Weekend in Bocas del Toro

60 min plane from Panama city lands me on Bocas del Toro island - the largest in the archipelago. The modest hotels, restaurants, and local houses are built on or in the water.On Friday morning, I showed up at the hostel (Mondo Taitu) and joined up with 3 British girls going snorkeling for the day. We visited Dolphin Bay (and saw lots of Dolphins, including a mini-Dolphin), and a pristine island called Zapatilla (below) where a lone park ranger meets your boat as you come up onto the beach and charges everyone $10...but it is a pretty amazing beach.
...with limited infrastructure development...
This is also the beach where I got a diamond shape sunburn - the diamond being the area of my back that I couldn't easily reach.
This little guy is a pet of the hostel Mondo Taitu - he mostly runs around and hangs out by his little pile of bird-feed.
Ahhh....Bastimentos. I came to this smaller island to find a quiet hammock by the water to read in. This is Pension Tio Tom and is run by a German couple who warm up to you after a day.
Here is my little room that sits right on the water. Clean and simple. I escaped the weekend with only a few bug bites, which is pretty good I think.
This is the view as you walk up and away from the main-town, past the island cemetary towards the beach on the other side of the island.
The beaches here were very quiet and the only non-natural sounds I heard for two days were the occasional motorboat and reggae floating from a few bungalows on the water.
I took a nap here.
smile...
This is the main "road" through the village.
Here is me before I left to go kayaking (20 minutes before it started to rain heavily for 2 hours).
Luckily, I slipped under this dock during the worst of the downpour. The water here by the mangroves is the temperature of a hot bath.

Spring for Philly!

A tiny cafe near my house will sell Ethiopian food if somehow you are able to figure out that they sell it. I recommend eating it under striped shade.
Here is a work in progress... there has been more painting that cooking in the kitchen recently. Partly because the easel blocks the refrigerator.
This is just how I pictured by room when I ordered those cardboard boxes.
But wait! someone put pieces of shaped wood in my cardboard boxes...whatever could I do with a bunch of awkwardly shaped and stained wood?
thai-food / build-me-some-furniture party = bedframe!
The following is a warning sign for those with seasonal allergies.
There were hundreds of people in Rittenhouse square this weekend. Highlights:
* A young man intensely painting a canvas in the grass with the Utrecht bag from his recent purchase resting beside him.
* Three young men walk toward the center of the square with a boom-box to meet up with friends and give break-dancing performances for the next 3 hours to enthusiastic weekend-strollers.
* Lots of toddlers.

Massive victories on all fronts!

That's right friends, I now own both a full set of bedding and....a lamp. (Items are larger than in the image below - good thing too, since the only thing worse than no bedding is a bed that is only a few inches squared.)
Please note the attractive yellow tape outlines where future furniture will one day reside....yes, I am very satisfied with my progress, thank you.

Meanwhile I have been making friends and getting to know my new city. Recent activities include playing with dogs in Clark Park that I have learned to take the trolly to, going to a house party and another colorful venue in South Philly (picture below), going for 8 mi run and seeing tons of amazing neighborhoods, cute restaurants and hidden stores.

Last week of work (in Panama City) was fantastic. I feel great about how much I am learning and what I am producing for my team and the client. I was able to do yoga, go to the gym, go swimming outside in the morning, and eat at one of the top 100 restaurants in the world for free.

Stay tuned for next week when I might take action to fill in the yellow couch-outline and see a new friend's stand-up comedy show.

Cat at the Panama Canal

soon to be expanded to accommodate the big post-Panamax ships for 5.25Bil. We got to skip out of a little work after an off-site interview and visit the Canal. A 90 deg. wind was blowing stongly

Cats spend 4 days a week in Panama?

All in all, things are awesome - but some of the work days are uncomfortably long and I haven't been able to strike a perfect balanace yet between job-time and me-time when I am traveling. Work days Mon-Thur range from 18 hours to 12 hours, typically in descending order throughout the week, which would be less tolerable if the content weren't so fascinating. As always I am pulling out all my tricks to stay balanced and healthy including journal / doodling, snacks in out team-room, music, yoga in my hotel room, and trips to the gym.

On the home-front, my vision of a furnished apartment is developing in my head and although not physically apparent yet, is sure to be wonderful. I am making time to develop friendships in Boston and despite being gone almost 5/7ths of the week, I have been averaging 2-3 hang-outs with different people each week (all non-work people).

Here is a revolutionary war reenactor who I and my new friend Tom met while on a walk last weekend.

He showed us how to load the gun powder and how it would shoot. The rifle took about 7 attempts to 'fire' and I am afraid for the guys on the front lines, that this was close to the historical average for successful shots fired.

View of Panama City from the plane.This piece is pretty cool in person.

Cats go to Panama City

I went to Panama for about 72 hours this week. This was the view at sunrise from my hotel room. Many of the skyscrapers in Panama City have cranes on top of them which tell me that there are either a lot of large buildings being built or that Panamanians have a different aesthetic relationship to cranes than we do in the US.
Here is my super-cool team that I will be working with for the next 4 months: Hugues, Jorge, Ben, Anita, and myself. On our first dinner out we played "one lie, one truth" where each person relates 1 truthful fact or story about themselves and also 1 lie. One of the people at the table spent a year in an African prison.

Look! - its me getting ready for day 2 of work in Panama....I am avoiding learning the real definition of business formal - so polka dots are still fair game...Sun setting on Panama city.

More cranes!!!

I'm doin' it!

In the words of Bill Murray, as he was tied to the mast of a moving sailboat, in 'What About Bob': "I SAIL!"
Here is Rittenhouse square in Philadelphia (right in front of my apartment building) on the first day of spring. Philadelphians are picknicking and playing frisbee and all is right with the world.

Here is the view from my office window. In the foreground we see a lot of train tracks which are pretty cool and the beige building in the center is Philadelphia's Museum of Art which is currently housing a Frieda Kahlo exhibit that I am looking forward to seeing.

Here is my fabulous kitchen featuring my first home-cooked meal: tofu, spinach, whole-wheat tortillia, and cheddar cheese. Dinner for the next two nights looked remarably similar.

Good friend competing in his first chicken wing eating contest...apparently the winning strategy is to only eat about half the meat on the chicken wings: this seems wrong to me and I am now jaded about the prospects of this alternate profession.

Emma meets me after work at a Japanese restaurant. My ice cream is "black sesame" and tastes like peanut butter....eh...no serious stomach problems but also no developing superpowers: I would say I am indifferent.

Stay tuned friendlies because this blog is being posted from NY and tomorrow we're off to Panama City!