Back at the beginning

I found this picture in Nicholas's photo album the other day and I completely forgot about this. In the first orientation back in August we were all really bored at the hotel and we did some chatroulette. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a website that lets you videochat with random people from all over the world. Sometimes we all pretended we were from a certain country, other times people would speak their native languages, other times we'd be like "WE'RE FROM PANAMA." This picture just cracks me up so I thought I'd share it.

White as a snowflake

After the first sign of sun after a long winter in Massachusetts, I'm usually in my bathing suit on my deck tanning. I love going outside with my ipod and some lemonade and turning my oh-so-white complexion to oh-so-bronzed. Here of course the sun is blazing hot and quintessential for some good tanning (provided that I have a good sunscreen), but that would be considered extremely inappropriate. Beach clothes, which includes any sort of clothing that exposes skin above the knees, are not to be worn anywhere but the beach. Putting on a bathing suit and spreading out in the backyard would allow people to call me all sorts of names...and people LOVE to give those titles here. I'm actually whiter in Panama than I was in Massachusetts.

Parade

Yesterday was Flag Day in Panama. All of the exchange students from David and Bugaba marched. There was also group of kids from Costa Rica who came (being that we're only an hour away from the border). It was cool to see kids from Costa Rica. They were from Germany, Switzerland and Thailand.

All of the exchange students from David dressed up. I was tempted to throw on some cowboy boots, short shorts, a plaid shirt and a cowboy hat, but instead I wore a traditional Panamanian Indian dress. Is there really any sort of traditional clothing for the United States? I can't think of anything. It's been down-pouring for 3 days and we got completely soaked. Everyone kept on saying that it was a parade of umbrellas. Somehow we all managed to get soaked, even with our umbrellas.

Girls from Thailand in their traditional clothing

From Japan

A real panamanian (she's a volunteer)

all of us with our flags and clothes

Saori and her flag

guess who?

Celine from Germany

My school (the queen of the school is in front)

Everyone wanted to take pictures with us!

Luca from Austria with the Austrian flag and the German flag

Marching!

While I was walking some guy from the radio came up to me and talked with me. I understand almost anything anyone says to me now-a-days, but this radio guy spoke SOO FAST. You know like when you're listening to the radio and they speak unbelievably fast because they don't have that much time? Well basically this guy said something to me and I had no idea what he was saying to me and everyone was like "say something" so I was just like "Me encanta Panama! Es el mejor pais del mundo!" (I love panama. It's the best country in the world). Later that night I was talking with my friend from school I told him about what happened. He said most likely the radio guy asked me what flag day means to me. Oooops :)

When the parade was over we all went into a parking lot that had a roof (so we wouldn't get wet) and ate lunch. Most of the groups of people who were marching had cars filled with individual boxes of food, and everyone hung out under there and ate. After we ate, I started to walk over to someone talk to them and I slipped and fell in the mud. I totally got mud all over my pretty dress. hahaha que pena! I'm such a clumsy one.

(I stole the pictures above from Luca)

Things I miss

My ipod

I left it at home and now I wish I hadn't.

My bed!

It looks just like this but it has a million pillows and a heated mattress pad. I sometimes spend the whole day cooped up in my bed watching tv because it's so comfortable.

Not poofy hair

It's so humid here that my hair poofs up ten minutes after I straiten it. People also don't like it when a girl puts her hair in a bun or a ponytail. I think it's considered like "not taking care of your appearance," which is a HUGE thing here.

Working out at the gym

There's a gym that's a 10 minute walk from my house but it's hard to find time to go

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

As far as I know, they don't sell them here. I could seriously go for some peanut butter goodness.

My grandmas chocolate chip cookies

To be honest I always miss these cookies. My grandma lives in California, but she makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. Everyone always says that their grandma makes the best cookies, but to be honest they haven't tasted heaven until they've tasted my grandmas.

Talking with my friends in the United States

for now I'm forced to video chat and use facebook but I miss you all!

Starbucks iced chai tea lattes

The only Starbucks that I know about is at the airport in panama city....8 hours away.

Driving

It's hard to go from having a car and having all that freedom, to now be depending on taxis or my host mom to bring me places.

most frustrating

While it would seem like the most frustrating thing about living in a foreign country would be speaking the language, for me it's getting to speak THEIR language. The minute I say "Soy de Los Estados Unidos" (I'm from the United States), the majority of people automatically switch over to English. Everyone wants to practice their English with me, and A LOT of people can speak it. I completely understand where they're coming from. To be honest if there was a foreign exchange student from Spain or Latin America in the US, I would want to speak spanish with them. I don't even mind when friends ask me questions here and there, or helping with English homework. I actually really enjoy helping people, but when people try to have full conversations with me it bothers me. I always talk back in Spanish, but people still talk to me in English. It gets annoying because I speak English every day of my life in the United States, and I didn't sign up for this program to speak more English. I don't think that's too crazy of a request. Sometimes I'm tempted to be like "I'm from a small town in africa and I speak my tribes special language," but I highly doubt anyone would believe that...especially with my thick North American accent. There's an exchange student from Japan here, and she doesn't speak English. I'm ridiculously jealous of her because everyone HAS to speak with her in Spanish. Of all the things that have changed and all the frustrations that I've had over the past 3 months, getting people to speak Spanish with me is sometimes the hardest thing to do.

I seriously need this shirt!

ACCEPTED TO AUBURN

I just got accepted to Auburn University! It's my other top choice. Oh my goodness what a wonderful week!

My lunch

Rice, potato salad, fish and a fried platano. mmmm

Pictures of my new school

I basically just stole these pictures from google but you get the drift. One day I'll bring in a camera and take real pictures of friends and my new uniform and my classroom and stuff. My dad saw these pictures and told me "it just looks so panamanian" which is true. It's VERY different from my school the the United States.

Halloween in Panama

Okay to be honest they sort of celebrate halloween. I was talking with some friends and they said "yeah sometime's there's parties and things, but we never wear costumes." Sometimes people wear hats, but it's nothing like Halloween in the United States. Friday there was a huge dance at my school. It wasn't connect with Halloween, but at least I got to go to a party! Basically there was this HUGE truck (like the kind that transports oil) filled with water, and men stood on top with enormous hoses and sprayed everyone while we danced. It looked at lot like this picture below. There were at on of people all squished together and we all danced and danced and were soaked and it was so much fun.

Today For actual Halloween I bought my brothers and I some goodies. I figured that I should bring a small part of Halloween to my brothers, so we had a small feast. We had:

ACCEPTED TO COLLEGE

My parents just called me and told me that I was accepted to East Carolina University! Aghh it's one of my top choices, if not the number one. BEST DAY EVER!

Update!!

It’s been a few weeks since my last blog post, and a LOT has happened. Unfortunately I was no longer able to continue living with the family I was first assigned to, and I changed families. Now I live with my new host brothers Edric (12 years old) and Ismael (16 years). I have a mother who works as a physiologist in the prison, holds aa classes, and is a teacher (impressive right?), and a grandmother who runs a catering business out of her house. She is such an amazing cook and she’s been teaching me how to cook a little. We’re always eating all kinds of amazing dishes that she prepares for clients, and makes extra for our meals as well.

I also changed schools. Now I am going to the school Colegio Felix Olivares Contreras, which is a public school. I go in the afternoons with Ismael which means that I wake up at 10:00 am or 10:30 am every day. I walk to school at 12:00 pm and have classes from 12:40 pm to 6:10 pm. I’ve become really close friends with another exchange student named from Austria. Every day Luca and I eat empanadas and talk about all kinds of interesting things. He’s really into politics and foreign affairs and the United States. His first choice for AFS was to go to the US, but the program was full and he ended up in Panama. We’ll talk for hours about US history and current events, and it’s really fun to hear the European view on things.

My brothers and I watch a lot of sports. We’ve watched almost every game in postseason for american baseball, although they’re yankees fans (whyyyy me?). We also watch a lot of bob esponja (spongebob) and the simpsons in spanish. I love watching spanish cartoons because they talk slower and I can understand almost everything.

A few weekends ago we went to Boquete. We ate lunch at a hotel that I knew my parents in the United States would absolutely love. It was contemporary looking and had the most beautiful garden outside, and they had live music. After we drove around for a little while, and then went to a German Bakery. I ate pineapple pie, which I think might just be gods best creation. I'll upload some pictures of Boquete some other time. I have them but I don't have the time right now. It was also raining a lot so I couldn’t take a lot of pictures, but it’s something. Boquete honestly could be the prettiest place on earth. I can’t really take good pictures yet with my camera so it’s hard to show, but I think even the best photographers in the world couldn’t convey Boquete’s beauty in a photo.

afs david in boquete

Saturday and Sunday I was in Boquete with all the of exchange students in David. We drove up Saturday afternoon and spent the night inside the house. We ate tacos, french fries, and meat with bbq sauce and then watched 3 movies in a row. I didn't go to bed until 4:30 am and I'm still EXHUASTED :)

On Sunday we woke up early and ate a breakfast of maíz, hojaldra (which is fried bread), corn flakes, papaya and pineapple. We then drove through the mountains of Boquete. I can't even explain how beautiful it was. Boquete is has a chillier climate, and it was raining so we got completely soaked. It didn't even matter though, if anything it made our trip more fun. I rode in the back of a truck with Celene, Maike and Luca and we couldn't believe how beautiful everything was. Pictures can't even show how tropical everything is. It actually is a tropical rainforest, and I couldn't stop thinking this is so different from Massachusetts.

I was actually terrified standing on this bridge. It was pretty rackety, although it's made to hold cars.

We passed by so many different waterfalls

The sign for the Volcano in Panamá

This wall was so impressive. It was so incredibly large that I couldn't fit it into the whole picture but that little dot standing there is me. If you click on the picture it gets larger.

A really gross waterslide

Luca from Austria, Celine and Maike from Germany, and Nan from Thailand.

Nan from Thailand studying spanish. Haha we're always studying here! Such nerds.

Luca from Austria...I caught him off guard

Karen from Iceland and Twilight in Icelandic

Saori from Japan (who doesn't speak a word of english so we only talk in spanish), and Katia who's a volunteer from Panamá