December 26, 2010

We just celebrated our first Christmas as residents of Panama. Interesting. Most customs such as the decorations at the mall were similar to America. But the people here celebrate by church on Christmas Eve, then the opening of gifts, THEN FIREWORKS!!! And lots of them. Generally they begin at midnight (as custom), but our neighborhood started early. I only know because they woke me up. We had to sleep with the a/c on that night just to drown out the noise. On Christmas day, we headed to the beach with a cooler packed with “Christmas dinner”. Granted, I will do anything to avoid cooking and going to the beach seemed like such a great way to do it. Apparently, many people here thought the same thing, because the beach, which was empty on Wednesday, was really crowded. But, that is MY idea of a white Christmas. The white sand was too beautiful and the water inviting.
I attached a picture of the ice skating rink in one of the malls. And it was REAL ice, not the plastic stuff. Bet that is a real treat for people down here.
Also have some picture of one of the local parks in the area. We felt so lonely today after our kids and grandchild left, so we headed out to explore some new places. We were the ONLY gringos in the park today. Seems to be the pattern here, that we may very well be the only gringos most places we go. Humm??? And IF they are talking about us, we would never know. Six months and still don’t understand a thing people say other than hello and Good Morning.