Latest / bit of a Rambler / 018 Ramble On

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018 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Ramble on number eight, where I just talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: about stuff, and I have a lot to talk about.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Because I moved, I'm in Panama City now and I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: kind of missed the whole communal living thing, so I
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: got a private dorm room. There's like shared bathrooms in
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a corridor, and we each have our own rooms. I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go full hostile so that I could
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: still record some stuff, but there's gonna be noise in
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the background, probably because it's a dorm room. And I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: got a couple wacky stories about that in a little while.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But let's try to start from where I left off,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: which was Panahachal, which there was just a weird, funky
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: smell that came into my room every morning at like
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: five am and it didn't stop for four hours. So
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I was just smelling this weird like tilling soil smell,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: like dusty dirt farming smell. It wasn't awful, but it
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was just off pudding and it didn't do my stomach
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: any favors. So as much as I liked what Panahatchell
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: panahat shell looked like and you know, the food there
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: was good. I was happy to be moving on. And
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: there were private buses, private shuttles everywhere, so you could
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: get with a group and go in a van and
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: pay individually and just you know, go with a bunch
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of other people going to go out of Mala city.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: But that was two hundred and that seemed crazy to me,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: so I just took the regular buses, which were not
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: difficult to find. One long ride to Solola because it
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was school time, so there was all these kids going
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to school at the same time. It was a pretty
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: crowded bus. And then I had a long ride up
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to Lakuchia, the second place before I could get a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: bus that goes all the way to Guatemala. And Kuchia
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: took a while also, but most of the kids had
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: already gone to school, so it wasn't so bad. And
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: then at Kuchia Losanquentros, right when I got to the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: top of the hill, there was a bus going straight
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to Guatemala, and I just ran out of that bus,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: got on the Guatemala bus and I was good to go.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And those buses were three, five and then thirty, so
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: thirty eight ketsales instead of two hundred ketsals for the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: same time like getting to the city. So I was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: glad I did that. Now the ride was rough because
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I still had leftover stomach troubles from the water, I'm guessing,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and then the buses in Guatemala are not gentle, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I was kind of out of it because I didn't
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: go to bed. I left the morning after I recorded
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: during the night and at five that weird dirt smell
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: came in through the window and I was like, you
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: know what, No, I'm out. There's no reason for sleeping
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: for four hours and then going. And I wanted to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: leave early early, just to make sure that I got
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: there in plenty of time for my flight, which was
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours from them four am the next day,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: but just in case there was anything wrong with the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: bus which might break down or who knows anything like
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: there was a protest when I went to Panahatchel. I'd
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: rather be half a day early than half a day
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: late for my flight, and I was. I got into
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Guatemala City. Everything went smoothly with those three buses, except
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: for my stomach, and at one point I was like,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: oh my god, am I going to crap my pants
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: on this bus? But I just held on and grimaced
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and breathed deeply through all the swings and turns as
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I was thrown left and right on the bus bench.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: But then I made it to Guate and I got
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: off the bus, and once I was on my own
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: two feet, I felt much better. There was a mall.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I asked the guy, like, how close are we going
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to the airport? And he was like, here, get off, here,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: get that taxi. And I just got off and I
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm like really far away from the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: airport still, But I just grabbed a water and then
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I felt better, and I got an uber to the airport,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: which was whatever, five bucks whatever. And then I was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: at the airport that morning, a little before noon, I think.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And then I just watched TV and played on my
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: phone and I don't know, did whatever in the airport
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: while I waited for my flight to show up the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: next early early morning. But I felt much better, and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I was very thankful that I didn't get sick on
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the bus. Oh but the subway at the airport closed
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: early because there was this crazy lady in a purple
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: shirt like screaming and calling out the sandwich maker behind it,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: who seemed pretty nice and really chill and was just
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: making sandwiches and not responding to this super rude lady
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: who was yelling at her. And finally the security guards came,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: like after twenty minutes, and they just sort of blockaded her.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: There was like ten of them came up and just
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: sort of stood between her and her trying to get
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: toward the subway, and then the subway closed. It was weird.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It didn't like because the subway person wasn't reacting. It
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: didn't seem like it was going to erupt in violence
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: at any second. I bet if she would, then the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: purple shirted lady, who was definitely the aggressor here, would
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: have tried something violent. But because the sandwich artists didn't respond,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the purple lady just looked like a crazy asshole. And
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: it was kind of late and night at that point.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: It was like ten ten pm or something, and so
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: there's like twenty of us in the food court and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: subway is the only thing open, and this crazy lady
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was like slapping a clipboard and shouting at the sandwich
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: person and she was like, you come out here, you
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: come out here in Spanish, and we all just like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: had our chins on our fists. We're all just like
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: watching this crazy lady and a couple people want to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: talk to a security guard. And then they came up.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But like way later, I went down and I saw
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: a guy in front of me telling them like, hey,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: there's this lady yelling at the subway lady, and I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, it's already reported. And then they didn't
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: show up for another ten minutes or something, even though
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: they were right at the bottom of the escalators. Really
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe they all waited for backup, maybe
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: because a lot of them came at one time, but
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: then they did come. Oh. I was gonna talk about
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the Panajachel stuff first so that I can kind of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: go in order. So let's jump back a few days
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to Pana Hotchel. The whole time, like all four months
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I was in Guatemala, I was trying to find beef
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: jerky in some form or another, some kind of dried beef,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: but they just didn't make it. It was nowhere to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: be found. And then like three days before I left Guatemala,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I finally found these chariso Oh, I can't remember now
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Kotitla's Costilla's something. They're a Honduran dried cherizo and I
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, maybe that'll be good. And they were
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: pretty cheap, so I grabbed a pack and they were
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: very good, and I wish I had found them before
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: so I could get my beef jerky fixed in. But
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it's okay because I found them, so that's cool, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: it was great to have, yeah, dry charisos to snack
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: on for a couple days, and then the water in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: my hotel cut off. The hotel didn't know why there
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was no scheduled maintenance and they said nobody else had
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: reported a water outage, and I was like, oh, okay.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It was out for like four hours, but it did
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: come back on eventually, and then it happened two more times,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: but it always happened during the night while I was up,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: so I guess no one else got up early enough
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: because sometimes I would come back on at like eight am.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: But the hotel said no one ever reported it, and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: when the water came out it was brown, so I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: feel like they were replacing some piece of pipe somewhere. Oh.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: In the day before I left Shella for Pana hot Shell,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: my slipper broke, which always happens like the day before
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I leave, and I'm like, all right, everything's packed up,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I'm all ready for everything. And then some little thing
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that I'd been thinking I should fix snaps and my
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: slipper broke in Shellow right before I went to Pana.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: But it's kind of a blessing in disguise because I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: just use a new soda cap tie. The new knot
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: takes me five minutes. Then that shoe works for another
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: six months or a year. Oh thanks telling me. I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: didn't talk about Panahachel yet. Like when I got I
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: got there. The lake is amazing. It's huge. There are
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: three giant volcanoes right there. It's a tropical wonderland. There's
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of local shops, even though it's obviously supposed
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to be a touristic location, but there's just palm trees
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and greenery everywhere. Yeah, it was a nice beach front
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: little town. There's a whole bunch of boats. You could
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: pay twenty kitsalez to go across the lake and go
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: to all the little settlements around the lake. And it's
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: really interesting, Like if you looked at it from being airborne,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: it looks like a giant brontosaurus stepped into the earth
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and crushed a huge crater that made a lake, and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that's what lake at Titline is shaped like, with the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: claws facing the north on the rounded bottom edge of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the foot facing the south. But to get to Panaha Shell,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it was sort of an ordeal. I left Shella and
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I got the bus to Pana but it stopped like
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: halfway to Panahachel and then there was some kind of blockade.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So the guy was going to take an alternate route,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and he drove over a curb highway divider like kind
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of a berm in the middle of the highway and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: he just drove over it and tried to do like
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a three point turn so he could turn around, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: then the bus stalled and he was like, all right, everybody,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: this is the end. Bus isn't moving now. It's broken,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and so we all had to get off the bus
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and everyone's like what do we do? And then one guy,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the ticket taker, just started walking really fast in another
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: direction and everybody followed him. So I followed him and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: we walked for like a kilometer and there's a huge
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: protest about corruption in Guatemala and that's why there was
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a huge traffic jam. Nothing was broken down. There was
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: like a corruption protest, and we just walked through this
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: huge protest, a bunch of people with packages and backpacks
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and everything. And eventually, at the end of the protest,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: like a kilometer later or something, there was another bus
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that already had a whole bunch of people on it,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: but we all crammed on there. I think I even
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: got a seat and we were on our way again.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: But then I had to pay a second fee, but
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: it was only like fifteen catsales because were already halfway there,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: so I just paid the ticket the second time. I
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: think the original ticket taker was supposed to give him
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: my money, but because I didn't watch him give money
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to the other guy, which every other person that got
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: on the bus waited until they watched him give money
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to the second bus ticket taker and then got on,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: he just kept my money that I gave him. But whatever,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it was a couple bucks. So I paid for the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: rest of the way and soon okay, so we got
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to listen Quenchros Lacuccia, which is like the interchange station
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: where you transfer buses, and that just looks like the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: rest of the city is just a highway stop. But
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the Solola bus came right after that, and that's the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: second stop before Panahachel, the nice beautiful lake beachside, tropical town.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And as soon as it got on the Solola bus,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: like five minutes into the ride, every the air was clear,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the green was bright green, the sky looked more like
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: everything was just suddenly tropical and beautiful. Five minutes into
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the ride, it was such a startling transformation. I was like, Oh,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: this is what I've been looking for, this is what
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I wanted, this kind of tropical forest, and I got it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: When we got to Solola like ten minutes later, it
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: was insanely beautiful. It's such a nice little city, very
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: pretty little town. And then I transferred onto a bus there,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: got down to Panahachell, was blown away again by the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: volcanoes in the lake. It was just such a amazing
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: introduction to that part of the country. I don't know
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: if I'll go back, but I'm very glad I got
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to see that. If I had only seen Guatemala and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Sheella before I left, I would have felt like I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: missed something, and I would have missed Solola and Panahachel.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm very glad I got to see these rustic
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: set apart beautiful rural towns. But even Guatemala City, the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: biggest city or the most densely populated city in Central America,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: feels a bit rural and I wanted to get back
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: into a more modern country. I had been living in
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: rustic times for four months, but I'll get to that
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: in a minute. The room I got I just booked
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a hotel while I was on the way to Panahachel
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and I kind of lucked out because my room had
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a leak. So they transferred rooms and I got a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: bigger room with all hardwood furniture and my own shower.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I had my own shower in the other one,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: but this was just a very large room with a
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: large bathroom, two chairs so I could set up a studio.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It was very nice room. It's just that weird smell
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that came in every morning for hours, but other than that,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it was a very nice hotel room, and the shower
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: worked great and everything okay. So anyway, Solola nice, Pana
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Hutchell nice, But time to move on. I had lived
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: in Guatemala a long time. I liked it, but there
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: are no Asian markets. There are no ethnic markets or
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: imported food markets at all in Guatemala. There are, I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: mean there are a couple, but it's literally like thirteen
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: dollars for ten sheets of nori. Like the imported food
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: is crazy expensive there because they must have bought it
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: once when they been to the shop and then never
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: bought another one again. And there's not like a lot
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of different people meeting each other, like it's Guatemalan people,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Guatemalan people, like. It's not a hub of culture of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: international culture anyway. And I like my time in Guatemala,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but I wanted a more bustling city with a lot
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of cultural exchange going on because it had been so long,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and I really wanted Chinese food or Indian food, some
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: kind of other food pretty badly that I was almost
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: going to buy a ticket to Japan or China. I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was looking at tickets there. I was like, maybe I'll
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: just go back there, like I want that good food,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and I feel more comfortable in a lot of parts
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of Asia, more comfortable culturally, Like I just fit into
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Chinese culture better I think than Central American culture so far,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: or at least Guatemalan. I've only to Guatemala so I
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was looking at places that were a little higher in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: income so that there would be more of a city
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: vibe and I would be able to find an Asian market.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And I looked at Panama City and they had Chinese supermarkets,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, I'm going to go to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Panama City then, And I got a ticket just a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: few days before I left, and man, that was the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: right choice, because I'll tell you, I'm in Panama City
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: now and I like Panama City. My flight over here
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: was good. I added a couple inches to my son's
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: sleeves so they fit correctly. They have huge malls and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: casinos like all over the place here. It's really interesting.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I haven't been into one of the casinos yet, but
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I might put on my covered shoes just so I
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: can see what they look like on the inside. There
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: are movie theaters here, so I was able to watch
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Mission Impossible eight today in what I didn't know until
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I got there was the really fancy movie theater. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it still cost me like ten dollars. But there's a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: little button and a waiter will show up and you
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: can order food and all that. But I still don't
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: have my international transaction fee free card yet, and I
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: don't want to spend all my cash, although maybe I
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: should have got a snack while I was there. In
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: any case, the movie was okay. I liked seven a
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: lot more. There were a lot of exciting parts in eight,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: but the whole first hour of setup was long. I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: know that he was like saying goodbye to a franchise
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that had constituted so much of his life, but it
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: was just long for me as an audience member. Also,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I might not connect to the Mission Impossible franchise as
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: much as some other franchises, so maybe that's part of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it that made not as interested in watching an hour
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: long clip show. But after that first hour, the movie
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: picks up and it's pretty interesting. Seven starts out with
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of interesting sleight of hand and exciting stuff,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and eight does not start out very exciting. It starts
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: out modeling. It starts out like it's saying goodbye, which
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it is, so I wanted more excitement anyway, But man,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: did I get excitement in that third act. Wowsers. There
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: were some exciting parts of that. There were a lot
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of exciting parts of that movie after the first hour,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: for sure, so it was fun. I'm glad I got
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: to see it in the theater because it does. The
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: blank Check podcast made a good point that Tom Cruise
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: is trying to single handedly maintain the relevancy of the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: silver screen, and I think he does it well. And
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I was able to pay in this giant
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: franchise that has existed while cinema has changed so much
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: in the past thirty years. So it's kind of interesting
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to pay. It feels like I'm paying for the type
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of cinematic franchise that does not exist anymore at all. Like, yes,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: there are eight How to Train Your Dragons, but they
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: mean nothing culturally. There's no difference in my mind between
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: how to Train Dragon one and eight. If there are eight,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I know there are a lot. It's just hey, there's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: this new dragon, and like, you can't train them, but
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: then you can train them. There are three dudes living
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in the dorm next to me, and it's making a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: bit of a rucke, so you'll hear them going in
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and out of their rooms and talking to each other
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: a lot. Anyway, How to Train Your Dragon has McDonald's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: plastic toys and Mission Impossible like made an impact on
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the culture, and you know there's it's still relevant if
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you didn't hum that, everybody knows what you're doing immediately.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Oh mission impossible. It really left an imprint. So I
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: kind of want to watch the first one. I don't
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: think I can watch the second one, just because I've
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: watched it so many times. That was my favorite one
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: growing up, and I still remember that movie like perfectly
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and I love everything about it. But I'd like to
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: see the first and then I hear Ghost Protocol is
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to be really good according to the blank check
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: guys again, but I remember not liking it, so I
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: might give that another shot. Anyway, Let's talk about what
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was cool when I got here. When I landed in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Panama City, I had to exchange my currency, and the clerk, oh, which,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: by the way, did you know this, there's no Panamanian balboa.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: It's called the Panamanian Balboa, but it's literally just US
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: dollars and they have some coins that are different, but
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: they use US coins also as legal currency. So when
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: you come here to like, you don't have to exchange
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: your money. You just bring US dollars and then you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: can use US dollars everywhere. That really surprised me. Because
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it's called the Balboa and it says like B one
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: fifty nine for the price, but for B one fifty
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: nine you pay one dollar and fifty nine cents USD,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: or B fifteen you pay fifteen US dollars. So that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: was interesting. I think it's the first country I've been
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to that just has incorporated USD into their currency system
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: as their system of currency natively. But I had some
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: guatemal And katsales leftover, so I exchanged those for USD
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: at the currency exchange station, and the clerk was super
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: nice and explained how I could get my Metro card
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and all that, and then he mentioned something about China,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: how he traveled to China couple of years ago and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: how he was just blown away at how technologically advanced
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: it was and just how well the trains worked, and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: how it was a completely different country than he was,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: just a completely new environment and he loved that, and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's so cool. I lived there
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: for a while. And then we both just like gushed
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: about China and we talked about the food for like
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: ten minutes, and I was like, so I'm here. I'm
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: excited to like get back into Asian markets. And like
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: eat some Chinese food again. And he explained to me
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: about the cities he visited and all the stuff he
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: loved about the culture and how much he wanted to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: go back to Asia in general and just keep exploring
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: because that he only took like a month there or something,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: but his mind completely opened up after a month in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: such a completely different culture and world, So that was
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: really cool. I just had this long conversation and I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: noticed eventually somebody else got in line behind me. Panama
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is pretty empty. This city, like it's a huge, international,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: modern city, but it's just not at full, which is
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: really nice obviously, but it was surprising. So we, me
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and him just talked about China for like ten minutes
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: before anyone stood in line, and then we gossiped for
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: another five minutes before I was like, okay, I gotta go.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: That guy like wants to change money also, but he
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: looked fine waiting for us to talk. Panamanians seem pretty chill,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: so I like that a lot. This is a chill,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: modern built up, fast paced city that is chill. It's
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: very interesting here. That was a great introduction to Panama,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and then I had to wait for my room to
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: be ready, even though it ended up getting ready hours
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: before I thought it would. And man, I got to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: go to a phonda or a buffet style restaurant. You
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: just choose like one order that, one order that, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: they have like thirty dishes of hot dishes ready to go.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And the beef I got the first day, I don't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: know if it was heart or what, but holy crap,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it was so good. And I've been back to that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: place a few times now just because their food's like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the best, it's some of the best. It's the best
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: food I've had in months, for sure from another restaurant.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I blew me away the way they cooked the beef, especially,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And I just got a huge shrimp meal also the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: other day. And it's two bucks a portion of whatever
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you're getting. So if you get a portion of shrimp,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: which is the most expensive thing, I think that's three
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: dollars a portion, but that's three dollars for like eight
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: or nine huge shrimps, like prawn sized shrimps, like I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: don't know, six seven inches long, like giant for three bucks.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And then beef is like two bucks portion, which is
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: two scoops of like an ice cream scoop, so it's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: a decent amount of meat, and pork's a buck eighty
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: or something, so you can get a full meal for
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: seven dollars very easily. And there's rice salad, and there's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: these fondas are everywhere. They're all over this city and
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: apparently all over this country. And I've tried a few,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: but that first one I tried it has the best beef,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and so I'm gonna keep going back there. I might
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: go to the second one I tried because they had
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: really good ground beef, and I went to Asian markets here.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'll get more into Asian markets the next one. But
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I have my sauce and my noodles and man eating
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: hot pot sauce dry fried egg noodles. Again, it's so good,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So I want to get some of the ground meat
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and mix it in there and have like a Dundan
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Mien type thing going on. Anyway, Panama is so cool,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: but this is stretching out, So I'm going to get
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: into the crab eating raccoons, which are cute and awesome,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and how I feel about this city on the next
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: ramble on, and I'll have more to talk about because
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I've only been here a few days, so far, but
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, things just start getting better every day. I'm
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: just really enjoying Panama and everything. Yeah, i'll talk to
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you soon. Have a great day, and thank you for listening.