MENOS DE TRES SEMANAS

Wow!  Duolingo has really educated me!  It has been a great refresher course, but writing Spanish and reading is so much easier than listening to Spanish and understanding it!  Patience!  I even have a former co-worker that is now writing comments on my facebook page in Spanish.  Oh dear.  Case in point comes up while walking around National Harbor in Oxon Hill, MD.  First of all, let me say that Ray and I had a great past nine days!  At some point while walking around the harbor, I was behind two women speaking Spanish.  Ray asked what I pulled out of the conversation.  Let's see:  tiempo, necesitio.  I certainly didn't hear them say "the elephant eats white rice" which is what I learned with Duolingo not too long ago.  But hey, I can now add to that sentence "with the mouse" or "on the floor" or even "with a spoon or knife".  I can also tell you that the girl eats her chicken in her dad's office (or at his desk).  Good thing I have three weeks left to get more fantastic phrases under my belt!  Ray's anunciation (an over exaggeration of the Spanish dialect) cracks me up, so I can't wait to hear him speak to the next Panamanian he encounters.  Just put the 33LP (those who grew up with RECORD PLAYERS) to 16LP and you know how he sounds, but with a Spanish flair.

We had a fantastic 1200 mile round trip road trip with our daughter last week to Nashville, TN!  Look out honkytonks!  We were ready for some country music!  Well, not so much me as much as Carly and Ray.  But hey, why play country music when I am in the house!  Woo hoo.  Tin Roof Honkytonk made my night with Bruce, U2, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Journey and more.  Carly and Ray dragged me out of there.  The next honkytonk we found called Roberts Western (I should have known) played Merle Haggard and Ronnie Milsap.  We had to drag Ray out of that one.  Eventually we found a happy medium.  Three nights of honkytonk bars, one night sitting at a listening cafe called "The Bluebird Cafe" (seen on the show "Nashville") and four full days of touring Nashville (loved the Segway tour, and now Ray wants a Segway for Panama!)  gave the three of us some great alone time that we needed before Ray and I make the big move to Panama (okay, maybe I just really needed the trip), and what memories we made there!  We took Carly to see Ray's mom in Tazewell, VA (we're baaaack) where she had homemade biscuits and No Bake Cookies waiting for us to gorge on!

Honkytonk Row

Country Music Hall of Fame Museum 

Ray and his country music singers

Original floor of original Grand Old Opry

Me, listening to my favorite music!

Stalking Vince Gill's house (and I looked how I looked up above when we found it)

A day of rest and then Ray and I took off for another six hundred mile round trip road trip to Pittsburgh, PA.  But first a stop at the National Harbor overnight so we could enjoy dinner and singing along at Bobby McKeys dueling piano bar with great friends and former co-workers of Ray's (work wife #1). The next day we spent driving to Pittsburgh playing in the Rivers Casino with Ray's other former co-worker (okay, work wife #2) and her family along with chatting over dinner.  And yes, Ray won.  The following morning Ray and I met up with work wife #2 and walked to his Pittsburgh office.  He had not been to this office in about seven years but he spoke to most everyone I met that morning on the phone daily.  One woman he had never met before, but she certainly did know his voice "hello ______, this is Ray" after hearing it everyday.  Now she could put a picture to the voice.  He spoke with his former boss, and everyone remarked how relaxed he looked walking around the law firm in shorts and flip flops (I dressed up more in a sundress haha and flip flops).  He is rested, relaxed and relieved to be away from the stress of the law firm.  After two hours of visiting, stuffing our faces with a Primanti Brothers sandwich (www.Primantibros.com)--an iconic tradition of eating a cheeseburger on white bread with the cole slaw and french fries on the sandwich, we rolled back to the car for our road trip back to Bumpass.  What a great week of traveling, visiting old friends and making memories with Carly!

"The Awakening" at National Harbor

The Capital wheel

Incline going up Mt Washington

Nighttime skyline

I don't usually eat white bread (not toasted) or cheeseburgers or french fries (I steal from others)

Ate the whole half of it (not too bad)

Just when we thought we were done with road trips.....I am taking Annikah (happens to be the name of my car) to Raleigh, NC in two weeks to her new owner.  We are making the drive, because we have the time, and the new owner found herself in time constraint to get here.  I haven't driven the car since May 29th (except around the corner to keep her started up), so here's hoping she behaves on the 200 mile trip.

I have researched that from Chame, Panama to Boquete, Panama it is 400 miles.  This is a no brainer road trip once we get settled in Chame a bit.  Supposedly we have a car to look at the day we arrive in Panama.  Ray found it on Encuentra.com.  I have my skepticism guard up that it will look as great as it sounds or as great as the pictures show, so we'll see.  And I am hoping our final visit with the attorney goes just as smoothly as it did in January.  "Virtual" friends of ours (who I can't wait to eventually meet and share stories in person)  have not had the best of luck recently in regards to communication with their attorneys.  This has resulted in more money out of the expats pockets and more time!  I am hoping their troubles will be resolved quickly, and that Ray and I have no troubles at all that first week in Panama.

Our landlord recently gave us directions to the house we are renting (it is in a subdivision called Villas des Campestres)--well, the best directions you can possibly give to someone navigating their way around Panama.  Sounds easy enough.  We will contact the neighbor the day before to let him know when we will arrive to the house.  He will give us the key and a tour.

This week the weather is supposed to ge gorgeous here (but these past two days we have had rain like I am expecting when in Panama--torrential downpours, LOUD thunder, BRIGHT lightning), so it is floating and resting time before we start packing up four suitcases and two carry on bags!  We can take 70 pounds in each of the four suitcases, since we were recently upgraded on Copa airlines.  We will be low key this week and calm, because I bet there could be a little tension in zipping up those suitcases soon and making it all fit!  No, not tension between me and Ray, no way--tranquilo all the way.  Retirement is supposed to be stress free :)