Tag Archives: travel blog

Um…. Hi! (UPDATED)

6 Aug

As we have mentioned, we went to Bocas for a weekend while living it up in the drama telenovelas. We left the hostel with two of our favorite couples (both sets being Canadian in some sense), and chatted about important things, plans for life, and other inspiring things! We also took the opportunity to have an epic sing along over a Spanish version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. So. Good.

When we got to the boat taxi launch we found out there is no actual “price” to get to the island; they post that it’s $4 on their signs, ask for $5, but you can apparently name your own price and point at any of the local people who have been trying to sell you on their wares and say they told you $3 (for example). We jetted over to the main island, and by this point we were operating on 4 or 5 days straight of 19 hour shifts and we had become zombies. We wandered down the street, unsure whether we wanted to feed or sleep more.

We stumbled upon our German friends from L+F in front of a bakery, where we enjoyed overpriced veggie sandwiches and watched the Olympics. We found that the pastries were decent and then we went down the road and checked into Las Brisas. Our room wasn’t prepped yet, so we sat down and attempted not to pass out while we watched the ocean from their patio. Quite beautiful. We may or may not have chatted with some people around there for a minute, but I can’t be sure. As soon as our bed was made we went and collapsed for the rest of the day.

In the evening we stumbled over to the pizza place. We noticed more people we knew from before at the L+F walking by and made a plan to go swing into the ocean together later. We committed to a bottle of Flor de Caña rum and juice so we could go enjoy Ladies’ Night at AquaLounge in style.

We found all of our people dancing, drinking, and swinging around/near/into the ocean. It was a fantastic time, spent with our favorite people. And there was quite a bit of drinking… and then we went and collapsed again at Las Brisas until we had to be kicked out the following day for “routine fumigation”. Yep.

We just so happened to walk out the front door as one of our favorite co-workers from (that’s right, you’ve undoubtedly guessed by now) the L+F was walking to get coffee. He convinced us that what we really wanted was rather than returning that night and getting back to work early, we should leave the following morning and getting back right on time, or only slightly late. We gathered groceries and met him back at his apartment thing and then spent the evening chatting; watching the Olympics; eating chips, cheese, and salsa; and taking pictures of tiny lizards on his shoulder.

And then we went back to our fantastic reality TV show! Phew, late is really better than never, right?

20120806-001922.jpg

20120806-001906.jpg

20120806-063209.jpg

20120806-063216.jpg

Two Girls and a Trowel: staying plum, flush, and true

24 Jul

What have we been doing for these past two weeks you may ask?! Well, we have been tiling a bathroom in the middle of the country of course!

After meeting Gordon, our southern gentleman, we were assigned the task to create a bathroom that is plum flush and true. This may seem like an easy task to those who tile in the US but we are currently in Panama and walls here aren’t what you call straight; they have bumps indents and crookedness to them! On top of the wall straightness issue, the owner decided to paint his concrete walls while building the house which then demanded that we spend three days sandblasting and etching in marks in order to keep the tiles floating against gravity on the walls.

After the demolition days where over we went straight into the tile work. We spent hours making the tiles float where they needed to float and sink where they needed to sink. This was a bit stressful as all of us are perfectionists and it seemed completely rational for us to spend three hours placing three tiles on the wall!

After making some headway our boss came into the bathroom right before we placed the last row of tiles and said he wanted a rock wall in between the last two rows. We were both ecstatic and quickly moved his idea into the works. In the future we now know why a rock wall will cost $1000+ for installation in the US! Imagine placing rocks into concrete that then starts dripping down the walls and all you can do is shove concrete up a wall constantly hoping that the rocks you placed are in their correct location because you can no longer see them! It was fun and turned out beautiful but man it was an intense time…

We are finally wrapping the job up today which includes grouting the rest of the joints and laying the shower pan of concrete and rocks. We have come up with a company name thanks to our Alabama sweetheart: Two girls and a trowel! Expect shirts soon 🙂

Tomorrow may be a day of travel or a day of installing windows for an Aussie!?

20120724-083113.jpg

20120724-083120.jpg

20120724-083126.jpg

20120724-083132.jpg

20120724-083141.jpg

20120724-083150.jpg