…but I can in Panama.
1. Going to bed at 8:30 or 9 every night. Oh, how glorious it feels to get ten hours of sleep.
2. Showering every few days. When you start to sweat the second you get clean, it just doesn´t seem worth it to shower more than a couple times a week (and I don´t care how gross it sounds, it´s true). Plus, you always have the river to rinse off in.
3. Houses without gates around their upstairs porches. What´s a little risk?
4. 60 cent beers, $1 breakfasts and dinner under three. When the food is as delicious as it is, it honestly feels like it could not get any better.
5. Sleeping in your underwear and sports bra without a sheet and three fans going. And that´s a comfortable night.
6. Getting honked at by every car on the street, not because you´re a good looking gringa (trust me, after the first few days, I gave up all hope of being cute), but because it´s the campesino way to say ´hey.´
7. Using Internet once a week. This one I´m still getting used to.
8. Eating chicken as a vegetarian and feeling okay with it, because it´s not factory farmed, it´s not full of hormones and it´s been raised by your next door neighbor.
9. On top of that, eating eggs from your own backyard chicken (thanks, Ruby Jo Jen!).
10. Finding yourself covered with rashes and weird bug bites and not worrying about it, because that´s just what happens here.
11. Not watching Game of Thrones or The Bachelorette once a week. I don´t want to admit I have a problem, but IthinkIhaveaproblem.
12. Getting anywhere without a car, only by chiva (bus). Yeah, yeah, I know this is possible in Atlanta and Houston, but is it really?
13. Finding that your house is covered in flies that come from who knows where, and getting used to the constant swarm in a matter of days.
14. Landing an internship that lets you decide what you want to do, when you want to do it.
This is just a short list of the pretty unending number of differences between this awesome country and our own innocuous one. After two weeks here, I´m trying to take the time to note as many conspicuous (and not so obvious) dissimilarities as possible. Lists are my thing, and this is a pretty fun one. I´ll add on as the summer continues (we´re already at the end of week two? Are you serious??), and maybe I´ll even succeed at convincing a couple people to come pay me a visit? 🙂
Until next time, todo bien!
