November 3rd - Separation Day (This day signifies the separation of Panama from Columbia and ultimately their Independence.)
November 4th - Flag Day
November 5th - Colon Day (Colon day is Panama's version of Columbus Day and more or less celebrates the discovery of Panama.)
Friday we slept in and had a lazy morning. We decided to spend the afternoon at the third mall, the one we had yet to visit. We took a cab to Albrook Mall. We hailed a cab right in front of our apartment and managed to find a very friendly and reasonable cab driver who charged us $5 total to get there. Once we got there, HOLY CRAP. This mall makes the 4 story mall that we live next to look like even more of a crappy mall than the Pheasant Lane Mall!!! HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Since this mall is so huge, they have all of the different sections broken up into animals, so you can identify the animal statue in the middle of your section and you can go to the appropriate entrance/exit of the mall. Yes, this place is so massive that they ran out of traditional animals and had to use dinosaurs as well....
This was suppose to be staring down the massive, mile long hallway, but it didn't really work :-/
Anyways, so I decided to rename this mall. Instead of being named Albrook Mall, it should totally be named the Mall of Panama because from the stories that I have heard it is similar to the Mall of America (not nearly as massive, but with repeat stores, bazillions of food courts and rides). So this mall is only two stories tall but is like a bazillion blocks in length. IT IS CRAY CRAY!!! We counted four locations of the same store. Really? Is that necessary? And there are four food courts and a bazillion screen movie theater and a bowling alley. Really this mall is ridiculous. So after wandering around in an unprepared daze... we decided to stop for a snack. We chose food court number 3. We found an ice cream place that had delicious soft serve ice cream sundaes in waffle cones for $1.50!!! So we all of course got one :) After that we tried to find our way to an exit and hailed a cab. We went to get in the cab and Keith asked how much the ride would be and we were told $15!!! To which Mario responded with a "Hell NO! We aren't tourists (we kind of are...), we live here and we got a ride here for $5. To which he quickly realized we were telling the truth and gave us the ride for $5. :) He ended up being the craziest, grumpiest driver ever and I feared for my life the whole ride... (which is not uncommon in Panama...). One thing that I noticed (no one else did cause they don't have bomb parents that teach them to drive a stick) was his shifter! (Most people in Panama drive a standard) His shifter was so weird!!!
Most shifters (for a 5-speed):
1 3 5
2 4 R
This dudes shifter:
1 3 5 R
2 4
Has anyone else ever seen a shifter like that??? Anyways, he was also a very aggressive shifter so it was a rather bumpy ride. We had him drop us off at Calle Uruguay, which is kind of like the club street down here that people go to at night and jump in between bars. We went to Habibi's for dinner. It is a Mediterranean place that is also a Hookah bar. I had falafel and fatoush salad. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!! We came to the understanding that, since it was the eve of a National Holiday, alcohol sale is forbidden and we couldn't order drinks with our dinner. We also realized that we would not be able to go out that night. We thought we would go back to our apartment, go for a swim and then go bowling. By the time we got back to our apartment, we all took naps cause we are wild crazy college kids...
We decided to go up to our roof top pool and have a few drinks and enjoy the evening.
Super dark, but this is our roof top pool deck with the lighting and such. It doesn't look this dark in real like, not sure what my camera settings were...
Me and my flippy floppies chillin' on a lounge chair.
The Hard Rock again, lit up at night
This building is right across the way and I just think it looks so pretty at night, especially with the reflection in the bay and the lights of all the ships behind it :)
The Causeway
A cool reflection :D
This building reminds me of the one "skyscraper" that we have in Worcester, the one that changes colors at the top, cause this one changes colors too :)
The same building that I like but with different camera settings so that all the lights look crisper :) I have about a thousand of this one shot cause there was wicked lightening going on out past the boats and I was trying to get it on camera so I had it on the "sports" mode that just takes continuous shots and I took shots for a solid 5 minutes and there were several flashes of lightening during that time but none of them came up on camera
:( :( :(
Well up on the deck, Mario and Keith pounded back some beers and I had a bottle of white zin (no glass cause I'm a classy lady and I drink my $3.99 wine straight from the bottle). We play Egyptian Rat Screw with Cindy for a little while. When we got bored with the card game, we went back downstairs to our apartment and watched 21 Jump Street and ate some popcorn :) It was a very low key, lazy night but I was a fan.
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