Panama day 2

For the second day in Panama we just walked around, took a cab to places that were pretty sketchy which resulted in walking a block or two in a given direction, then getting in another cab to go to a different part of town.

We end up on this little but nice peninsula that has a yacht club and couple restaurants. We from there went to visit the Panama Canal. Unfortunately, it started to absolutely pour on our way to the Canal, but it was still worth it. And like most places in the tropics in only rained for an hour or two. The canal operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In the morning ships from Pacific go the Atlantic and in the afternoon the go from Atlantic to the Pacific. It was one of my life long goals to see so I am glad to see it. If anyone ends up going, remember that the viewing deck closes at 5pm so make sure to go much earlier than that. We didn't know this and got there around 4 and didn't really feel that we had enough time.

Here are some pics from that day:

View out of the back side of our hostel.

View from the beind of the yatch club looking back at Panama City. Looks and felt a lot like Miami...

On the end of the peninsula - pacific ocean behind us. You can barely see some of the big ships waiting in the distance.

The lock right in front of the viewing deck. You can see how massive those things are.

Another picture of the same lock.

A HUGE ship entering the lock picture above. You can see just how busy this place is. There is another monster right behind it...

Me, Benedikt, and Andrew on top of the viewing deck. Same huge ship over my left shoulder (we are 4 stories up and it is already going down in the lock)

Panama - only a month or so late...

I am so horrible about posting that doing so know feels like going to confession. Dear readers it has been one month since my last post...

Going way way back here are some pictures from the first day of my trip to Panama:

This taco lady really didn't know what to do with the 3 of us. It didn't help that with typical Latin American efficiency she made 1 at a time in combination with fact that I was starving! Danger! Danger!

I swear people in this club thought this guy was Sean Paul...

Andrew and I trying to figure out why my camera just died for no good reason. I know that I am good at breaking things, but this was not my fault. I swear!

View from our room in our hostel out across the water to rest of Panama City

Andrew and me in the hostel

Chiquita - Banana, etc. tour

The first half of my time here is Costa Rica is over and with that so are my normal classes. For the next 8 weeks I will be working on a biomass energy production project for Chiquita. This past week we went to tour the plant and check out other things around their business etc. It is down in Guapiles on the Caribbean side of the country. It is hot and humid as hell there! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Underside of flower of a banana plant

After the flower (above) is cut off. Sap dripping from the stem with bananas above

Since they don't really refrigerate the beer. The put ice in it. Customer service nor cold beer were not the top of this at this lovely restaurant...

Marco shot of big leaf

Another Macro shot - this is the side view of a banana leaf after some bug has helped themselves

Funny Cow!

Cool plant outside of biodigestor

I love these little plants. So easily entertained.

Nicole's arrival

It is been a long time since my last blog. Sorry. I still don’t have the pics from Panama on my computer but will try to get those soon to post. In case I never mentioned it before or you didn’t see it on Nicole’s blog, I don’t have pictures from Panama because my camera died the first night. Not to fret, Nicole to the rescue. She brought down this really cool and sleek camera that lets people like me take some great pictures! The Elf. This is actual name of the camera, not one given by Nicole, but that is easy to figure out has it only has 1 name not a list. Kali Lou Shenanigans Montgomery, need I say more? J Plus it takes Macro shots, my new favorite. Basically really close pictures that have a lot of exposure and have awesome color.

Here are two examples:

This one was taken by Nicole shortly after arriving.

This one was taken by me in Playa tamarindo of a tiki torch at our restaurant. My favorite one of these is the one on Nicole's blog.

With that let’s just jump ahead until after Panama – apparently my blog is going to more Pulp Fiction style flashbacks than a simple chronological tale. Honestly though, are you really that surprised? But I digress.

Nicole arrived on Wednesday the 23^rd. So I am sitting waiting and waiting at the airport. The arrival screen now says that she landed an hour ago. Finally her pretty smiling face appears through the cloud of everyone else trying to get through the cloud of taxi drivers and transportation people with signs pressed up against the glass. Within minutes of being in the car she nails Costa Rica on the head, she said “It seems like a mix between Hawaii and Guatemala.”

Lunch here is served from 12 to 1, so we had to drop the bags and go to the cafeteria. There is not many things that people like more then traveling for 12+ hours and then having to meet a bunch of new people for the fist time. Since is only served from 1 hour pretty much everybody cycles through there in that short amount of time. Like everything else, she handled it like a rock star. I introduced her to several people and probably remembered more of their names than I knew in the first place. Unfortuately right after lunch I had to go to class. 90 minutes later as I am walking back, Nicole is still struggling to settle in -

To be continued…

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

These are all from Manuel Antonio or on the way there

during my first weekend here at INCAE...

On the way to Manuel Antonio

Sangria, candle, and ocean view?!

I'll be honest, I was a little proud of this pic...

keeping with Nicole's love of street signs

Sloth hanging from a tree

Daddly long legs aint got nothin' on this guy

Cool bamboo in the national park in Manuel Antonio

These 2 raccoon snuck up on two unsuspecting tourists and stole their stuff. Scoop and Score.

Beach inside the national park in Manuel Antonio

and

Just in case you forgot...

Awesome sign in Manuel Antonio

Leaf Cutter ants at my school

UN

Just applied for a spring internship at the United Nations!

Ability to Comment

I have been informed that people without Google accounts have not been able to comment. I think I fixed this. So, comment away!

Back to School

After 18 hours of taxis, buses, airplanes, and shuttles I am back in my room on campus.

We were lucky enough to receive an email from the professor today giving us a project that is due tomorrow morning in class. Bad news is that this delays the wonderful world of blogging.

I promise to post pics soon. My camera decided to die in Panama City so I have get pictures from Andrew and Benedikt - my two partners in crime.

My goals is get everyone updated with pics from the past few weekends/events/trips.

Stay tuned...

headed back to Panama City

We are in our last few hours here in Bocas. Soon we will take the water taxi back to the main land then, a regular taxi to the bus station, where we will catch an overnight bus to Panama City. We will get in around 5 am then head to the airport and wait until our 10am flight.

Back to school we go.

I'll miss you Poppy.

bocas del toro

I am now in Bocas. We got in early this morning. It is a group of islands about 25 minutes off the coast that we take by water taxi. We walked around bargaining for a hotels. We ended up in one of the more expensive ones, but is right on the water and includes breakfast.

Today we rented ATVs. Tomorrow we are going on a snorkel tour.

I hate humidity!

Humidity is like you are walking around in condensation! Disgusting!

We walked around today to see what was around. Not much. But we did go to the panama canal. That was pretty cool.

Tonight we are taking an overnight bus to Bocas del Toro. It is some island/beach are on the Caribbean coast, not to far from the Costa Rican border.

31!

I am now at 31 Countries. Thanks Panama aka Little Miami / some carribbean island.

PANAMA

Originally Andrew, Benedik and I were going to go check out the beaches up the northern pacific coast. That was until yesterday when the only class we had next Tuesday got cancelled. Now we do not have class until next Friday!

So with a lot of excitement we started looking at where we could go since we now had a week unitl our next class. The winner, Panama! The flight is takes 90 minutes. We found round trip flights from San Jose, Costa Rica to Panama City for $140US. Not bad for booking for the next day. We leaveing this afternoon and returning on Thursday morning.

None of us really know what to do in Panama, but we all really want to see the Canal!

I will take as many pictures as I can and will try to post as I can.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

In case you thought I was joking about the amount of reading I get to do. Here is a visual for you.

This stack I just picked up is only for the next 2 WEEKS!

yeah...

Case study after case study

Hi everyone.

Just want to apologize for not being able to put up anything fun today. I have a giant stack of case studies to read. For tomorrow alone I probably have 100+ pages and probably another 60 or so to get through by Friday morning. To think that one of the main reasons I never wanted to go to law school was because I hate reading! Guess the joke is on me.

Here a couple pics as a consolation prize...

Oh Kali Lou

At night on the "trial" to the classrooms you can see the lights of a neigbohring city. Hey I never said I was any kind of Ansel Adams!


A rose in the San Jose Rose Garden during Nicole's and my most recent picnic. (Nicole took the picture - I bet you couldn't tell from the difference in quality)

Mi casa

The dorms here at INCAE are little houses of 4 rooms with 2 to a room. This is my house, Casa 22. my room is window on the far left. This is taken from the road entering campus. There is one road that comes into campus passes all of the houses and goes to mini parking lot / cul-du-sac. That is where the offices, classrooms, library, etc., are.







This is the our entry room / kitchen. It is pretty simple. There are two rooms to the right and two rooms to the left. Mine is the fist on the left.


This is my "half" of the room, I will explain this more later. The giant tree you see out of the window is a Mango tree that keeps dropping fruit onto the roof that sounds like somebody is hitting my wall with a baseball bat.

This is the view out of my front window back towards the street. Walking down to the left is towards the center of campus and classrooms, to the right is more houses and how to exit campus.


This the picture taken on the first day of our group of exchange students.
Top Row: Tom (Germany), Andrew (Thunderbird and housemate), Lisa (Thunderbird), Paola (school in Spain but is Costa Rican), Mark (Germany), Me
Bottom Row: Patricia (NYU), Benedict (Germany and house mate).

Starting off on the right foot

This weekend was fun and I made it back safe and sound.

Now that that is out of the way I would figure I'd tell you a little about last week etc before I jump ahead this past weekend. So...

The fun started as soon as I got to the airport in San Jose, CA to fly down here. Here is short recap:

So I walked in and didn't see Frontier. "Why not?" you ask. Because there is only one counter shoved up against the wall and they do 3 flights out of San Jose a day. No worries, it's not a main destination for them. Then the guys says do you have a returning flight? Yes, I answer. I am flying back on U.S. Airways. He says great do you have a print out. No, I answer. I was told all of the requirement are done electronically. He said, I need to see a print out or I can't let you get on the plane to Denver. Just go down to the U.S. airways counter and have them print something out for you. Doesn't sound too bad.

So, I walk right up to the U.S. Airways guy and tell him what is going on. He say's Ok, do you have a confirmation number. I said no. Do you have a credit card? No, It just got canceled today because of fraud. Do you know the number? No. Ok, what is your name. Robert Fox I tell him. Okay, let me look. ... Sorry we don't have you in our system. WHAT??!!! All I see is your flight in May from Austin. ... I have never been to Austin in my life. Maybe try Rob Fox. ... still nothing. Few minutes pass with him and now another agent trying to find me. Still the guy has a brilliant idea, Do you have your computer with you he asks? YES, yes I do! So I pull up my email and give him my confirmation. Two seconds later I have my printout in hand walking back to the counter tucked against the wall known as Frontier.

All I can think is WOW, this trip is off to a great start! 4 months here we come!

Back to class :(

This last weekend was fun. I made it back safe and sound.

Sorry for such a short post but class is about to start, so I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive.

I will try to post more updates soon.

My first post ever!

Okay. So like most things, this blog has been an idea in my head for a while but I procrastinated and put it off. With some ever so gentle cattle prodding from Nicole, I finally created my blog. But hey, I am an idea guy. I have lots of ideas for people to do something with... using my incredible creative skills I came up with robfoxsblog! Ingenious isn't it?!

I do not know much I will be able to blog, but Nicole and Summer love doing it and this will be a way for family and friends to be able to see what I am up to.

I have now complete my first week of school at INCAE down here in Costa Rica ( I will write more about this later) and about to leave on my first excursion. I am going with 4 other exchange students to the beach. We haven't really figured out what we are doing, but we are going anyway. We are headed to Jaco and/or Manuel Antonio.

I will do my best to post somewhat frequently, eventhough they may be little posts. I doubt that I will have much internet access this weekend... so you will most likely just have to wait with baited breath until I get back.

Hope everyone is well!