Iglesia de San Felipe

We went to Portobelo 2 days after the festival celebrating The Saint (more commonly known as the Black Christ

The block surrounding the church was covered with street vendors, selling rosaries, trinkets, food.

Ahh. A sign that I'm not too far from home after all.

 This is the bridge for the Gatun Locks

Here is a ship waiting to pass as we went over the bridge.

Here's the water level view of a lock.

Cinco Cinco Cinco

 Here are my lovely co-workers that attended the UN Day cook-out. 

After lunch, there was a raffle with tons of door prizes. I didn't win anything, but I now am very confident in my ability to recognize 3 digit numbers.

Yes. That's only a chain link fence separating us from the leopard.

Last friday, I was a happy taste tester of a brownie making contest. One of these was healthy. One was the bomb diggity. One had a super-special secret ingredient. One was homemade. Which is which? Which won?

Spoons.

With a twist.

Keeping the spoons on the table is for novices. We hid them.

These are homemade patecones and fried empanadas. -you can buy empanadas ready to cook in any supermarket here.

This is Cha siu bao

I have now experienced a chinese breakfast. Chinese buffets have nothing on this amazing brunch. This is a picture of my favorite dish. It's a super light sweet rice-dough roll with pork in the middle. Yum!

Este es la vista Panama City en la noche. Que linda!

What would have happened if El Salvador had won?

The Stadium was full of Panamanian pride. Futbol matches are taken very seriously. It's national pride at stake and fans can be outrageous.

I went to watch the game with some proud El Salvadorians. We were 20 in a very small section and the rest of the stadium was a sea of red. Best line of the night: DON'T loose the gringas wearing blue at this game.

The game itself was very exciting but what stuck out to me the most was the fierce  national rivalry.   Apparently, El Salvador knocked Panama out of the running for the World Cup qualifiers. 

The policemen that came in the last five minutes of the game to guard us put on his helmet in preparation for the end of the game chaos. It was peaceful though. I think everyone had run out of beer to throw. The police still had to escort us out of the stadium.

 My friend Gracie and her friend Peatrie (hiding in the purse) were nervous for the end of the game. We were pelted with cups of beer from the balcony at the beginning of the second half for wearing blue when PANAMA scored. We were also told by a few of the braver fans where to stick it in very colorful language  that currently is not in my vocabulary so the insults fell on deaf ears. I dunno what would have happened if El Salvador had scored.

Happy 90th Birthday Paw Paw!!

It's wonderful when any part of the clan can get together.  Happy Birthday PawPaw and Aunt Diane! I hope everyone enjoys the weekend together. I'm there in spirit. Love you guys. 

Seatbelts are only required by law in the front seat. Therefore, if we are going somewhere and someone has  a car, we crowd in like sardines in a can. Chinese Firedrills aren't so popular down here. Can't imagine why.

Este es la Festival National de la Mejorana. Unfortunately, I still don't know what the mejorana is because we were not able to stay at the festival very long and it was late, and rainy. But, there were lots of neat little craft booths and tipica performers all around.

Oof! look at all that food!