  Not on my watch!

 

At that point the group, as they often do, kind of split off into sub-factions. Vanessa was buddies with one student and Christian was buddies with the other.  And just when I noticed that I didn't have a buddy, someone sent me this guy.

 Who's a precious?  You are!

In fact, I had buddies all over Casco.  There are cats and dogs all over the place and they are all so adorable.  I think most of them are strays, but people put out food for them in all these pockets of the city.  I was too worried about getting bitten to mess with any of the dogs, but I got to play with a lot of the cats.  They were mostly pretty friendly and would let me pet them even though I  didn't have any food.  And I got to talk them in a baby voice like I do with all animals, but I did it in Spanish because I wanted to be culturally sensitive.  (Hola gato!  Venga. Venga.  Quien es bonita?)  

 Then more walking in an open market area this time.  I bought a raspado which is a cool little dessert made from shaved ice, juice and milk.  

 He shaves the ice right there in front of you!

I didn't buy a hat though even though the sun was beating down on me, because it felt like cheating on my real hat, which I hadn't worn yet.

 Must... resist... hat temptation.

Then we went to the canal museum, which wasn't too bad even though it broke my rules about never going to a museum in a group bigger than 3. Unfortunately, there were no pictures allowed inside.  By the time we'd gotten to the museum, we'd done much more walking than I'd anticipated and I hadn't eaten in quite a while.  So I don't think I got the most out of the experience, as I was exhausted and so thirsty I thought I was going to pass out.  I got some interesting bits of information here and there, but then I had to sit down and get my bearings.  I must have taken a little nap because before I knew it, it was time to leave.

Fortunately right after that we got lunch.  Huzzah!  The food was really good and I got to order Seco which was really refreshing.  After that I was in much better spirits and ready to explore once again.  We went to another cathedral and then it started to rain.

It rains everyday here and you'd think that would be really annoying, but I'm starting to find that the rain is the best part of the day. I think that's something that comes with being in a tropical country. It's so hot that the rain is a welcome change.  Plus it's kind of fun to run around in the rain like we did, but then again I had an umbrella.  Either way, I can't imagine coming here during the dry season.

More walking around, and this time I got some really nice pictures (and met more cats).  We got to take this cool picture that I think is going to go on the ISA website, with this little old lady wearing traditional garb and selling these little souvenirs.  It was really the quintessential study abroad picture...and she charged us two bucks for it!  I was so disillusioned XD.  Anyway, I can't put it up here, since we only paid for one and it wasn't taken with my camera, but I did manage to get a shot of her covering up her face at her stand.

       Got to protect her merchandise, I suppose.

Then it was time to drive again. The driving in Panamá is insane.  It's like a really intense sport.  You really don't know crazy driving until you've been in a double-decker tour bus as it makes a very illegal u-turn and then later cuts across three lanes of traffic.  But everyone else is just as bad.  I'm pretty sure no one here ever uses their turn signal.  It's pretty wild, but I think since everyone drives that way it all balances out because you don't see a lot of accidents.

We finished off the tour with a trip to one mall before going back to the mall we started off in.  While we were there, these two guys came up to me and one of the other students and asked for directions.  I think we were both pretty surprised to be addressed in English even though we had just been speaking English ourselves.  I think that says something about how we're adjusting. 

There weren't a ton of things to take pictures of on the way back.  At one point we saw a cool-looking police truck and I was going to take a picture of that, but it was one of those trucks with and open back so we could see the prisoner and he could see us.  It was really creepy.  He kept staring and then he smirked.  And it doesn't matter what they've actually done, when a man smirks at you from the back of a police truck, you're just going to assume he's some sort of rapist-murder combo platter.  It's human nature.  So, I was creeped out and decided against the picture. 

      

The tour was really great.  There are about a dozen places I want to go back to, get some better pictures.  Next week school starts so I'll be back to update on that endeavor.  Unless something fun happens this weekend in which case I'll write about that.  I don't really know any places to go yet though so it will probably be a lazy stay inside weekend.  Until then have this picture I took at one of the malls.  I'm pretty sure it's some kind of dirty joke, but I can't figure out what it's trying to say.