The Next Chapter.....

Today we said "adios" to Spanish Panama and goodbye to our formal Spanish education here in Panama.  Although we'll miss the people we've come to know at the school along with our favorite instructor Jaime, we won't miss the stress of going to school.  We had the opportunity to explore the El Cangrejo area of Panama City and eat at some of it's many restaurants.  There was typical Panamanian fare,  Mexican, Carribbean, Sushi, Italian, New York Deli style, Chinese and everything in between.  Walking became a way of life as we literally broke shoes and almost toes on the rough, uneven pavement.

As we head home to continue learning Spanish, we go armed with several new books purchased at the school along with our old Rosetta Stone program.  Every second of each day we pick up a few new words or an understanding of some phrase we didn't quite understand. 

The stuff we shipped from the US is here and supposed to be delivered on Saturday.  Since things in Panama don't happen on schedule, we'll believe our stuff is here when we see it at the house.  Our butts will be happy to sink into the lazy boy instead of the plastic lawn chairs we've been using.  Clyde will have tools to do his honey's do's around the house.  And I'll have my fitness equipment so I can get back to working out and pumping iron.

Tonight we were scheduled to have drinks with Kathleen Peddicord and husband Lief Simon from "Live and Invest Overseas."  This is a  company that we received a lot of our research materials from in order to move to Panama.  If you remember, in an earlier BLOG, we told you the story how our classmate at Spanish Panama was the daughter of Kathleen.  With their hectic, workaholic schedules Kathleen was exhausted after just returning from a conference in Orlando and just could not make it.   Since it was too late for them to email us and they didn't have our phone numbers, Lief was nice enough to show up alone.  We met at the Bristol, a lounge located inside of the 5 Star Bristol Hotel here in Panama City.  Lief was easy to chat with and we enjoyed hearing about their conferences, publications and travels.  Like his wife Kathleen he formerly wrote and traveled for International Living Magazine, and has been all over the world.  Together they currently hold seminars, and publish books and articles helping people to retire or move their lives overseas.  Perhaps sometime in the future we'll have the opportunity to meet his lovely wife. 

Hotel life here at the El Parador has been uneventful except for some noisy visitors.  A family of  pesky pigeons has made a home atop the air conditioner on the  outside. In the middle of the night they wake us up cooing and bopping around in the air conditioner vents. I was sitting on the bed one day when a feather fell from the ceiling, like an angel wing from heaven. 

It's hard to believe that we've only lived in Panama for 7 weeks now and already we call this "home."  We're still like baby chicks just poking our heads out of the broken egg shell, looking at the new, strange world.  With so much to see, so much to do and so much to learn we've only just begun our new lives here.  Like my dear husband keeps telling me "I can't promise you anything except that this will be an adventure."  And it has been the adventure of a lifetime.......with so much lifetime still to go.