TheExpatJournals.com

I came home tonight determined to take the night off and just rest. I am sometimes feeling exhausted less than two hours after I get up, not a good thing. For one thing, I get so absorbed in what I’m doing that I tend to forget to take care of myself and one of the best things you can do for yourself anywhere, but especially here is drink lots and lots of water. It’s amazing how far that simple remedy can go in terms of energizing though I typically am more aware of its ability to diminish the lack of energy.
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I have written that what I love most about Casco Viejo is an intangible in the same way sparks fly when two people meet. You can’t put that in words that can adequately explain it, but you sure know it when you feel it. (more…)

It’s been nearly 7 months since I took my apartment in Casco Viejo.To recap, for the better part of a year, I researched Panama and was absolutley smitten from afar. By the time I came down to spend a month exploring, I felt like I knew the place fairly well; it was just a matter of seeing and experiencing the information accumulated in my head, making it real as it were.
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I have been an insomniac/night owl my entire life. Even when I was a teenager, `they’ attempted to put me on sleeping pills. I didn’t like taking pills, the day-after-groggies rendered the price of admission too steep. And fuhgeddaboutit in NYC…my typical bedtime was anywhere from 4AM to 7:30AM. I seem to be very sensitive to my environment and there is no greater fuel than NYC for the busy brain syndrome. Perhaps it’s a `grass is greener’ thing, but I always wanted a morning and always felt deprived of it. So it is nothing short of miraculous to me that, for the first time in my life, I can go actually go to sleep with no trouble whatsoever. I have never been able to do that…never! And I wake up early here. I finally have a morning!

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