Day 219: !Digame! Servicio de Cuarto

One of the first things I learned in Senora Melo's Spanish class in 9th grade was how to order drinks and food in a restaurant.

"Psssst...Camarera! Quisiera una agua, por favor."

"Perdon, Quiero un taco con pollo, por favor.

"Necesitamos dos cervezas. Gracias."

Senora Melo was an excellent teacher and because of my affinity for eating, I'm thankful that she taught me how to order food first. I may not be able to read a map, or apply for a job, or introduce myself to anyone, but as long as I'm standing in a restaurant, I'll never go hungry.

Thanks to her, and all of my other Spanish teachers over the years, I was feeling good about my ability to communicate in Panama, but I'm well aware that what made me successful was as much non-verbal as it was anything else. Between pointing at things, miming, and nodding my head, speaking Spanish for me is like a game of charades.

Talking on the phone in a different language is a completely different animal, however, because you can't motion to anything, or see the other person's expressions. All you have is words. And as I learned in Spanish IV my senior year of high school, this makes communicating extremely challenging, especially if the person the other end of the phone isn't Irmo High School's Senora Stafford, but a 16-year old Panamanian waitress talking your room service order.

Day 219's thing I've never done before was to order room service in Spanish.

To understand why we were ordering room service at all, I'm going to have to go back to the start of the day.

When Maribeth and I boarded the plane from Bocas del Toro to Panama City, we looked like death and we felt worse. The sun, the sand, the rum, it had taken its toll in a big way and all we wanted to do was sleep. In an air-conditioned room.

So back in Panama City for less than a day and one night, we opted, instead of more sightseeing, to hibernate, literally, in our hotel room.

These plans to camp inside our air-conditioned room had been hatched long before we ever even arrived at our hotel, and were almost derailed when we got our room key, walked into a room that was so hot, we might as well have still been on the beach in Bocas.

At that moment I wished that the first thing Senora Melo had taught me in Spanish class was how to say, "It's far too warm in here and all my friend and I want to do today is lay around in air conditioning and watch old American sitcoms. Isn't there anything you can do to make the air colder? Please? Now? Please!"

I did the best I could with the bellman, who was extremely accommodating. We moved to another room, which felt slighty less like hell in the summertime, but not by much. I kept repeating, "Hace calor," until he fiddled with the vent on the window unit and got some air flowing.

We drew the blinds, crawled into our beds, too tired to care about the heat anymore and slept. I'm not sure how long we slept, but we woke up starving. We went back and forth from our beds, about whether or not we should go out to lunch, and enjoy one last afternoon in Panama City.

And then an advertisement for an episode of Felicity came on the American television channel, and the decision was made. We looked at each other, our eyes wide with excitement like we'd won the lottery. Room service it is.

Thankfully Maribeth and I wanted more or less the same thing, which made ordering somewhat easy. Grilled cheese, french fries (patatas fritas) for her, plaintains (platanos fritos) for me. I also wanted a fruit salad (ensalada con frutas) and she wanted a Crunch bar, which they didn't have, so we ordered chocolate cookies (oreos) instead. I had to repeat myself several times and I often found myself still pointing at the menu item as if the girl could see what I was referencing. But when I was done she repeated the order back to me and it sounded right.

I hung up the phone, turned to Maribeth and said, "I'll be very interested to see what they bring us."

Within a half hour, we heard a knock at the door and we nearly tripped over each other trying to get there, we were both so hungry.

I was elated at the sight of food, but even more elated that everything I intended to order was there on the room service tray. We dove into the food, spreading it out on our beds so we wouldn't have to sit upright for very long. Gross, I know. The only mishap seemed to be the sandwiches, but when we went back to the menu, we realized that the order wasn't lost in translation, we simply ordered incorrectly. Instead of a grilled cheese sandwich, I ordered us a cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato. I did not care. It was tasty.

After we ate, we laid back down to watch some more mindless television. For those of you who are curious, this episode of Felicity was the one when Ben's father is ill and his mother opts to give him a kidney or some organ to help save his life, which upsets Ben because his father is abusive and not a very nice man. His dad ends up doing fine with the surgery, but of course his mother does not, so Ben and Felicity stay at the hospital and talk about how much they love each other and how love is blind. Solid. Gold.

We did not leave our hotel room the entire day. Actually, I did leave to go to the computer lab to post a blog (you're welcome) and walked briefly out on the roof to look at the pool. But when I walked outside the sun nearly blinded me and the heat on my over sunned skin was almost more than I could stand. I quickly returned to the room for more air-conditioned napping.

Maribeth and I finally rose from our comas in the early evening, but only long enough to go to dinner at a restaurant that looked like it was decorated with the Love Boat in mind (the food was excellent, the decor was just a little dated) and then to the grocery store so I could get some aloe for my burnt backside.

Yes, that's how we spent the last day of our 10-day Panamanian adventure. Sleeping, watching Felicity, buying aloe.

We are old and lame.

Day 218: Operation Relaxation

I have a difficult time relaxing.

Anyone who knows me, reads this blog or has met for five minutes would probably say that bit of information is not breaking news.

I've even showcased some of my attempts at calming myself down (bikram yoga, cell-phone free car rides, facials) in my year-long quest to do things that I've never done before. So far, I've succeeded only in completing each task, but never fully embracing its purpose, always returning to my over-thinking, often anxiety-ridden self.

I'm told I hide it well and any nerves I may be feeling on the inside simply manifest themselves on the outside as my upbeat, quirky personality. I don't know if I believe that, but in 29 years, I've learned to accept the fact that this nervous ball of energy is simply who I am.

Still, I thought that at some point in the 10 days Maribeth and I were in Panama, I would find a way to decompress, disconnect and finally take a much needed deep breath from life. Unfortunately, though, since we'd landed, we'd been on the go. And I was constantly thinking about what we were going to do next, where we were going to eat, if we were going out how I was going to be able to blog. Granted, these are not big, important decisions, and Maribeth made most of them anyway, but the slowdown I had hoped for had not yet happened.

On our last day, Day 218, I woke up in Bocas del Toro for the first time since we'd left to come on the trip, without any plans at all. No tour to go on, no cab to catch, no activities planned. Maribeth decided to go back to La Buga to dive again, and while I would have loved another surfing lesson/conversation with Chapo, I decided to stay behind and do nothing.

Only doing nothing is not an easy thing for me to do. I was on vacation, I know, I should have done or not done whatever the hell I pleased, but I couldn't just lie around the hotel on my last day. I opted instead to take a walk, so I took a left out of La Coralina and headed away from town, to the less developed parts of Bocas.

I had no plan, really, other than wanting to see if I could catch a glimpse of the filming of Ecuador's Survivor, but I never saw any of the contestants, just some of the props they use for competitions.

I walked far and for a long time, taking my time and pausing to reflect on the trip. I felt lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to Panama for such an extended time and especially fortunate that I had someone in my life willing to travel with me.

When I got back to La Coralina, I climbed the hill to a gazebo with three hammocks hanging underneath. They were shaded and there was a nice breeze coming off the water. I climbed into one to enjoy the view and then the next thing I know, Maribeth had returned from diving and was standing over me with her camera.

Day 218's thing I've never done before was to prove to myself and everyone else that I am capable of relaxing, by falling asleep in a hammock.

After getting up feeling completely refreshed, Maribeth and I grabbed some lunch, we napped, we played dominoes like senior citizens, and we drank our last rum punches at the La Coralina bar. Then went out for our last supper in Bocas del Toro. We talked about how much fun we'd had and how much we dreaded going back to our regular lives.

After dinner, we headed out for one last night on the town. While we were surfing, Chapo had told me about La Iguana, a bar that hosts "Naaaaaasty Mondays" each week. The event sounded intriguing (especially the way he said it), and obviously I wanted to be wherever Chapo might be going, so we were all set to go. But while diving earlier that day, Maribeth heard that La Iguana was going to be closed, so we went back to the same place we'd gone our first night in Bocas.

Unlike the first night, the place wasn't really crowded at all, but we met a group of guys from Holland almost immediately who were very nice. Young, but nice. I, of course, immediately started talking to one who was attractive, cool, and already in love with someone else. Holland dude and I sat at the bar and talked for several hours, about everything and nothing. As the night went on, I found myself in a super intense conversation with yet another stranger.

We talked about work and what we wanted to be when we grew up. I told him that I really like my job because it's challenging and I really enjoy the people that I work with, but I'm not sure that what I'm doing now is what I'm supposed to do forever. He said he was getting an MBA and planned on working in finance.

I told him I was single and I'm not sure if or when I'll meet "the one," but I am trying not to stress about it, though I confessed that it's a challenge not to sometimes. He said the girl he's been seeing for a year is definitely the one he wants to be with forever, and it's just a matter of time before he pops the question.

We both agreed that we didn't have what it takes to trade conventional living for the Bocas lifestyle. I said I enjoy living in Atlanta, but miss living at the beach terribly, and I'm not really sure where I fit in the most. He said he'll definitely live in Holland for the rest of his life because that's where his family is.

He, at age 23 seemed to understand a lot better than I do, at age 29, exactly what he wants, and exactly how to get it. Oh how I long for such clarity.

A few years ago, I may have berated myself for not knowing what I wanted to do for a living, or not owning a house, or not having found a mate yet. But when I looked this guy in the eye and said with confidence, "You know, I'm a work in progress, and my life still has a lot of question marks," I felt peace like I've never experienced before.

I've grown tremendously over the past few years, understanding who I am, who I'm not, what I want, what I don't want. But where I seem to have grown the most is in being okay with the fact that there is still a lot about myself that I don't know. And while this 23-year old Dutchman may have thought I should have all this sorted out at age 29, when I told him that I didn't, out loud, right there in the bar, I felt like I was giving myself permission to be me. Still uncertain, but always optimistic, me.

And for the second time that day, this time in a crowded, hot, loud bar in the middle of Bocas del Toro, I could feel myself, once again, starting to relax.

Day 217: Life Lessons with Chapo

Editor's Note: With the exception of the first picture, absolutely none of the photographs in this blog have anything to do with the blog itself. I'm sad to report there are no pictures of my Chapo.

I knew that I wanted to go surfing while I was in Panama, so on Day 217, Maribeth and I split up in the morning. She is a certified scuba diver and wanted to go diving. I opted to take a surfing lesson.

Erica said we could do both activities at the same place, La Buga Dive and Surf Center. She set it up.

"Oh yeah," she said, while dialing the phone, "We'll get you a surfing lesson with Chapo. He's this gorgeous Venezuelan guy. He totally has a girlfriend, but whatever. He's completely nice to look at."

I laughed, but I didn't really think too much about her comments. Not because I didn't believe that Chapo was good looking, but because I'm not overly attracted to Latin men. I'm not not attracted to them, I just wouldn't say that they are my type.

That is, until I met Chapo.

We showed up at La Buga and within minutes, the Chapo that I'd heard so much about emerged from the back, living up to all of my expectations. He had super tan skin, messy dark brown hair, piercing green eyes and a super friendly smile. And he wasn't super covered in them, but he had quite a few tattoos.

"Hola! I'm Chapo!," he said, waving, like we'd been friends our whole lives.

And here is where I became completely uninterested and unaware of what Maribeth was doing. I'm not really sure when her boat left to take her diving, or even how her trip went because I was completely engrossed with what I was doing, and with what Chapo was saying, doing, eating, touching.

Chapo asked me if I'd surfed before, and I told him that I had, but confessed that it had been a while, so he shouldn't expect much and should definitely treat me like a beginner.

We walked to the back of the building towards the bay and Chapo did a short demonstration on a foam surf board, while telling me what I needed to do when I was out there. A lot of what he told me I'd learned before in other surfing classes, but he also drew pictures on a dry erase board, showing me how the surf break in Panama worked. He said we'd head out to the break by boat and get dropped off in the middle of the ocean. I'd never be actually surfing into shore, but rather surfing and then paddling out of the break to get back to him.

I nodded eagerly, trying to appear brave for Chapo, but inside I was a mess. I was nervous enough just to attempt to surf the way I'd learned how to in the past. Surfing a break in the middle of the ocean and never actually going to shore was a different story and therefore was definitely going to be Day 217's thing I'd never done before.

My attempt to appear confident was unsuccessful and Chapo said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine." He went on to say that because the break is so rhythmic and predictable, it's actually a good place for a beginner.

In addition to being nervous about surfing, I was also nervous around Chapo. Not because he was so attractive; he was, but I have been around attractive people before. I'm not sure why, but I really wanted him to like me. I wanted us to be friends. And I wanted to do well surfing. I don't know what I wanted the most.

We gathered our items, climbed aboard the boat and headed out to the break. On the way to our destination, Chapo and Roberto (the boat captain who was also coming out to surf a nearby break) were discussing how the recent rain had brought some great waves and we were in for a treat today.

My brother surfs, so I know that a "treat" for real surfers is big waves and that's not exactly what I was looking for. Roberto, like Chapo, could also tell I was nervous because in between bites of his oatmeal he kept telling me that I was going to be fine.

When we arrived at the break, we stopped the boat and threw the anchor out. Roberto grabbed his board, jumped out and started paddling in one direction. I put my rash guard on, jumped in the water and Chapo (wearing flippers on his feet), and I paddled in the other direction.

Once in place, Chapo told me to hop up on the board, like he showed me how back at La Buga. The plan was for him to hold the back of the board where my feet were and push me when the right wave came. One of the hardest parts (and there are several hard parts) of surfing for me is not paddling fast enough to get on top of the wave to ride it. So having him push me gave me the extra "umph" I needed to be in the right place at the right time.

The first ride was dismal. I was super shaky and instead of walking my feet from the back of the board to the center, I tried to pop up and fell almost immediately. But I did as Chapo told me and swam out past the break and then back to Chapo.

I made it back with no trouble and went again, right away. Each time, my rides were longer and more successful. I don't know that I ever achieved finesse or grace on the board, but I was doing OK for a beginner. And I was having fun. Honestly, I'm not sure if that's because of the surfing or because of Chapo.

Every time I paddled back to him, we'd spend some time waiting for the next wave just chatting. About ourselves, our lives, our families. His mother is Venezuelan, his father is Italian, so he grew up in both Italy and South America. He is the oldest of three and his younger brother and sister still live with their parents in Venezuela. My attraction to him grew larger as the day went on because I learned what a cool person he is. His real name is Nicolas. He's been surfing since he was a young teenager, and was actually given the name "Chapo" by a group of older Venezuelan surfers.

Chapo's girlfriend lives in Panama City and works as a graphic designer. They've been together for five years and he knows she's the one, but he knows that when they get married, his island life will be over, since she works in the city. He spoke very sweetly about her, and I couldn't help but hope that someday my hot surfing instructor boyfriend would speak about me in the same way.

I asked him if living in a vacation town is difficult with the revolving door of good looking tourists ready to get drunk and make bad decisions in Panama. There has to be a lot of temptation, right?

"Oh yeah," he said smiling. He seemed very relaxed about their relationship. Not in a "I don't give a shit," kind of way, but more in a, "I know I love her and she loves me. We're going to be together forever so even though I may have slipped in the past, she's still the one," kind of way.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with that, or that Chapo's girlfriend would either, but I liked his confidence and I liked how much he obviously loved her.

I wish that I had a video of this next story because I'm realizing that doing it justice in writing is going to be a challenge. So much about the charm of Chapo is his accent, and the way he explains things. But I will try. "Last night I went to Aqua Lounge and girls were getting crazy. Dancing like strippers, jumping into the ocean." I laughed, remembering that Saturday night was the big party model/bartender was telling us about. I absolutely hated that Maribeth and I missed it, but loved that I was hearing about it from Chapo.

"There were these girls," he went on after I was probing him for information about how many girls hit on him in one night, "From Boston . . .and they were so drunk." He emphasized, "so drunk" several times.

"One of them comes up to me, and, aghaghaghaghagh," he demonstrated how the girl from Boston literally chased him around the hostel bar trying to stick her tongue in his mouth. "I mean, she was so drunk, she didn't know what she was doing," he said. "Crazy American girls," he said shaking his head.

I wondered what he would've thought of Maribeth and me a few nights before.

"So did you kiss her back?" I had to know. "Nooooooooooo!" he said. "She was sooooooooooo drunk."

In addition to teaching surfing lessons, and getting chased down by crazy American girls, Chapo is also a painter, and a tattoo artist. Most of the tattoos he had, he gave to himself and though I'm not generally a tattoo kind of girl, I was impressed. And after a couple of rum punches that night, Maribeth suggested that I let Chapo give me a tattoo as another thing I've never done before. I seriously considered it.

In the context of his life as an artist and his girlfriend living so far away, Chapo said being an artist wasn't exactly an easy thing to be in Venezuela because there, men are expected to go to college and get big jobs. But that's not him, and it was hard for him to fit in. Though not exactly the same, I was comforted to know that even in Bocas, the town of seemingly no worries whatsoever, people are still struggling to find the place, the job, the person that best suits them.

Every time I took a wave and paddled back, it became more and more difficult. The waves grew larger, I was more and more tired. Surfing a break was challenging because there was no downtime. I was either swimming, surfing, or paddling. There were a few scary times when I kept getting knocked by waves and couldn't swim fast enough to get out of it before getting knocked by the next one. Chapo struggled a few times too and even lost one of his flippers.

We were out there for four and a half hours and I was partially or completely submerged in water the entire time, and completely involved in my conversation with Chapo and surfing that I was unaware, until heading back to the boat, that I hadn't reapplied sunscreen since that morning. I had been super on top of the sunscreen, buying 50 spf (this is before I knew there was 100 spf) and applying and reapplying religiously throughout the day.

One morning with a hot surfing instructor, though, and all of my diligence leading up to that point turned out to be for nothing and I got one of the worst sunburns I've ever had. On the backside of my body. The sunburn will come into play in some later blog entries, as it did a number on me both physically (it hurt so freaking badly) and mentally (I was so upset with myself for not staying on top of it, especially after my scare back in January). In my defense, I was on a surfboard in the middle of the ocean, far away from the boat and any sunblock, but still, it was not a situation I should have put myself in.

Chapo, who wasn't wearing a watch, put his arm at a 90 degree angle on the board and looked at the shadow the sun created and said we needed to head back to the boat. I took one more ride and then we both paddled back.

Getting back on the boat was not easy because I was so tired, and my muscles were so fatigued, they were shaking. I needed Roberto's help to literally pull me out of the water and even with his help, it was not attractive, not graceful.Once back at La Buga, Chapo had the woman at the attached smoothie store make me a smoothie, because apparently that's what serious surfers do after riding the waves all morning: they drink smoothies. He and I, along with his dog, walked to a nearby dock and sat down to enjoy the view and our drinks.

I decided that I may not have surfed well, but I had accomplished one of my goals for the day and had made Chapo my friend. We sat on the dock and talked for a little while longer, our conversation eventually getting cut short by one of the Boston girls that had tried to face rape him the night before. She wasn't all that friendly to me, likely assuming I was trying to move in on her man. Then she said some ridiculous things about her antics from the night before and she was, "98 percent sure [she] was moving to Bocas."

Wow. Aggressive.

I decided to take that as my cue to leave, lest be ignored by Chapo for this little girl. So I left and went in search of Maribeth. She was eating lunch and having a beer at a nearby restaurant. We sat out there and talked of our morning apart.

Later in our trip, I realized I have but just two regrets about my time in Panama:

1. I don’t have a picture of Chapo so you can all see how gorgeous he is.
2. I didn’t stop staring at Chapo long enough to reapply sunscreen (Actually this isn't true. Sunburn or not, I don't really regret not stopping our conversation.)