TheExpatJournals.com

Well, it feels akin to that in-between hair stage on this board right now. There are lots of things happening in the neighborhood, but I’m not well enough informed to actually write about any of it.
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Well, part of me is hesitant to write about Portobelo because I’d like it to remain the irrelevant that it seems to be. Portobelo. I loved it! If there were internet, I’d move!
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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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It started at 7:15AM and just never stopped all day. A crew of five clearing stuff out of the apartment above me…bang, bang, banging and every move accompanied by yelling and yelling that echoed through the stairwells and courtyard bouncing into the apartment as though it were happening in here, not up there. I wanted to scream at the constant noise level. So I did. Just screamed and cursed in English for awhile. No louder than anybody else around here. I finally realized I could never work in this and went to a movie. The cab driver picked someone else up on the way and then basically yelled at him the whole way over. When I sat in the theater, they talked all around me in spite of the ‘looks.’
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I’m gonna ramble, so bear with me… It is HOT during the day, clear and beautiful, but hot. Seems the average daytime high now is 90-92. And because we’re in the tropics, the sun feels far more intense than 92 degrees felt in NYC. I walk in
the shade. I use the air conditioning every day.
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I love New York City, but I sure like me a lot better when I’m not in it.

This will be a bit unusual for my Panama Chronicles as it pertains almost exclusively to departing the US with finality. Many people have asked me how I landed in Panama or ‘Why Panama?’ and there’s not really a simple answer.

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