Arrival

The trip to Panama City went off without a hitch. The day and night before getting on the plane was chaos, though! After the lunch at work, I started packing boxes of stuff (mostly my clay and clay tools) and packing the things I’m bringing with me on this trip (my desktop computer, laptop, clothes, pasta machine and motor, among other things). I didn’t even go to bed the night before my early (5:15 a.m.) flight on Saturday.

I couldn’t have done it without the yeoman service of my friends, especially Linette. She has helped me on numerous days to get organized and help sort out the mountain of things around my house. David came over after he got off work Friday evening and helped a bit. He was to take me to the airport around 3 a.m., so I let him crash on the couch while I packed and woke him up when it was about time to leave.

The flights were on time, and my driver was there to pick me up at the airport and take me to my hotel, as planned. The hotel is nice, and my room is comfortable. The hotel is only three blocks from the attorney’s office, so it will be easy to walk there in the morning.

When I was here in February, I took a picture of some interesting architecture. Well, the same building is squarely in view from my hotel room window! Pretty awesome – each floor is rotated 6° counter-clockwise from the one below it. I’ve heard there are problems with the building, and only 40% of it is useable because the elevator shafts are out of whack. But it’s interesting, anyway!

I was so wiped out after being up about 36 hours that I ate dinner at the Burger King across the street (the Whopper tasted just the same as in the US) and went to bed at 7 p.m. last night. I felt better today and walked around a bit. I found a really good Greek restaurant nearby and had a tasty Greek yeero (that’s how they spell gyro here, which makes sense, since that’s how it’s pronounced). Delicious!

So now it’s time to get some sleep and start the visa process at the lawyer’s office in the morning. It’s really happening…… 🙂