DONE!

So today we gave our final presentations. We're done with the 99% of the Panama course. Besides working on the ENVS paper and editing everyone's biology papers I'm done. It's such a strange feeling....
The presentations did remind me of how much I miss Panama though. Even though I was so ready to come home at the end of our time there I'm finding that I really do miss it there.
That's all I really have to say. I'm glad this semester went so well and that our final presentations went pretty smoothly. I don't think anyone really reads this any more anyways, but I felt like it deserved some closure.
So yeah. It's been great fun blog, thanks for letting me write you. Farewell!!

A Day in the Life

I wrote this while I was still in Panama and it was relevant. But for those of you that care, here's what an average day was like at La MICA!

A Day in the Life

So I’ve realized that every post I’ve done so far have been about the extraordinary events of my trip in Panama. I was thinking the other day and decided maybe doing a day in the life kind of thing about my everyday life here in Panama.

Well here goes nothing…

♫♫♫♫♫ Wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head ♫♫♫♫♫

Heehee. But really....

Everyone generally starts waking up at around 6:30, because they’re crazy and we go to be super early (around 10 or so). I personally usually refuse to actually get out of bed until 7:15, 7:30 if I can. I get up, brush my hair, change, then walk around the building to our outside living room/dining room/classroom/ hangout room. By the time I’m up most people are awake and breakfast has been brought in. Breakfast usually consists of some kind of cereal, milk (which comes in boxes, is highly pasteurized, warm, and either whole milk of skim, neither of which are my personal chose, but what can you do), and something from the bakery, like the sweet bread (essentially super sweet cornbread) or some kind of cookie. If we’re lucky we get fried things, like empanadas, tortillas (which are my favorite, they’re not like Mexican tortillas, they’re thick and crispy), or some kind of fried dough that’s like a doughnut without sugar. Lately we’ve been getting eggs, either hard boiled or uncooked so we can make them how ever we’d like on out little propane powered stove. Mmmm breakfast. For awhile we weren’t getting enough food, so if you weren’t up by 7 you wouldn’t get anything to eat, thus everyone getting up super early, but that problems been resolved now :D

After breakfast people generally start to break off and do whatever they need to get done that day. Some people go into El Cope to go to the Chino mart and buy stuff; to go to Julie’s to work on their project, etc. Some people go to the park to work on their projects. There’s usually a chiva to take us up there around 8 or 8:30 depending on the day. Other people just choose to stay at LA Mica and do work there, or sit and do nothing. At the beginning of the trip I used to go to the park every day, but lately we haven’t needed to go as much during the day, so I’ve been staying at LA Mica and working on stuff here. I usually read or play on my computer, but I’ve finally run out of reading material.... Lately we’ve actually busted out lots of games, like Bananagrams and various card games. I’m not sure why it’s taken us so long to get them out to play, since it was within the last few weeks that it’s happened, but I’m glad we’ve finally gotten them out cause it’s a lot of fun to play! Between 12 and 1 lunch comes, varying from Panamanian soup with plantains, yucca, and some kind of meat, to grilled cheese sandwiches. So we eat then continue doing whatever we were doing before. Days at LA Mica are generally boring and nothing super exciting happens.

Let’s say it’s a day we chose to go to the park instead of stay at LA Mica. This means we leave LA Mica about 15 minutes before the chiva is supposed to be here, since it takes about that long to walk the trail out. We get there, hop on the chiva, then ride it the super bumpy, jerky, steep 45 minute ride up to the park, nonchalantly holding on for dear life. Once there we decide on a time for lunch (which is PB&J sandwiches, sometimes chips, and usually cookies of some kind), then head out to our various projects. Me and Leslie go to our transects then slowly walk them looking for frogs. It usually takes us about 2 or 3 hours to do one of our transects, so then it’s time for lunch. Sometimes after lunch we go home, especially when it’s raining and we’re soaked and freezing. Sometimes we stay and walk our other transect, which we generally have less luck with because the day time frogs like the morning hours, not the afternoon…. Eventually we head back to LA Mica where we hang out for a bit until dinner, then usually head back out to the park after dinner for more research. We then do the same thing we did during the day, only it’s dark and we can’t see. We also have to watch out for snakes and various other biting venomous things that we might step on or touch, cause that would be bad. The park at night is fun though, besides the fact that I’m terrified of what could be out behind me in the dark ;D

We usually end up back at LA Mica a bit after midnight, then have to quietly get ready for bed without waking up all the sleeping people, since they went to bed several hours ago. It’s good times. I like it. We then go to bed and do it all over again the next day!

So yeah… That’s just a general overview of my day to day life in Panama!

I'm home!!

So now we're back in the U.S. and trying to get back into the swing of things. I have now taken 6 hot showers, that's right, I've been keeping track. :D I also think that everything is way too expensive here since the low prices in Panama have ruined my outlook on prices in the U.S. forever... :(
I have also been to two doctors who have assured me that the horrible rash I developed in my last week in Panama is not contagious, nor is it ringworm. It is in fact, a hypersensitive reaction to insect bites, leading to the release of too much histamine, thus the rash wherever anything touches my skin... It's wonderful... But now I have steroids to make it all better!! So yay United States and modern medicine!!!

The last few weeks in Panama were pretty brutal. I was exhausted from all the physical activity, homesick cause I missed Easter, and covered in the before mentioned rash. It all worked out in the end though and the last week was pretty productive. Well lets back track a minute. We had free days at the end of Holy Week, which turned out to be the worst idea ever. In case you didn't know this it is nearly impossible to travel in Panama during Holy Week. Me, Dan, and Leslie tried to go back to El Valle to help out at the frog center for a few days. We had absolutely no problem getting to El Valle, but once we got there we found out we had no place to stay and they didn't need our help. So we turned around to leave, only to find that once we got back out to the Entrada and onto the Interamericana there were no buses to take us the direction we wanted to go. So we waited for 2 hours trying to catch a bus, then had to turn back around and go back to El Valle where Heidi had magically found a room for us to stay in for the night. We then stayed the night, woke up, then it took us almost 4 hours to finally catch a bus out of El Valle and back to El Cope, but we got out and that's all that matter. Oh that was such a stressful time. I feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it...

Other than that our last few days in Panama were rather uneventful. Me and Leslie finished up our research. Chad took us out on our last night and we went adventuring through the forest to find a pond that had red eyed tree frogs. They were so cute!! And it really was an adventure since the path to the pond was all overgrown and we had to whack trees out of the way and explore off the path to find a way. It was exciting! We also saw a few really cool snakes, which made Chad's night, but then it started raining so our biology fun was ruined and we had to go back. It was a sad chiva ride back from the park that night. My last chiva ride... Maybe my last chiva ride ever!

So that was all the exciting stuff. We had a talent show on Tuesday then left early on Wednesday morning to go to Panama City and do some shopping and go to the mall, which was wonderful. I bought nice clean clothes to wear home. Then showered and got all clean when we got to Gamboa. It was wonderful to be clean and not have to worry about getting covered in dirt again 5 seconds after being clean. I still love the feeling. I'm not used to it yet.

But yeah, then we flew on the plane (which we almost missed) from Panama to Miami, and Miami home! I attacked my mom at the airport and her and my sister almost didn't recognize me because I was so tan. :D

It's good to be home and I find that I really did miss it. I've adjusted back to life here better than I thought I would, but I still have to stop myself from talking to people in Spanish and waving at all the cars I see. It's strange to adjust but I'm getting there. Happy day! Yay being home!

Frog time!

So not too much has happened since last week. We had a birthday party with a terrifyingly cool pinata (we think it was some kind of goat-moose creature), and I spend my free days in the park helping the lizard people with their project. We actually spent all day one day and spent the night the next night working on their project. It was super exciting actually. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Wednesday we went on one of out marathon excursions around Panama. First we went to a sugar refinery, which was an interesting experience. The smell was horrible and it was very hot in the factory. We actually spent more time listening to the tour guide talk then looking at the factory. It got kind of old very quickly, but the actual factory was a cool experience.

After the sugar refinery we had lunch in Aguadulce. Then after that we went to one of the oldest churches in the Americas. It was a really cool old church, go figure ;D
Once we left the church we went to El Cano, an archeological dig site that's open to the public. They had a pretty cool little museum with artifacts and also have these stone pillars in a field that they're not sure what they were actually used for. The cool part though was the 5 skeletons they have in one of the old excavation sites. They're pretty nifty! All the artifacts are from one of the old Panamanian indigenous tribes. It was a pretty cool day, exhausting though...


So I've saved the best for last. So on Monday (we went back in time for a minute) we went to El Valle, which is about 3 hours away from El Cope (where we live). It's a real touristy kinda town with a market in the middle of town, but it's nice and small and I really like it. The best part of this place is in the zoo. The El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center is located in the zoo and is working to save the frogs! We went as a group and explored for most of the day then me, Dan, and Leslie spent the night and helped out at the cent the next day. I got to clean the cages of the Golden Frog and I was so excited! They're such pretty frogs and they watch you while you feed them and clean their cages. I love them so much and I love getting to help out here.


I love it so much actually that I came back for my free days! So right now the same group of us are helping out again. We can into town yesterday and are leaving tomorrow. Today we get to clean out some cages, which means I actually get go hold the frogs. So exciting!!
The other great part about El Valle is the fact that we get to stay in our own little house. It's just a really nice little house and I love it. I'm not sure why, but I do.


Well I'm having issues conveying my excitement in writing so I'm gonna go and hopefully today will be awesome!!

So the other day was the halfway point of our stay here in Panama. I think that means we have like... 3 more weeks here or something? Which is crazy. I don't feel like I've had any time to actually work on my project and am starting to get rather stressed about getting it all done...
Any way last week when we left Panama City we headed back to La MICA. Once we got back it was super muddy and the trail to La MICA was terrible and I didn't like it. When it's muddy I fall down lots and it's horrible. There's this horrible hill that we have to walk down and I fall down every time it's muddy and it makes me sad.. So many pants ruined...

Moving on from that. We spent a few days hanging out at La MICA, doing homework, going to the park, etc. It was super rainy so nothing exciting happened since all the animals hide when it rains... We were supposed to go to Santa Marta on Sunday, a community in the mountains that has no electricity. Alas it was raining too much and the road was bad so we couldn't get through. So we spent the day fixing up the trails around La MICA and now most of them are very nice. :D
We left for Santa Marta on Monday instead and that was exciting. It was a scary chiva ride on the side of the mountain and was bumpy and twisty and mostly up hill... Good times...
Once we got there we were paired up with families to stay with since we were doing home stays. We awkwardly stood by our family and tried to talk to them for a bit until we had to go help make backpacks for the kids, since Tuesday was their first day of school. It was chaotic, but we got it done.

Once that was over we went home with our families and sat awkwardly around for a bit. The first day we were all scared to speak Spanish and had trouble understanding our family, but by Friday when we left we were very comfortable there and it was much easier to make conversation. I feel like my Spanish is way better now than it was when we first got there. Yay Spanish skills!


Wednesday was one of the worse days of my life. I'm not gonna lie. They made us walk up a mountain, without informing us of how much walking we would be doing and how much water we would need. The first part of the hike was ok and the views were wonderful, but the second part was terrible. We pretty much hiked straight up a mountain for 3 hours... And we we got to the top it was very disappointing. It was the plane that crashed in the 80's killing Omar Torrijos, beloved general in Panama. It was half a plane and not worth the hike. I was so tired at the top that I was crying and it ruined my mood for the rest of the trip. Stupid plane... I don't wanna talk about it any more...


Moving on. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We did have a fiesta on Thursday night. And they made us dance with the Panamanians from the town. It was kinda awkward. Nothing like being wrapped in the arms of a Panamanian man who's a foot shorter than you! It was fun though. :D

Oh! I forgot to mention that we went and saw some awesome waterfalls! I they were so, so pretty. And we jumped off of the rocks on the side of them, which was super fun!! Yay waterfalls!

It's been pretty uneventful since we got from Santa Marta. We swabbed so frogs, wrote down what they were. I got kinda homesick, but other than that not too exciting.
(Cool frog we found. He's blue and orange :D)

Oh yeah. It's my birthday, I guess that's exciting! I got jello last night as an early present from Julie. She also made me a nice card. And now I have internet! It's a good day.

I'm gonna go be productive now!!! Wooh internet!!!

Trapped in a Tourist Trap

*Warning: Contents of this post might be exaggerations of actual events*

So this morning me and Hanna decided it my be fun to go and check out a place called Mi Pueblito, which sounded like it would be pretty cool. It said it had replicas of Indigenous housing and other Panamanian houses. So we got into a taxi and headed over there to check it out.

Driving there I noticed we had to go through the shady part of town and started to get nervous about the exact location of this place. Once we got there though it was a safe distance from the scary part of town all by itself on one side of the highway. We got out and quickly realized we were pretty much the only people there and the workers were still working on getting everything set up for the day. We walked around, slightly disappointed in what we were seeing, but determined to make the best of it.

We soon realized that this place was really just a giant tourist trap. Literally. It was up away from the main road, which was a giant highway. If you don't know anything about Panamanian highways, or roads in general, they're pretty terrifying since Panamanian drivers drive like maniacs and blatantly ignore all traffic laws. So we decided trying to cross the highway or trying to get a taxi down there would be scary and we didn't feel quite up to it right then. So we explored around a bit more and found the indigenous housing, which turned out to be a fake Kuna Yala. It was interesting since we had just been to the real Kuna Yala. It was really weird since it was just a super fake version of the place we had just been, which made me uncomfortable. Also we found the "ocean" on the other side of Kuna Yala and realized that we were quite trapped in that direction.

After looking at the horribly fake Kuna Yala we explored down a forest path and found more buildings, also a fence. We once again realized that we were totally and completely trapped in this area with no hope of escaping. At this moment of great despair fake natives came from the forest and captured us. They threw us into a giant cage, which was full of signs that there had been captives there before. With all hope lost we settled into our captivity, praying some one would save us.

Low and behold! Harrison Ford (a strange, but sexy, mix of Han Solo and Indiana Jones) runs up, whip cracking, blasters blazing to the rescue. He swept us into his arms then ran us down the hill where a taxi, driven by Panamanian Samuel Jackson (cause Morgan Freeman was busy), was waiting. The fake natives were in hot pursuit with poison dart blow guns, but they were no match for Harrison Ford. As we drove out off, leaving Harrison Ford to fight off the natives we yelled "We love you!" to which he responded, "I know," as he was over run by natives. When we looked behind us Worf and Bashir (from Star Trek) ran out of the forest phasers blasting. We hoped they would be able to help Harrison Ford and save the day.

(My excitement upon seeing Worf there to rescue us)

Panamanian Samuel Jackson then drove us the Natural History Museum, which was pretty cool. We looked at all the stuffed animals and saw lots of really cool ones. There was a terrifying room filled with animals from Africa that looked like they would come alive at any moment. We slowly backed out of the room, only to find the door was blocked, by Harrison Ford, Worf and Julian Bashir. They live!! We were so excited we could hardly contain our joy. So we ran back to the hotel to share the news with the world, hand in hand with the sexy men.

Bashir. My hero.

2 weeks worth of adventures

I've just realized that it's been about a week and a half since my last blog update. A lot, and also not a lot has happened since then. Like right now I'm in a hotel in Panama City, after going to Gamboa, Kuna Yala, back to Gamboa, then home to El Cope for a few days. Now I'm back in Panama City, but I'll get to that later.

So when I updated last time I was on my way to Kuna Yala. That was an interesting time. From Penonome, where I last used the internet, we rode 2 more hours to Gamboa, where we stayed the night. We stayed in a really snazzy place that was old army housing turned into a hotel type thing. The guy that owned it does bird tours and apparently owed some favors to Marc? So we got to stay there for cheap. It wasn't really even all that snazzy, but it had indoor showers, flush toilets, air conditioning, and pillows. We were all so excited you'd think we had never seen civilization before... Even though it had only been a week and a half.

Gamboa was nice, but the stay was really short. We got there Monday evening then left at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday. We got picked up by some Kuna people that were friends with Marc in 3 four wheel drive vehicles for all 25 of us. We were pretty jam packed into that car. There were 3 people in the back back seat, 4 in the middle, and one up front, plus the driver. That car ride was one of the most terrifying events of my life. The highway was fine, but the actual drive through the mountains to the ocean was horrible. The road was gravel, with cliffs and drop offs, also through a river, and also up a mountain. We were flying down the road super, super fast and it was so scary and I felt really sick...

Once that horrible, horrible car ride was over though we were at the ocean. We got into giant canoe, that fit all 25 of us plus our luggage, and boated to the island we were staying on. Lordy lou, the island we stayed on was pretty much paradise. White sand, turquoise water, palm trees, you name it and this island had it. We each got our own private tent so we could sleep on the beach where ever we wanted. It was super nice. We spent most of Tuesday playing on the beach and swimming. Ah, so nice.


In the afternoon we went over to Garti, which is the main island in of Kuna Yala where the General Congress is. We were greeted by the Congress and accepted into Kuna Yala. We then explored the island (so we walked back and forth 3 times down the 2 main roads, it's a very tiny island) and shopped a bit. I bought some pretty cool molas (the Kuna women use them as shirts, but mine are just decorative). The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We just went back to our island and hung out for the rest of the night.

Wednesday we took a horrible boat tour of the bay. We drove straight across the bay for an hour, looked at some mangroves, which were pretty cool and would have been cool if we weren't roasting in the tropical sun. We were on the boat for 4 hours and it was hot and my butt hurt from sitting on the wooden benches...
The rest of Wednesday was better though. I just sat around and read The Other Boleyn Girl. It's a good book, I recommend it. It made me feel better after that boat ride. Also the beautiful beach I was on.

Thursday was the Kuna's independence day. They gained autonomy from Panama on February 25, 1925. So every year they do a reenactment of it. So we spent all morning watching those. It was really interesting, but I don't speak Spanish, or Kuna, so I had no idea what was going on the majority of the time. Eventually though the Kuna people kicked the Panamanian police out and won independence! Ooo! I forgot the part where they picked Chris (one of the guys on the trip) to be Mr. Marsh, an American that "helped" the Kuna get their independence. He didn't really do anything important, but the Kuna glorify him, and it was funny to watch Chris get dragged all over the island in the reenactment.

After the reenactment all the Kuna people go into what we're going to call the "vice hut" and drink chicha beer and smoke. Chicha is a very interesting drink. It's made from coffee, sugar, and rice. The alcohol is very strong tasting... Its kinda like coffee in wine mixed together? I didn't really care for it and was rude and didn't finish the bowl the was given to me. It was too strong! Bleh xP

After spending most of the afternoon in the vice hut we went back to our island and once again did nothing for the rest of the night. We looked at the tide pools on our island, which were cool, but otherwise we did nothing productive. Oh! It was really scary for a while though. The people that were making our food were headed back from the main island at dinner time and their boat flipped. They didn't find them for several hours, but they're all ok now. It was very scary...

The boat flipping was the start of our horrible night... At about 11:45 I woke up because the wind was blowing and the flaps of my tent were flapping like they were going to fall off. So I closed them and tried to go back to sleep. 20 minutes later the heavens opened up and it POURED down rain for about half an hour. Fun thing about sleeping in tents, they leak. The water started coming into my tent and soon everything at the foot of my tent was soaked. I put my towel down there to stop the water and that seemed to work. It finally stopped and I was able to go back to sleep....For another 2 hours, when it happened again. This time the water got my mattress pad wet up to my knees... It then rained once every 2 hours the rest of the night. It was terrible. We were all soaked in the morning. That night was one of the most miserable nights of my life.
Good times good times...

Well we left after that horrible night of rain storms. We had to go across the stormy ocean in our canoe (which seemed so much smaller with the waves as been as they were) and I was comforted the entire time by Chris telling us all what to do in case the boat turned over. Thanks. It was very comforting...
No worries, we made it back all safe and sound. We then rode out the super fun road to/from Kuna Yala back to Panama City, where we went on a tour. The tour was ok, but the bus windows were tinted and it was hard to see out of them. Also we got there late so we didn't get to see very much. We did go to the Panama Canal, which I thought was awesome. We watched a boat go through then got to play in the museum before we were herded back to the bus.
The other cool part of the tour was the church with the giant gold alter that was the only gold pirate Henry Morgan did not steal from Panama City when he sacked it. We also went to the ruins of Panama City, which were pretty cool.


That night we went back to Gamboa. It was nice, again to have a real shower and a comfy bed. We went to Panama City the next day, on public bus, which was super exciting. Public transportation is really cheap and efficient here, which is really awesome. It's $0.65 for an hour bus ride from Gamboa to Panama City. I got Pizza Hut in the bus terminal and it was amazing. I'd been craving pizza for a while, so it was a happy day. Also very stressful cause we had a very short amount of internet time... It got nothing accomplished, but was very stressed for the 30 minutes I was on the internet.
To end our Kuna Yala adventure we headed back to El Cope and finally got back to La MICA. I really, really missed it there while we were gone and it was good to be "home."

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. I started getting sick on Sunday so I didn't do much. Also it rained, which makes doing research outside on frogs nearly impossible so we didn't go out and look for them. On Monday I spent almost all day in the Park (Omar Torrijos National Park, where I'm doing my research) looking for frogs and swabbing them. We captured and swabbed 13 but saw more. And we were there from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., then again from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. It was a good day for finding frogs!!

Tuesday afternoon our free day started and Hanna, Jackie, and I headed to Panama City while almost every one else headed to Boquete, which is in the north. They're gonna climb a volcano.
We're staying in a nice air conditioned hotel with flush toilets and a shower, with internet, and going to museums. Getting to Panama City is actually pretty easy. We just hopped on a bus in Cope that took us to Penonome, where we got on another bus that took us to the bus terminal in Panama City. It's really cheap too. Only $6 to take us half way across the country.


Me and Hanna actually went to 2 museums today (the Emerald Museum and the Panama History Museum) and wandered around Casco Viejo for most of the day today. It was really nice. It's very freeing to be able to travel around a foreign country in a super small group. I feel accomplished that we could move around with relative easiness here when neither of us are fluent in Spanish. Score one for the gringos!!

So now we're just chilling in the hotel, probably gonna go find so food later. I'm just glad I could check in!!

P.S.--We saw a cab driver today that looks like a Panamanian Morgan Freeman. It was super exciting.

Quick quick update

So we´re headed to Kuna Yala and stoped in Penonome at the internet cafe place and I have like 10 minutes to update about whats been going on since whenever it was we were here last.

This week seems like it´s been alot longer than it really is and I feel like I´ve been in Panama for at least a month. I´ve finally gotten used to my mosquito net being around my bed and no longer wake up freaking out about the weird presence surrounding my bed.

The food is also still good. I haven´t been sick or anything, hopefully that fact won´t change when we get to Kuna Yala. Have I mentioned we´re staying on our own private island in Kuna Yala and camping on the beach for a few days? Be jealous. I´ll let everyone know how that works out next time I have the internet, probably on our way back to El Cope.

I also found my first frog this week when we went out on Saturday night looking for them. I can´t remember which kind it is but I took pictures and will put those on when I have my laptop to use instead of this shady computer. It was so tiny and cute. I was so proud. I found a few more Saturday too. It seems like I have an eye for it, so at least I´m decent at what my project is!

Oh! Forgot to mention how much time I´ve been spending down by the swimming hole and the river. Swimming down there is super fun, especially when we try to swim past the part with the really fast current, it´s super fun. It´s also a really nice place to go and read since I can take off my boots for once and my feet can be free!! I also tried to help Dan catch lizards down there for his project a few times, but all we find are terrible giant spiders that are big enough to eat babies :(

Well that´s all for now I think. Sorry that´s really scatter brained, but I don´t have much time!!!!

I'm in Panama!

Here I am sitting in an internet cafe in Panama trying to come up with something to blog about. I should have a lot since it feels like the past day has taken about a week, but there's so much I don't know where to start. I guess I can start at the beginning maybe?

So Tuesday morning I wake up at 3 in morning to go to the airport and catch the flight to Panama. It was an experience too. Like I said before I've never been on an airplane, so the airport was slightly terrifying. I got through all the ticket stuff ok and checked my luggage (terrified that I would never see it again) and headed to security, where I sadly had to say good bye to my parents. It was as terrible as I thought it was going to be, I got through saying bye without crying, so I consider that a victory. Security went ok and airport and blah blah blah I finally got on the plane. It was pretty cool until there was some kind of luggage scanning machine failure and we had to wait and extra 30 minutes before take off. The whole plane thing was fun and I slept most of the way to Miami. When we got to Miami, thanks to our late flight, we only had 20 minutes to get to our connection to Panama so the 17 of us pretty much ran through the Miami airport. It was exciting. The rest of the airplane stuff was ok, it was bumpy and I read proposals the whole time. Good times.

Finally we got over Panama, which was really exciting. We got off and it was humid and muggy and just like I thought it would feel. Customs was easy and when we got out Marc and the Kansas City kids were waiting for us with a bus, juice boxes and sandwiches. The juice was the best juice I'd ever had, probably because I was super thirsty after the plane ride. I still can't get over the fact that I can get on a plane in snow covered St. Louis then get off 6 hours later in an entirely different place... It's so weird...

After we all piled into the bus we then drove 3 hours to El Cope. Cars driving past and people on the sides of the roads looked at us like we were the craziest thing they had ever seen, probably because we had a pile of luggage about 10 feet high on top of our bus :D

Skipping over a few hours of bus ride we finally got to El Cope a few hours before it got dark. We then made a mad dash/hike to La MICA, which is 15 minutes up a trail in the rainforest. I realized that there is nothing like a hike through the rainforest to show you have how of shape you are... And I've decided I'm really out of shape... I feel like the hiking part is already getting easier, so thats good.

Moving on, we got all of our stuff into La MICA. It was carried in by a group of people from El Cope and they walked the trail making us feel really dumb... We then had dinner, which was delicious, like all the other meals we've had. Oh! During dinner the power generator went out, which was fun cause we all made a mad dash to find our flashlights and headlamps. We then ate dinner by headlamp, which was a new experience.

Not much else happened Tuesday besides sleep, so I'll move on. I'm starting to feel a routine going on now. Wake up really early, eat breakfast, grab stuff, go adventuring. We went and looked at the swimming hole and it was beautiful. It's breathtaking... Sadly pictures don't do it justice.
On a very Courtney note I fell down a hill while standing still in camp yesterday... I've cut my leg pretty bad and it's all bruised... so yup. I injure myself on the first day :D

Yesterday we got the tour of El Cope and the Park. El Cope seems like a nice little town, but we really only looked at where the Chino mart (where we can buy food and snacks and drinks) and a few other places like that. We ate lunch in Julies yard, then took chivas to the national park. For those of you that don't know, chivas are pickup trucks and you either ride standing in the back or in my case, sitting and hanging onto a bar trying to hit your head. It was pretty fun on the way up, but the novelty is already wearing off.

Once in the park we wandered around taking pictures while waiting for the other group and their chiva. We saw a three toed sloth and it's baby! It was so exciting :D
When we all got there we went to the visitors center and looked around then went on a hike on the "baby" trail. I'm not gonna lie, I liked it alot better than the hard trail we went on later. The trail was pretty and its so green here I can't believe it. There are so many trees, and it was misty in the mountains because we were inside the clouds. It really is beautiful here. The forest is exactly what I've been dreaming of my entire life. So pretty...

After the baby trail we went hiking down to the river where I'm going to be working on my project.... The trail down there is slippery and deadly. It's so damp in the forest from all the rain and fog that all the rocks are wet and covered in moss. It was kinda like controlled falling the entire time...I had trouble walking there during the day so I have no idea how I'm going to make it down there in the dark to work on my project... Oh well, we'll see... Hopefully I don't fall down too much...

On the way back up the trail we took a different route... It was even worse than the way up and at a super extreme slant... I fell down on my butt, but I'm ok, just my pride was hurt. It also started pouring down rain on the hike back up and we were soaked by the time we got back to the visitors center. Good times.. Not gonna lie... I was pretty upset about it. I'm better now though, since I'm dry and not shivering in a chiva....

We left the park, cleaned up, at dinner, sat around and went to bed. I feel like that's not the best description of our lives right now but it's all I got. It's pretty awesome here and I like it a lot. I hope my upsetness over being soaked yesterday is the extent of my "anger" phase and I can just get used to it.

So now I'll be done. I'm sore, sweaty, and tired. It's a good thing though. I feel like I'll be able to live here for the next two months :D

So we have about a day until the St. Louis group leaves for Panama. I'm actually getting less nervous as time goes on, I'm not really sure why though, since you'd think it would be the opposite....

Well I've spent a lot of my last weekend at home watching the Olympics with my family. I've figure since I'm gonna be gone for most of the Olympics I'll watch as much of them as I can now.
I actually spent several hours last night with my best friend and little sister trying to figure out how mogul skiing works. I think we might actually have figured it out, so we're excited about that. I'm enjoying learning all of the strange winter sports, like the biathlon where the people have to cross country ski then shoot targets with guns. I'd really like to learn the story behind that sport.... Speed skating is my favorite though. It's really intense and I like to watch Apolo Ohno skate. I've decided he has telekinesis since in all of his races people have fallen down and he magically wins. You go telekinetic Apolo Ohno.

The rest of my weekend has been spent doing last minute packing and shopping and spending lots of times with my family. I'm really glad we're allowed to have 2 check bags cause I'm not sure if all of my stuff would have made it down in one. My giant duffel bag is cram packed with stuff and a few things got left out, so this second check bag is a life saver! Oh! Also my mom bought me 2 baseball hats and got one embroidered with a frog and the other one says "I <3 Frogs." I like them lots and they make me happy :D Well I think I'm gonna end my last post in the States. I'll check back in once I get to Panama at some point. Our internet access is a little more limited than we thought it would be so we'll see how often I can get on. Here is a Red Eyed

Tree Frog saying ta ta for now! And I will too!

One week out!

So I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that next week at this time we will be in Panama. I'm trying to imagine what this will be like but I currently can't see past the airplane. I have suddenly developed a horrible, deathly fear of flying, which is something I've never done before. Since I've never been on a plane before my imagination has taken over and I've come up with horrible visions of what airports and flying will be like. Over the weekend I decided that the plane is going to just fall out of the sky... Or that the security people will decide that something I'm taking with me is dangerous and arrest me... Or that someone will steal my bag and I won't have any clothes the whole time we're in Panama... People keep telling me that none of this is going to happen, but my imagination is running rampant with these ideas and won't stop.

On a happier note about the weekend I spent all day with my mom on Friday. We watched Project Runway and went to Walmart, which is always super fun. I also asked my mom for colored pens last week to take with me and when I got home on Thursday she had about 5 different packs of pens on my bed, 2 of which are water proof pens that don't smudge when you write with them or when they get wet, so those are coming with me to Panama! We also started packing and sorting through the things that I need to bring with me, which is when the fact that we're really leaving next week hit me hard and the airplane terror started.

Another fun thing about Friday was the fact that I spent all night watching all of the Indiana Jones movies with my best friend. That's right, all four of them. It was fun since he'd never seen them before so I got to flaunt my knowledge of movies to him for once as he's always rubbing in the fact that he's seen more Star Trek than me...
While watching Indiana Jones I couldn't help but notice how our class has affected me already. At the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark I found myself wondering what South American country that mystical gold idol was in and was using what we've learned in class to figure it out... I'm still not sure... My ears also perked up at the mention of Pancho Villa in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull since we just learned about him in class that day. Indy mentioned that he learned Quechua from some of Villa's men, but that just started me wondering why people in Mexico would know a language from the Andes... Don't worry though Indy, I still love you. It will take more than a few inconsistencies to break my life-long love for you!

Today was our last day of the history and JINS classes state side and I feel like I'm going to miss them. I am excited to actually see what we're learning about, but I do have a love of the classroom environment. We had a really good discussion about race today in JINS and I'm still thinking about what else could have been said and trying to wrap my head around many of the topics we discussed. We all made very good arguments as to why race still exists socially even though there is no biological basis to it. It was a good way to end class in my opinion, since I enjoy trying to understand how other people see the world and what they took from the Wade reading.

The rest of this week is going to be finishing up our proposal, which is due tomorrow, so I guess I better start looking at that a bit more, then coming up with a topic for the paper about Wade. Happily the Wade paper isn't due until next week when we're in Panama so I have plenty of time to work on that. Thank goodness, I can relax and finish the packing that I started over the weekend with my mom.
So I guess there's still quite a bit to do before we go. Oh well, not too worry. At least I've been able to sleep, which is an improvement over last week!

So many to-do lists...

So this week the reality that we're leaving in 11 days, well 10 now I guess since it's past midnight, is starting to freak me out. I'm having issues falling asleep at night now thanks to that fact. I have to plan everything out before it happens so I currently have 3 lists of things I need to do, pack, and buy before I leave. Since I have made these lists I keep thinking about them as soon as I lay down to go to sleep. By doing this I freak myself out thinking of things that are not on my lists, so I get up several times and make more sticky notes of things that need to be added to the list... Now my desk is covered in various sticky notes of things for Panama.... Ooops. My brain doesn't want me to sleep.

In class this week we went over, surprise, more history of Latin America, which I quite enjoy. I thinks it's really interesting since it's a history that I've never really learned about in detail, and since I love to learn new things, I'm loving this class! The time lines Marc makes in class are my favorite. In JINS we've been talking about Galeano, but I've written my paper on that already and don't want to think about that book anymore... So many thoughts have already gone into that book... I like the Chasteen book (our normal history book for those of you that aren't taking the class) because it's linear and my brain understands it, unlike Galeano, who jumps around everywhere. Hey that's what my paper's about look at that! In Bio we once again worked on our project proposals. Leslie and I are finished a very rough draft of our proposal this week and I'm super excited. I feel like a real scientist now. Also Marc had a camera in class this week and made a very horrible movie of us in class. It's actually pretty funny since we all got really awkward once Marc put the camera in our faces...

Finally in JINS today we discussed culture shock, which was interesting. I'm hoping that I get through all the stages with relative ease and don't end up freaking out while I'm done there. Some how culture shock turned into an in depth conversation about traveler's diarrhea... which was kinda weird...

After class I went home for the weekend! And I'm super glad to be here. I'm gonna try to relax a bit and try to get everything done for next week, like read the Wade book. I'm also hoping to get some packing done so I can cross some things off of my earlier mentioned to-do lists. My mom even took off work so we could spend the day together tomorrow and I'm really excited!!

I think I might go try to sleep now. Hopefully I won't think of anything else to add to my lists and can actually fall asleep tonight...

♫ ♪ We all live in a Pokemon world! ♪♫

So I don't know how many of you guys are actually secret Pokemon fans, but I woke up in a Pokemon kinda mood this morning. I still haven't gotten over loving Pokemon, even though I'm almost 20 now. It's so corny and the games make me happy, and that's all that matters, right? The Pokemon-ness was abruptly ended once we got to class, but before then it was a Pokemon kinda day, which is always a good thing I suppose.
Here's something I made when it was Pokemon Profile picture month, just supporting the fact that I'm a dork.
Don't judge :D

There really isn't a point to the post except that talking about a frog is my reward for writing my primary source essay that's due on Thursday! That's one more thing checked off my list. Now all I have to do is write another essay on the Galeano book by Saturday, read another book by next Tuesday (good news, this one's only 116 pages instead of 300!!),write an essay on that book, finish working on my project proposal with Leslie and have that done by next Wednesday, do some last minute shopping and start packing for Panama this weekend. Yay! Only two more weeks!

Also I finished that book I mentioned last time, and just so everyone knows, the word zombie is on the last page in the last paragraph. Sadly that's one of my favorite parts of that entire book, out of that whole book. . I also learned what I mentioned last time about countries taking whatever they wanted from Latin American countries. But also the word zombie, which has made for some pretty interesting conversations about how the book was really just written to say that we're headed towards a zombie apocalypse...

So any way, frog of the day is:

Dendrobates auratus

Otherwise known as the green and black poison dart frog. It's not particularly exciting, just brightly colored and poisonous! It comes in lots of different colors too, so don't let the name confused you. Apparently in Panama there is actually a blue and black morph... Interesting...