boosters, bucket lists, politics and mysterious cities of gold

[amw]

Well, folks, i am boosted. After waiting about three weeks for a formal vaccination card from the Panamanian ministry of health to arrive at my hotel, i gave up and decided to try my luck at a walk-in. I walked in. I got vaxxed. That was easy. It was nice having the feeling like i am doing my bit for global health by coming in to get vaxxed even

Comments

[king_of_apathy]

I was watching a youtube video about the Darien Gap just yesterday. Until then i'd always presumed that you could drive from the very top of North America to the very bottom of South America.

Great that your Spanish is now at the level where you can discuss politics and philosophy!

[amw]

I will say it's a lot easier for me to prattle on about what i think than listen to someone else explain their point of view. I think this is one of my difficulties with foreign languages - at a certain point you can reach a level of fluency where you can explain more or less what you want to say using a limited vocabulary, but when other people with richer vocabularies talk about the same topics, you miss half of what they're saying because you don't understand the words. It's frustrating.

[annaserene]

Interesting! It's cool you've been able to learn so much there. I love reading your insights and observations.

I'm sure it's in your older posts that I missed, but I'm curious how/why you ended up in Panama studying Spanish.
I think I would enjoy doing that too. Spanish is fun and I'm interested in Latin America.

I went on a two-week trip to Costa Rica during high school. We traveled around the country and also spent time with host families and went to a language school in the capital. I enjoyed it a lot. I loved the food and fruit juices, but on the other hand it was literally rice and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so if you didn't like one of those you were largely out of luck.

[amw]

I actually just ended up in Panama because there was a big art festival in Miami that blasted all the hotels up to $200+ per night, and a flight to Panama was only $75. So it was very much on a whim that i decided to fly down here. The other benefit is that i only needed to be vaccinated and didn't need any tests or quarantine, so it was an easy destination.

At first i wasn't sure if i was going to learn Spanish here, because i thought i might enjoy traveling around the country more... but after a week or so of noodling around, i realized i'd have more fun if i could speak more fluently, hence getting lessons. Panama City is probably a good place to do it because there are a lot of business expats, so there is more demand for language schools that can take you to a higher level than just a crash course for backpackers.

I wish they had rice and beans for breakfast here. That's common at lunch (with a piece of meat), but breakfast is much more deep-fried in Panama.

[annaserene]

That's cool! I hope it was a nice coincidence.