With our vacation behind us, there was a lot of catching up to do before the big holidays approached our area. We had been warned by our Spanish teacher and many expats online to get to the grocery stores and bank and also to stay away from the beach area in the coming week. But before getting to the holidays that are celebrated here in November (there are six of them), last week was another busy week in retirement.
Once we were settled back in Chame, we had plans to pick up Clyde and Terry from the airport. On the same day, we made appointments (a month or so ago) to have a "Detox hand and foot cleansing" at The Foot Doctor close to the city. There was an OfertaSimple offering, and with my toenail being "messed up" at the time (prior to its removal), I thought perhaps this detox cleansing could help it out a bit. We purchased two of the coupons, and the day we took Clyde and Terry to the airport, we scheduled our appointments (easier to do in person). Happily, I have some toenail regrowth (TMI?), and so I knew the appointment would be easier and do all ten toenails some good. Even though Clyde had emailed us that his flight was not until the next day, we still kept our appointments. After stopping in La Chorrera to make an appointment to have our car serviced, we continued the drive to this office. It poured. Of course. Once at the office, the receptionist took our coupons, looked at mine and at me and asked me if the coupon was for me. I think. And I said "yes". She then took Ray and I back and had us sit in two separate rooms. Ray started chatting in Spanish with his esthetician. She wanted to practice English, but Ray really wanted to practice Spanish. Meanwhile, I was taken to another room where I was "hooked up" to a machine. My feet were put in a tub with light yellow water, my waist had a band wrapped around it, my wrist had another band put around it, and all the while, I am plugged in (water and electricity?).
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| Color of the water before (I didn't get an after picture) |
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| My wrist tingled every so often. |
I was then told "treinta minutos". What? 30 minutes. Okay, backing up a bit. First, I thought I was getting a relaxing mani/pedi with maybe a sugar scrub thrown in to the mix. Second, on the way to the appointment, Thea had messaged me that she and Greg were on the bus ride of their lives headed to Albrook Mall. They were then going to take a taxi to an Ikea "wannabe" store, and that they thought they would be back in time for Happy Hour at Picasso's. Of course, this is the most important part. I messaged her back that we would be finished with our appointment by 3:30 at the latest, and if they were back at the mall by that time, we would be happy to eliminate another harrowing bus ride (all about "the experience"). They actually do enjoy taking the bus, because it is easy, and it is less expensive than wear and tear on the car along with spending money on gas. And with the driver being a crazy one, they got where they needed to go FAST.
Well, back to my foot bath and detox. I figured it must be a detox bath where my toxins were being released, and I relaxed or fell asleep for a short time. Meanwhile, Ray is chatting away having a pedicure. After thirty minutes of drifting off, I was taken to the original room, and I saw that the water my feet were soaking in was now chocolate brown. I thought I might have been receiving something special or different from Ray since the receptionist had pointed out my coupon to me earlier. But then, my esthetician managed to clean up my toenails, but when she started on my hands, I stopped her and told her I had friends expecting me, and I didn't realize I would be there for longer than an hour. Who knew? I didn't want my friend to be concerned, and I wanted them to have the option of leaving on the bus (if they didn't want to wait for us). She told me Ray was now soaking his feet in the light yellow water, and he would be thirty minutes (Ray had sent Greg an email--whew--and they were in no hurry to leave the mall.). Okay then, I had her complete my treatment. And what a treatment it was having my feet and hands so smooth! Wonderful. It was $29, and I learned from Ray later (he was given a brochure in English to read) that this bath was indeed to pull the toxins out of our system. And in further research, I found that the foot bath produces positive and negative ions which than run through the body removing toxins and rebalancing cellular energy. We would notice being tired initially, but then (having nothing to do with the coffee I have been drinking lately) we would have increased energy and mental ability! The color of the water can be red, green, orange, black, brown or even white. Our brown water meant that our liver had been detoxified (!) as well as our joints and cellular waste products were removed from our system. Thank goodness we were cleaned up!
***Breaking News here! The trashmen are here (on a holiday)! Who would think such a thing, and it has been about three weeks, since our last pick up. Maybe two and a half.
While we didn't have to get Clyde and Terry that night, it was a good occurrence that we were able to rescue Greg and Thea (see why they are aka Lovey and Thurston Howell IV) from having to take another bus trip. We chatted the way back to the interior, and we decided we could continue on at the Picasso Happy Hour. And there went Wednesday.
Thursday arrived knowing we would be at the airport around seven pm, but first we had to have our Spanish lesson at eight am. We told our teacher about our limited opportunity to study, she always understands, we shared our stories with her (and hear about her life)), and she gave us just a few things to learn in the coming week (in addition to reviewing all the other pages). Because of the holidays coming up, we went to the grocery store, and we shopped as if the shelves would be empty like Snowmaggedon in Virginia! Then we drove to Albrook Mall. We enjoyed lunch at Pollo Tropical, and it poured again! It was raining so hard, we couldn't speak to each other in mall let alone think any thoughts. Inside stores, it was less noisy, but once in the mall corridor, it was so loud! We found the American side of the mall with the Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Banana Republic and so on. I don't usually shop in those stores in the States (maybe the Gap) unless there are sales, and since every individual item I looked at and liked was $40 and up, I backed out completely. The mall was completely decorated with animated Halloween sets. Once the rain subsided, we then drove to Metromall which is ten minutes from Tocumen International Airport. We shopped for Ray in the Columbia store (two shirts for the price of one!), I found two shirts (for the price of one!) in Stevens, and we saw the movie "Annabelle". Not on my list of movies to see, but it fit into the Halloween spooky theme, and we love that popcorn! Perfect timing to then retrieve our great friends, Clyde and Terry, from their long day of travels. We chatted the entire way back to Chame and shared stories of what we had all done the past two weeks. We made plans for the next day when Terry and I were scheduled to have our mammograms. Ray was taking the car to La Chorrera for service at seven am, so Terry would pick me up and drive us to our appointments. Clyde was going along, so he could run to San Carlos Produce market to start filling up their refrigerator.
On Friday, it was a very rainy day, and I almost overslept! Ray was already at the dealership with the car being serviced, and I lazily drank that really great coffee (!) and was able to see all of the Halloween-themed morning shows. Once at San Carlos Hospital for our appointments, we saw there was a health fair taking place outside under the awning. Everyone was there (including staff) listening to what seemed to be a raffle drawing. They had tickets in hand and were wanting to win something. When we approached the radiology window, there was no one there. A few minutes later someone shows up and takes Terry's appointment card. I was next in line. The process went like this: the man behind the window (see below) took my appointment card, asked for my passport (I gave him my pensionado card), and then he wrote down my name (only Allison Weiser without my married name), birthdate and passport number. He asked me my age. Then I took that paper and went around the corner to another window and that receptionist, using carbon paper, wrote down all of the above and handed me a piece of paper back, and I stepped three feet to my left, and I paid the cashier twenty dollars. He handed me a receipt, and I was summoned to return to the first window. The man took my receipt, and I joined Terry a few feet away, where we then stood on line. The window is pictured below what they peek threw to speak to patients. And what you get to peek through back at them! The woman shown was eating a late breakfast.
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| Try speaking Spanish through this crack, hearing it spoken back, and understanding it all. LOL |
The health fair was giving free coffee and food away, so many patients and all of the staff were helping themselves to food and drink. And while they were taking a nice little breakfast break, Terry and I continued to wait for their break to end (it was tamales and hot dog stew). Terry's appointment was at 10:00, she started her paperwork process at 10:00, and she was called back by the tech at 10:40. Forty minutes later it was my turn. I was in and out with fifteen minutes, with having four X-rays taken and being told to return not in fifteen days, but due to the holiday, in twenty days to pick up my X-rays. I will then take it to my doctor to review right before Ray and I head back to Virginia.
At the end of the day, it was raining again. We were headed to Hotel Tryp Happy Hour, but we didn't know where it would take place since the band is usually on the rooftop. With the on and off misting, the band and bar were set up on the pool deck, and this is where we found our new friends that we met in Boquete along with Lovey and Thurston Howell IV. Another happy hour whizzes by, and it was at this time, on the last day of October, Ray and I decided to try a meal at the Swiss/German restaurant a few miles away. Lovey and Thurston came along to have an Octoberfest meal. The restaurant is called El Meson Suizo, and it had the usual chalkboard menu, only the Chef came out to go over the options. There was one other couple enjoying dinner, and the woman was who I had met a month ago at Girls Night Out. What a great dinner! I loved it all (we all dug into each others dishes). Sausage, sauerkraut, red cabbage, schnitzel, corvina and spaetzle. What wasn't to love! Well, the waitress could have been a tad bit friendlier. But this restaurant is a definite re-visit when I tire of typico Panamanian cuisine.
The following day (Saturday already) was volunteer day at Finca La Maya. With the approaching holidays, the roads were just a little more congested, and the stores were busy. Ray drove me to a shopping center to meet up with Thea, and she drove us to the school. We met with Starr, discussed the art project, and the two little boys (six and seven years old) made mobiles out of wire hangers using shells and beads to decorate them. And when we had spare time at the end of the two hours, we had them make devils horns (basically "wing it" to keep them occupied).
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| Me and Thea with the cutest little boys proudly displaying their mobiles. |
Once Thea dropped me off at the Coronado Plaza shopping center (I was leaving Ray the car in case he wanted to run errands and had somewhere to be haha), Ray and I stopped in the bakery for a scoop of ice cream. He tried the Orange Pineapple flavor (it was not sorbet, but actually ice cream), and I chose Grapenuts. So creamy and perfect for the hot day! There was a van in the parking lot loaded up with speakers blaring music (Panamanians LOVE their music loud!), and there was a woman dressed in a short, furry parka giving DRIVERS of cars (!) samples of Balboa Ice!!!
The rest of the afternoon we spent eating Ray's chicken salad that he had to make with a very small food chopper that we bought here, but nevertheless, it was still so good. He used Hellman's Mayonasa (no typo there), but somethings here still taste a tad bit off. Vegetables taste a little different, too. We did find Hellman's Mayonnaise (notice difference in spelling) in Riba Smith, and it is $6 for a medium size bottle. No thanks. And then we had a party to go to at Picasso Restaurant. A band, Poco Loco, was coming out of retirement playing to raise money for CASA and the children's gift baskets. We had been told that we would be the only one's not dressed up. Ray and I did know six people that would be dressed as themselves, so we felt good not being in a costume. First though, Thea had invited us over to their condominium for sangria. After drinking sangria, we drove to the restaurant and found one table available, which happened to be "Reserved for Allison". Clyde and Terry had already arrived and knew to look for a table for six that I had reserved two weeks ago (even though no one really ever knew reservations need to be made). How great was this! Yay! It was a packed house. Many people danced, along with me dancing with Thea and a bunch of other ladies. Ray and Greg kicked back with Balboa and Sangria relaxing to the music.
The skies have cleared since last weeks rain. Once laundry and some light cleaning of the house was done yesterday, I went to the pool. Usually there are no more than four people there. Yesterday, there were twenty five or so. Two different families were sitting under the large pavilions in the grassy area enjoying their lunch. Boys were being boys jumping in the water on their boogie boards (which explains why they were so broken down) and getting in trouble by their parents. It was Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Panamanians head to cemeteries across the country tiding up their loved ones graves and decorating the tombstones. It is declared a "dry day". Stores and restaurants cannot sell alcohol, and loud music is forbidden until 12:01 am tomorrow. At the pool, I saw Ron Abuelo rum on the table, and I heard loud music. Rule breakers. Clyde and Terry invited us along with Greg and Thea over for dinner. Clyde was making his version of "Ropa Vieja", and they served it with rice and beans and delicious sangria. I am noticing a pattern here. We had a great time sitting under the bohio laughing as the electricity kept cutting off and then on again a few times. With the influx of people here in the interior, it makes sense that we will lose power every so often. We sat in candlelight at times, but it didn't ruin the cooking of the beef using the crockpot all day or the cooking of the rice using the rice cooker. It was all so good!
The other holidays are as follows: Today, it is Separation Day which commemorates Panama's separation from Colombia. There will be parties, loud music, probably fireworks, and the children are off from school. The banks and government offices are also closed.....until Thursday. This is because on Tuesday, it is Flag Day. Flags are everywhere! Banners are flying high. The colors are red, white and blue. And finally, for this week, Wednesday is Colon Day. On November 5, 1903, the Panamanians confirmed the success of their separation from Colombia. It is compared to Columbus Day in the United States.
And this is why the stores are bustling, why Panama City is quiet (everyone has driven here for the beaches), there are more police checkpoints, parades and parties are popping up for the next three days, and why we may be breaking out the earplugs soon!
But I have not idea why this occurred today---More breaking news *** Who would think the gym would be closed for three days? It is owned by a Canadian. After driving almost to the gym, I realized I had forgotten my wallet and drivers license. Not wanting to be stopped at a police checkpoint (they pop up randomly), I turned around, drove back to the house, and I picked up my wallet. I then drove back to the gym, only to walk up to a locked gate. The pool dolphins were turned out, so perhaps the renters and owners of the condominiums there have keys to the main pool gate. I could see the gym door was closed as well. Annoyed, and thinking this is Panama (but why is the gym closed for three days), I decided to walk my neighborhood two times. For forty-five minutes I walked, and I also ventured into Chame to see the marching band that I could only hear. I only saw the band congregating on the main highway when I was driving to the gym. And I saw a barbeque cart along with people lining the street. I called it a day, and I have now decided to head to the pool. Soon. The sun is breaking through the haze.
Once again, when in Panama, have a back up plan. Always have a Plan B, and just know that this is how it goes in Panama. It's going to be a great day! As usual, in retirement!
