A quick trip to California

No sooner were we just settling into the routines of being imigrants in a strange and wonderful new land WHEN I had to go back!

Yes, there was some fire insurance stuff on our house in Aromas that I had to take care of fast and there was a corporate sponsor who offered to pay my way to a conference in San Diego. Well I think I already told you all that but my memory fades fast and I guess in a blog it is better to have continuity by telling things twice so you don't have go back and read everything.

Anyway, I went and spent a week in Aromas, limbing trees, paying bills, working a little at the Authority and camping in the trailer. This was the first time I had spent any extended time alone in the "campsite" and everything worked well. Ranger, the cat we left behind popped in every night and all the neighborhood dogs came by looking for Linda.

Well, I had a huge list of stuff to bring back with me and I needed some way to carry it. So I went out and bought the World's Biggest Suitcase. It is large enough to swallow what had previously been my biggest bag. Now I have spent my life being critical of travelers who wheel in these behemoths and now I am one. But it worked........Inside was a printer, hair rollers, books, lots of liquids from the drug store, and more. 62 pounds of stuff.

Well, everything went well on the Southwest flight to San Diego. The bag was overweight and I paid the charge. But when I left San Diego on Continental three days later I learned that contrary to their website (with a max weight of 70 pounds) there is "holiday embargo" on overweight suitcases and I had to get both bags down to 50 pounds. That meant I had to open all my bags on the floor in front of the ticket desk and pull out and heft those heaviest items and then cram them into my carry on bag. Well my carry on now weighed 25 pounts but I made the flight with all the stuff still going the right direction, just in different containers.

I thought my adventures were over. After all I just had to change planes in Houston and then jet home to Panama. But I was mistaken. Just past the ticket taker for the Panama Flight were four Customs agents questioning everyone getting on the flight. You may not know that it is a big no no to carry more than $10,000 out of the country and these guys were looking for any money smugglers. They also had dog with them sniffing but not for money (since we all had some of that). I could only think it was a drug dog looking for really dumb crooks trying to smuggle drugs OUT of the US.

Anyway when I got up to the chief customs guy, he looked me right in the eye and cited the statue the makes it a no no to take money out of the country and and asked me if I was carrying more than $10,000. I looked him back in the eye and said "no". He then asked me how much money I WAS carrying and I told him it was none of his business since I just said that I was not carrying too much. Well we went around a couple of times and I finally said defiantly that I was carrying a hundred bucks. He moved me to the side and said "I will handle you over here". So then his cronies took apart all my carry on. Yes, that one which had 25 pounds of everything carefully packed in a small space. When I asked them why, if the new currency has RFID strips in it so the money can be detected electronically, they did not know what I was talking about. Anyway they found no extra stash of cash, just lots of stuff I would not rather show to anyone but close friends. BUT they did not even pat me down so If I was harboring a wad of $100's in my crotch they would never have found it.

Oh, the measures our government goes to in an effort to keep us paying taxes.

And now back home in Panama we had a very productive day. We almost got another bank account (we need few more papers), we paid our cable bill all by ourselves and we arranged to have a cabinet maker come to the house later. Big day eh?

Live well and be very very nice to everyone you meet.

Panama in the early morn

I had to make a 10:00 am flight to Houston Monday so arranged to get a ride from Alex, our former tenant. Alex is Venezuelan working on project developing a resort on the Caribbean side and a very dynamic guy. After one year in San Carlos he knows and is liked by everyone in town. Anyway, Alex had a change in plan and was not going into Panama City that morning but arrange for a taxi driver and friend named Nene to drive me in, at Alex’s expense.

I was a little concerned knowing the Panamanian penchant for being late (sometimes really late) but Nene showed up at 5:31 and off we went.

This was the first time I have seen the road to Panama City while not driving and very early in the morning. The sun rises at 6:15 and sets at 6:05 all year round. Remember it is Latitude 8 and there are very little season changes in the sun.

As we drove along I watched Panama wake up on a holiday Monday. It was like being in downtown LA at 7:00 Sunday morning. A few people walking on the highway or waiting for bus, very few cars, trucks or busses on the road. In fact Nene said there were no police either and we cruised at 115 km/hr all the way in. The sun was coming up in our faces and low clouds hung on the mountains until we crossed the Bridge of the Americas (La Puente de la Americas). There are only two bridges over the Canal and until two years ago there was only one, the new one Centurillo which was built by a German firm and is beautiful with a fan of support cables holding up the span. How is that for a run on sentence?

Even in Panama City it was very very quiet compared all the other times I have seen it. You see, anyone with any money at all has a house in the “interior” where they go for long holiday weekends. Places such as San Carlos and all the surrounding beach development double in size on a fiesta weekend.

So we cruised through the city and I got to the airport 2 hours before my flight. I will have to consider flying again on a Panamanian holiday.

And if you think US TSA is illogical consider this one………I go through security (X-ray, pull out the laptop, all but the toothpaste and face creams in plastic bag bit), have a bit of breakfast in the secure area and then queue up to board. At the gate are four nice young Panamanians in uniform, physically checking inside every carry on bag? And when they find I have bottle of water I just bought I am told I can drink it there but not on the plane. Ya just gotta laugh at the way things happen.

More in a couple of weeks
sj

A dogs trip to the beach

Twice a day now either I or Linda and I take Grayson on the 10 minute walk through town to the beach to run his ass off for 40 minutes and cause him to be civil for the day. Otherwise it is like living with a 15 year old boy. I took some pictures today to show the trip.

Let me know what you would like to know or see about our new town, pronounced locally as San Carlo.

Now I gotta go lock up and take a snooze

sj

A regular Friday in San Carlos

Two weeks have passed since we landed in our new home and a little of routine is beginning to take shape. Still I marvel at how casual life is and the size of the trees but here are the events of the day. Notice how trivial they are to some of the major events in yours.

• 6:30 get up, make coffee and watch the town wake up
• 7:30 Walk Grayson, our Weimeriener, to the beach and throw the tennis ball for 40 minutes into the small surf. I am the only person on the beach.
• 9:00 attend a casual Spanish class of expats
• 11:00 arrive home and meet the housecleaner ($10/day $15 if she does the windows)
• 11:15 A new acquaitenance pops in and asks for me to go help him get his car started 8 miles away
• First we have lunch at the Chinese restraunt across the street
• 1:30 return home and spend 2 hours painting our walkin closet in my underwear(I have no paint clothes)
• 4:00 I get a lesson from a retired hairdresser on how to do Linda's hair.
• 5:00 got to the beach with Linda and Grayson
• 6:00 watch sunset from the beach while it begins to rain.
• drive home in the rain
• 7:00 have dinner of ceviche, salad and soup while watching old versions of Three Men and Boy while Grayson is already sound asleep
• 9:00 go to be with all the widows open and the ceiling fans on

So you see our lives sometimes can be pretty mundane but still it feels like a vacation with a lot less expense and plenty of clothes an gadgets to play with.

What I did not metion was the holiday celebration that took place right in front of our house. You see November 2nd is one of the Independence celebrations in Panama. It is always a really big one because everyone in Panama City get paid on the 1st and 15th so they were flush. And really big in San Carlos because it is the government and social center of the region and the place of the parade. We had heard several bands practicing for days with snare and base drums, a few trumpets and lots of marchinng girls. Well the parade was seven hours long! It had bands from every little school in the region, with the kids in band uniforms and the girls dressed to the nines. The last two days have seemed very quiet in comparison. Next holiday is Nov 10th the Colon independence celebration.

I gotta go

A week into our adventure

Finally getting some pictures for you to look at. these are us shipping our boxes at LAX, Linda saying goodbye to our trailer in Aromas and us striking out in our rented van towards Los Angeles. More pics will follow soon as I learn how do this blog stuff.
You see that I have not posted anything for a while. That is because the beauty of Panama is that everything takes a while....longer than you would think. so in the first week we have been here we have accomplised a lot: we got our house cleaned, we got 2 cell phones to work (although we still can't retrieve messages) a printer and other computer stuff working and a number of trips to many stores.

The first big adventure was to go into Panama City to the airport to recover our 4 boxes of household goods we shipped air freight from LAX. After chasing the boxes by phone for three days we finally were assured there were there and off we went. Of course we took the dog, Grayson because he barks incessentaly if left alone. And a loud barking dog in the middle of town is not a good start with the neighbors. Anyway we found the air freight terminal and had to make 4 stops at three different buildings (collecting stamps on the paper) before we could get the stuff.

So now we have our SUV 2/3 full of boxes, with a little space for the dog and off we go to buy stuff for the house. It is now miday and hot and since we are not comforatble leaving the windows down while shopping one of us stays in the car and the other goes into the store.

Now the stuff we need is not small, printers, dishpans, utility racks, and all the other stuff we can get at the Do It center. By the time we left the back of the car was piled high so we could not see out the window. We got home after dark, which is a challenge because the used car we bought has a darkly tinted windshield and makes int really hard to see. But we made it.