We both had
our teeth cleaned at the local dental office. The doctor actually did the
cleanings. (less than half the cost in the states with no dental insurance)
We still
walk on the beach every morning. (no exciting dead things washed up on the
beach to report) I have collected quite a few pretty shells. I can’t believe
how many perfect shells wash ashore. Pretty pinks, purples, oranges and some
that just look like they were hand painted.
We have only
spent sun time on the beach a couple of times. Once we get the visas done, we
should have more time for fun stuff. We see people riding horses on the beach
once in a while.
We have gone
to Picassos the last couple of Wednesdays. We met some new people and of course
many regulars. Often times the “newbies” are just down here on vacation or
checking it out for future retirement.
Last
Thursday we went to the city to meet with our immigration attorney for Greg’s
visa. It was the first time we had met her (though we have been corresponding
with her via email for almost 2 years) She looked over our paperwork and
despite Greg’s pension letter from Lockheed stating everything required, she
didn’t like it. So, we had to go the U.S. embassy to sign an affidavit swearing
the pension is valid and the amount is correct and a few other pages. They had
no problem with the paperwork, so we had to go back to the attorneys office on
Friday to fill out a ton of paper work to get the visa process started. After
it was filled out and we finally paid a deposit to the attorney for her
services, her husband took us (and another guy going through the same process)
to Panamanian immigration to get registered. Even though I can’t start my
process until my fingerprints are accepted by the FBI so they can do my
background check, I have all my paperwork filled out and also am registered so
it won’t be starting from scratch when it does come through.
Next Tuesday
we go get Greg’s temporary visa that is good for one year and also his
Panamanian driver’s license. The permanent one normally takes around 6 months.
Greg’s
birthday was the 6th and we went out for lunch & dinner and I
made a flourless cake with ice cream and hot fudge. We want to go horseback
riding in El Valle, but Greg had scheduled maintenance on the car that day and
he wanted to wait until after he gets his visa. Just a lot to do.
We went to
El Valle Friday, but it rained pretty hard so we just had lunch and explored
the area in the car. We wanted to check out the place where they rent the
horses and go to a serpentarium. Next time….in better weather.
More misc.
Panama stuff:
Weekends
they give out samples of alcohol (wine, rum etc.) in the grocery stores…..
Watching TV
is a challenge. There are no networks like in the states. No CBS, NBC, ABC,
etc. We do get CNN and the stations they do have that are in English have about
5 episodes and just play them over and over. So, most TV is watched on the
computer. Using a Widi we can play them on the TV which frees up our computers
so we can do both at the same time. I found a site that streams live TV of most
of the major networks so that is nice. (USTVNOW) To get caught up of series I’m
behind on since last November (with living in hotels and being on the cruise
for almost 4 months) I use several different sites to watch what I can. One is
TVseries.net. My biggest challenge was finding things like Dexter (anything on
Showtime since they don’t share their shows), but TVseries.net has it. All
programs have different rules for when they are shown and some are only on a
certain website. (Hulu may have it, or Amazon Prime or Netflix etc.) Some
networks show their own shows online at their websites. So, it’s a challenge,
but at least there are ways to watch them.
We use a VPN
since most shows can’t be viewed out of the U.S. and it routes our network so
it appears we are in the States. It also lets us order on sites like Amazon
since most places don’t ship outside of the States. We don’t do that often
since paying twice for shipping and paying duty on new items isn’t worth it
unless we really “gotta have it”.
I finally
finished the web albums for the world cruise. Phew! Now, I’m working on one for
Panama. https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos (yea, I know it's still waaay too many pictures even after tossing over half of them!)
‘Til next
time…….
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