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Published: October 24th 2012
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My house!
Isn't it cute? When I last left off, I was waiting for my first flight. Since then, a lot has happened. I caught that flight and sat next to a nice guy who was flying home to florida. Somehow, conversations always seem to end up on politics during election season. This guy was for Obama.
When I hopped off of that flight, I was hungry and really hoping for one last big fat diet coke to carry me through the next six months (you see, Panama only has Coca-Cola Light, which doesn't even hold a candle to good 'ol USA Diet Coke). Unfortunately, the Fort Lauderdale airport only has Pepsi products, so I choked down a turkey sandwhich and a diet pepsi with a coffee lid on it of $11. I waited for an hour and a half, reconnected with an estranged friend over imessage, and got on my next flight.
This flight sat me next to a couple going on vacation. Riding alone really seems to intrigue people and they start talking to me. Then when I tell them what I'm doing, they get really interested. Again, our conversation ended up on politics, but this guy was for Romney. I'm glad I'm a moderate and can talk with people on either side of the situation!
After this flight I was picked up at the airport by a guy with my name on a piece of paper. He spoke no English, and made no attempt to converse with me in my broken Spanish besides telling me that his name was Lao (sp?). He took me to Andres Maduro's house and then up to a nice room. He gestured that I could use the remotes to control the air conditioning unit on the wall in the room. I spent a good half hour trying to turn that thing on, but to no avail. I slept in the sweltering heat with no blankets from 3am to 7am. For the record, 4 hours of sleep is not a good start to a day when you have to communicate primarily in a language that you don't know. I had gotten Lao to tell me to be ready by 8, so after taking pictures of the beautiful house, I went downstairs and followed voices to the kitchen. The woman in the kitchen spoke no english and I can't remember her name, but she got me toast, cheese, and jugo de naranja (orange juice). Then a man named Alexis came to pick me up and drive me to another airport. Alexis was very nice and attempted to communicate with me in very broken english and spanish. It was nice that he at least tried to talk to me! He bought me my ticket and talked to people for me until I had to go through security. I got on a small puddle jumper and flew to David.
When I landed in David, there was no one with my name on a paper, so I just walked over to the luggage drop. A man came up behind me and said, "Are you Emily?" It was really nice to hear English. He told me his name was Thomas and he had figured out it was me because I was white and I walked like a student, or something like that. He had apparently just texted Alexis to find out what I looked like and hadn't heard a response yet. When he finally got one it was "very white." Yep, that just about describes me! I hopped into his little two-door Suzuki and we set off for Cerro Punta. We drove through Vulcan and stopped there for sandwiches, then continued on to our destination. When we got to Finca Dracula, I was introduced to everyone. I'm bad enough with english names, let alone names that I can barely pronounce! I'll figure it out eventually.'
The girls I met took me down to my house while one of the guys carried my luggage down. The house I'm living in is BEAUTIFUL. I posted the pictures of it on facebook, but a quick description of it is a 1 bed, 2 bath, house with a glass dining room that sits right next to a stream! My front porch has a hot tub on it, but it's empty. I started to unpack when a boy came in and apparently tried to tell me to get my coat because I was going grocery shopping. He just kept saying "tambien" when he found out that I didn't speak spanish. I'm not sure why. I went up to the main office to find out what was going on and Thomas gave me $100, half of my monthly food budget, and sent me to the grocery store with one of the girls. Her name is something like "Yolanda" but I'm not entirely sure. She and I had a great time laughing between broken words of english and spanish. Some guy in a truck dropped us off at the grocery store and dropped us off at the grocery store in Vulcan. We did our shopping, then came out and waited for the guy to come back from a delivery. We piled back in with our groceries and came back to Finca Dracula to unload our groceries. I am to cook and eat up near the main office with the other girls, so I dropped off all "cookable" food up there and then took PB&J, bread, popcorn, cereal, milk, pineapple juice, cheese, chips, and pickles down to my place. I came back up to the lodge then and used imessage on my phone to contact home. Then I said "duermo" which means "I sleep" and went back down to my house at 5pm.
I unpacked and rearranged everything. I had 5 beds in my room, so I took one apart, put one on it's side, and pushed the bunkbeds into the corner, giving myself some floor space. I also pulled a dresser out of the closet and put my clothing and miscellaneous other things in it. Then came the hard part. There were 4 chairs, two couches, and a mattress in my living room, which I thought was a bit excessive. The stairs from my living room to my bedroom are a very small spiral staircase, and I apparently thought it was a good idea to take one of the chairs up there. Somehow, I got it up to the room, though my arms are sore today from doing it. I almost dropped it quite a few times, and I knocked a little bit of paint off of the wall, but the house has plenty of chipped paint already, so I'm not terribly worried about it. I also rearranged downstairs a bit, made a bag of popcorn, played a game on my computer, and went to bed at 9.
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Grandma
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What an adventure
I loved reading your blog. I'll read it again. I can see you moving furniture in your house. Will you have a housekeeper? It was good to talk to you thru facetime while we were at the football game. You may talk with your parents more than you did when you were home. We'll get in on that too. I mean the Facetiming. If you get lonely or a little homesick, Facetime will help you recover very quickly. We will need to pay more attention to our I-Pad. Do you think we will see a new Emily when you return in six months? You won't be totally new and you have always been mature, but there will be a difference. I am just so thankful we can experience some of this with you thru our trip and technology. We love you! With love and prayers, Grandma