Panama! Panama-a! Van Halen fan, anyone? I spent last weekend (yet another puente, woohoo) in Panama City and the surrounding area. It was an expensive trip (my trip to Macchu Picchu in January will cost the same, and that’s for 7 days instead of 3), but it was SO worth it. I have some great pictures of the rainforest, the canal, and the Embera tribe – it was like living in National Geographic, good stuff. To find out more about the weekend, you’ll have to go to my Colombia page and check out each day – I separated it up so that there wouldn’t be too many pictures (or too long a description). Enjoy!
Finally, some ultimate action
My body hates me. But, it will learn to love me. Angela hooked me up with someone at her university who plays frisbee and is in her class last week, and I went out on Sunday to play with him and his team. We played for 4 hours, and after not playing for 3 months my body really didn’t enjoy it much. I hurt a LOT last night, today isn’t quite as bad – good sign, I think. Looks like I’m going to play with them in the national tournament in December the weekend before I go home too, which should be fantastic. I just need to get myself into game shape in a month – only playing 2 days a week. Could be difficult, but we’ll see. Yay frisbee!!!
A tienda, In Vitro, and Willie
Okay, time to get the angry thoughts off the page. Before the election was another puente for us (and we have another one next weekend, woohoo!), which meant it was time to have some fun.
On Friday, Robert, Megan and I met up at a tienda just around the corner from their place. A tienda is basically like a corner store with a liquor license – you can buy chips, pop, beer, whatever and sit around on plastic chairs inside the store and drink. Fun stuff! We had a couple of drinks, then headed off to dinner.
After dinner, we decided to go back to the tienda. They have a liquor down here called Aguar Diente that tastes similar to Zambucca but with a weaker taste to it. Pretty good stuff. We decided to get a 750 mL bottle of it, and Robert asked how much it was. The guy working the tables said 12,000 pesos (about $6.00 Canadian), so then Robert asked how much he charged Colombians. I thought he was going to wet himself. So, while he was laughing, Robert turned to the table next to us and asked the guy how much he would pay for the bottle – and the guy said 8 or 9,000 pesos. The owner was behind the counter, and he didn’t look happy. The rest of the tienda thought it was hilarious though, had everyone laughing. The table next to us ended up joining us, one of them spoke English all right, and we got a chance to practice our Spanish. That may have been the most fun I’ve had since I’ve gotten here, actually – go figure, we spent about $25 between the 3 of us and had a great time.
Saturday night Alan, Simon and I went to a club called In Vitro. On Wednesdays and Thursdays the place is packed with celebrities, but by the time Saturday rolls around it’s dead. And it was dead again this time. Simon has been offered a DJ job there, but it’s during the week so he didn’t take it – he may do the occasional weekend though, which could be fun. Gives us a reason to go down there :)
Sunday was the greatest holiday of the year, Halloween. Unfortunately, nobody I went out with was dressing up (at least, I didn’t THINK they were). Turned out Zak was dressing up as Willie Nelson. I really wasn’t going to go all out if nobody else was doing anything though, so I ended up not wearing a costume. A very sad day indeed. We had a pretty good night, Zak got plenty loaded and was very entertaining :)
And now for the future – we have another long weekend next weekend, so Alan, Barbie, James and I are heading up to Panama, woohoo! Should be very interesting, I’m looking forward to checking out the canal. I’ll update you on it when I get back!
Hallelujah
So…I was watching the episode of Friends today where Joey becomes a minister for Chandler and Monica’s wedding. Zak has actually done it, he officiated a friend’s wedding back home a few years back. So I figured, what the hell? A few clicks later…and I’m now Reverand Brad Cauthers of the Universal Life Church. Sure, I COULD go to hell for this – but since I am now able to absolve sins, I’ll just make sure I forgive myself before I die. God bless the internet (wow, saying that actually DOES bless it now, that’s in my power too!) Go in peace, y’all.
M.I.A.
Whoops, Halloween posting deleted…come back later!