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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Whales, Waves and Chicks

This is what we saw on our walk on the beach yesterday. We have seen numerous whales in last couple of months, but none like this yesterday. It really is a spectacle to see. It's nice seeing the natives get excited as well when they appear and do their show for us all to see.


Wow is all I have to say about this picture
 
The waves on the beach were also something to see as well. I am sure they were at least 30 feet high at times. There were no others on the beach and it really makes one feel small seeing all of this.



Its been quite a while since I have written. Our home is coming along nicely and we have been extremely busy trying to coodinate everything at our end. It's quite overwhelming at times. If you follow my blogs you are aware that Don and I brought NOTHING down in the way of furniture, household items, etc. 
It's quite difficult now that we are almost ready to move in to gather up and FIND all of the things that we will need when you are in a foreign land, so to speak. It's not like you can just jump in your car and head off to Home Depot or Canadian Tire, or Supercentre and buy all of the necessities. Here we need to drive for an hour or more and even then it's hard to find things like outdoor furniture, linens etc. You really need to go into Panama City which is, with all of the construction on the highways, about a four and a half hour drive from here, and it's a CITY which neither Don and I are fans of going to.
Nonetheless we managed to go to Santiago yesterday which is about a two hour drive and found a 'Do It Centre' which we managed to find and luckily got to buy a lot of things that we will need including dishes, tools, dehumidifier, wheelbarrow, etc. It was easy to drop almost $700 there in less than half an hour. It's fun buying all new things though, even though I absolutely HATE shopping.
So they are saying that we can move into our home on Sunday. They will have our bedroom ready and the kitchen will be functional. There are lots of things to be finished but we figure it's better to live there as it is than to stay here renting.
As long as we have a bed and a fridge, that is all we need.



Taken October 25th, 2011
 Speaking of mattresses, again if you have followed my blogs, you will remember my story of going to Chitre to try and find a mattress and going through all of the 'trying out' of mattresses and having to put up with the likes of the 'Miss Panamanians', lol, we came across this guy who was in one of the stores trying to get his line of mattresses in their store, and seeing as none of the salespeopl spoke English, it was a great relief to meet "Miguel" who spoke fluent English and who helped us get our thoughts and questions through to them.
Anyway it turned out that we actually ended up working with Miguel, deciding to order two mattresses from him from his store in Panama City.
Now he didn't have any website on his store and we had only met him that one time in the store in Chitre, but being the way we are we sent him a cheque for almost $1600 last week for these mattresses that we 'hoped' we would eventually see.
Everyone here laughed at us and thought we were nuts to have done this, but low and behold on Saturday the arrived. Just what we ordered.
You see, you need to have faith, and a strong heart, lol.

Dons shoes

A month ago or so you will remember me telling you about Don leaving his shoes on the beach when we started our walk. As we were coming back we passed this family. There were Mom and Dad and six children walking along. It's seldom that you see anyone on the beach, so we remember this family very well.  
As we walked past them and got to where Don had left his clogs, they were gone!
We knew it had to be this family as I said there had been noone else waling the beach at this particular time.
Now these clogs were very expensive too. He paid $3.99 for them at a local store :)
They were distinct also as one was missing the back strap.
Well yesterday Don was driving down the main street of town, and sure enough, there was the Father with Don's shoes on, lol.
He felt good in a way that the man now had a pair of these very expensive 'used' shoes to now wear.
Bringing us back to reality again, and putting things in proper perspective!

New Speigel Store

There is also a new 'Speigel' store now open in Chitre that we went to the other day.
Now you have read my blog on Security in stores, but this store has it beat with the number of staff working in it.
My God!
When we got there we were the only ones in the store and we counted sixteen staff of which three kept following us around, mumbling something to us at all times.
I was looking for sheets for our mattresses that came, lol, and evertime I would look at one, and pull it out of the shelf to look at it, the salesgirl would tell me what it is. Now I am able to read English.
They had 'king and queen' clearly written on them, but she insisted on telling me each and every time I looked them.
The other two of them were following her and for what reason I had no idea.
Each time I would pull out a set of sheets and put them back, she would go and make sure they were lined up exactly as they were. 
It go so annoying, so I just went along and pulled out as many as I could so she would have something to keep her busy, lol.
I kept saying 'vamos', which I thought was 'leave us alone' in Spanish, but it didn't work.
Geez.
Needless to say we walked out with nothing.
Oh, forgot to mention that of course we had Sadie with us the whole time and at one time we forgot her and looked around to find one of the salespeople bringing her to us on her leash, lol. She's always with us and getting a bit sick of shopping I must say, lol.


Chicks for Sale!

We found this store in Santiago that was kind of like a hardward store in North America but they also sold young chicks. They were so cute and they sold them for $.50 for the yellow ones and $.60 for the black ones. Not sure of the difference, but there was a man there who picked out three of them and placed them in a paper bag that already had holes put in it.
This was the cutest thing I hve ever seen. Well almost....the Whales were probably the best. 



AHHHHHHHHHH

Venao Beach

We drove out to Venao Beach the other day for lunch and stopped by this little restaurant/Cantina that we have always wanted to go to.
The owner showed us three little rooms that are probably no more than 200 square feet with room for a small bed with of course a toilet and shower that he is building overlooking the ocean with an an incredible view. Of course they will all three have air conditioning and a television, lol
They will be ready next week and he is renting them for $50.00 per night including a continental breakfast and a fishing trip at a nominal fee.
Such a nice place to hang your hat for a day or two.


View from the Room
The Restaurant owned by Toti
Beer for $.75 and a Rum and Coke for $.60 :)

Tonight we are having a saleperson from Panama City come to meet us at our home to measure for blinds for all of our windows.
There are so many windows and doors that I am not looking forward to the price.
It really is fun watching our home being built and looking forward to actually getting to live there and wake up each morning to see the Ocean and hopefully whales.
The Whale season is slowing drawing to a close so we will soon have to be content with watching the cargo ships cruising by and now the cruise ships are starting to sail by.
Ahhh the life!! 
Somebody has to do it! It might as well be me :)

Take good care my friends,stay safe and healthy and remember to 'Stay in the Light'

If you would like to read more on Panama please go to the link below.
He has a great site filled with thousands of articles in English.








  

 








  

  









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