=dantastic202

after in panama for a couple hours, i can't help not let you guys know what i'm doing. my journal's gonna be a blog for the next week or two. get used to it. and
*Xesta? you helped with your trip thing so i'm copying you. ugh...


my dad, my brother and i woke up at 2:45 in the morning. this was awesome. no seriously, it was. i'm an early riser. before we left the apt., my dad told us that one of us could have his first class seat. i won it by flipping a coin. hellz yeah.

so we got on the plane, 5:30 or so, los angeles to houston. went to sleep...no, wait...tried to sleep, about thirty billion times. didn't work. so i watched juno. best movie ever. landed in houston. our connecting flight was at the gate next door. awesome. we had about a three hour wait so my brother and i went to a panda express and stuffed ourselves with orange chicken, chow mein, fried rice, and caffeinated soda. mmm...

then we got on the second plane which took an extra hour just to take off. somehow the pilot had forgot to get half the passengers on the plane or something so we just sat there as all the empty seats we thought could be ours were taken. we were still together though. watched the first spiderman movie with subtitles because my brother "forgot" to bring the headphone splitter. after that, listened to trentemøller's album, the last resort, front to back. amazing album. buy it.

landed in panama. god damn it's humid. oh well, i'll get used to it. our bags were all together on the baggage claim, which made it crazy easy. then one of my dad's partners in panama picked us up and drove us to the place we're staying at for the first two nights. on the way there, i realized that panama looks a lot like seattle. yeah boi!! although the weather is completely different. like, totally. like i'm totally a valley gurl right now.

my cousins who were also at the airport and my dad's partner and us went to dinner. we totally got submersed in the culture. we had burgers. it doesn't help that they were called "california cheeseburgers." at least i didn't get the "beverly hills tuna melt." my dad would have killed me.

tune in next time kids for something not scripted yet!


my dad had a meeting at ten in the morning so he told us the night before to sleep in. i did, thinking that i'd be able to seize the day and wake up before he left. i actually woke up an hour after his meeting was over: noon. but we all still left (we all, in case you don't know, is me, my brother, my dad, and my two cousins) to go have lunch. we drove around a little first. driving here is totally different than back in the states. for example, on one street which is definitely wide enough for four lanes, has no lines whatsoever on it. people are cutting each other off and everything. i bet at least 50 percent are drunk.

we had lunch at this pretty neat place by a resort. the restaurant is underneath a humongous hut outside. i had a tenderloin steak and two virgin piña coladas. wasn't much else i liked or wanted to try on the menu.

so after that we drove over to the panama canal visitors center, but not before having our car break down right on a railroad track. we were able to put it in neutral and coast down off the track, but there were no trains coming anyway. we were able to get it running again and went over to the visitors center. we took the stairs, not realizing there was an escalator right beside us, and watched one of the giant canal locks open up to let a ship through. it started to pour as we walked over to one of the theaters they had set up with an english version of some movie about the history of the canal, which began and ended with the same techno song i couldn't get out of my head.

after getting bored with the souvenir shop, which contained an awesome 39 dollar tie that had a picture of the canal on it, we left and drove a mile, when our car broke down again. we were able to get it running again, and i suggested that we should probably go home and try to fix it. everyone agreed and my dad turned around, to have it break down a third time. but we couldn't get it running even after waiting a couple minutes. my dad opened the hood and the radiator had completely fried. the cap had even burnt off. we tried pouring water in it but it didn't work. so after waiting a half hour or so, one of my cousins flagged down a taxi to take us home while we left dad with the car to get it towed.

one thing to mention about taxis in panama, is that they are not really taxis. they're more like city buses, but miniaturized into a tiny car. point being, if you're going one way, and the taxi's going the opposite, it simply won't take you there. you have to wait for a random taxi going in your general direction to take you where you want to go. it's damn cheap though. we drove to our place for 15 bucks, where in los angeles the same distance would cost three times that.

so we arrived at our place and our door was locked. so we waited for another half hour in the air conditioned lobby. my brother decided to go and see if there was anyone up there yet. he did, and sure enough, someone WAS up there the whole friggin' time. by now it was around six and we just hung out a little.

after my dad came back, we all went to dinner with the sister of my dad's partner that picked us up at the airport yesterday. guess what we had? steak. whatever, steak's good. after all, i have a stamp below that says...anyway, we talked a little and i met a dude my age who i might hang out with later this trip and trade music with.

lastly, we went to a pretty cool restaurant and bar and met some girls. one liked me. anyway, pretty eventful day.

oh and one more thing. tomorrow we go on a flight to a hotel for four days before coming back here on monday. i don't know if i'll have internet but if i don't, i'm still documenting so on monday i can just dump the entire thing into this journal. see ya around.


i had told my dad to wake me up at 4:30 in the morning along with everyone to make sure i could shower. he woke me up at 4:50 and yelled at me why the hell i wasn't up. so i had to rush, the one thing i really didn't want to do. so all five of us drove to the airport at 5:00 and checked ourselves in. we had breakfast at the "nescafé" at the airport, which had pancakes, sausages and eggs. i got the pancakes and a hot chocolate. the pancakes were cold. it was pretty disgusting actually. they probably were made an hour beforehand. my cousin pete had gotten the sausages with the pancakes and said it was exactly like a corn dog. i tried it and it totally was a corn dog. at least the hot chocolate was good.

we went on the plane from panama city to bocas del toro, which was where we would stay for four days. i listened to tiësto's first album, in my memory, at least the good songs anyway. i had an orange juice and a ham and cheese sandwich that probably was made in the last ten minutes; it had a cool plastic thing around it. kinda hard to describe. we landed so freaking hard on the runway that my seatbelt popped off. it was really weird.

we got our luggage and a local named miguel helped us with our bags and offered to drive us to our hotel. turns out he didn't even have a car. then another person offered us a lift, and miguel went with us. weird, much?

we got to our hotel around 9:00 and hung out for a little bit. my dad hired a boat to take us to some island with a beach on it and it seemed awesome. my cousins wanted to sleep a little, so we left them. but when we got to the boat, my brother said that he had diarrhea and didn't wanna go. so we ended up not going today. it wouldn't be all of us. so we went back to the room and i decided to take a little nap. a nap that turned out to be the sleep i missed the night before; i slept 8 hours.

it turns out my dad tried to wake me up around noon to have lunch but i apparently said i wasn't hungry. i have no memory of that. did i say that in my sleep? life is weird.

we had dinner at an awesome italian place. had some penne alfredo and a coke. then went out for ice cream. mine had nuts in it. mmm...after dinner we went back to the room, and pete came in half an hour later and asked what we were doing. dad brought up the idea of pete and dana (my other cousin) and i going out to a local club again. pete said that dana was already asleep, and pete was getting tired.

i hope i'm not wasting panama time. i think tomorrow we're on the beach. let's see what happens.


woke up at 10:15 a little rushed and all five of us went to some breakfast place and had bacon and pancakes. they were hot...better than nescafé. then we hired the same boat that didn't take us yesterday and we spent about half an hour driving over to the beach.

we stopped at some random island in the middle of nowhere at this bar that was also a restaurant and we pre-ordered food (if we didn't, we would have to wait a while), and i got a chicken curry dish that sounded pretty awesome. i got a virgin piña colada and we hung out a little before getting back in the boat. they were playing some reggae, which was kind of weird; you don't really hear that much in panama.

we eventually got to the beach which pretty much was a deserted island. i put on some fins and a snorkel and we swam in the ocean. it was so warm, probably like 80 degrees or so. we swam for a bit and walked on the beach. we found the corner of the island where waves from one corner converged with waves from another and it formed a rip tide. i swam in it and that was fun.

we went back to the piña colada place after we were bored swimming and got our food. it was awesome because the chicken was awesome. i know this is making no sense but i'm kinda tired tonight. awesome.

we hung out a little and smoked a couple cigars after we ate (no, not me). they played a 30 second clip of bob marley's get up stand up like 10 times in a row. it got really annoying, so we left. we were going to swim at another island, but pete, dana, and i didn't really feel it so we went back to the hotel and took a shower. i took a nap and watched an episode of 24.

we had dinner at a cool restaurant underneath a hut and i had a panamanian club sandwich. wasn't bad. then we went back to the ice cream place we had breakfast at that morning (??) and i had cookies & cream. yummy. i was going to go to the bar with pete, dana and my dad but i wasn't up to it. kinda tired.


we woke up around 11 and our boat was going to leave in an hour (we were going to a different beach) so we had to have something to eat. my brother suggested we try a cuban taco place. we agreed and i don't regret it. they have the best friggin' chicken taco ever. but they were pretty big so i only ate two.

we went to the market afterward and picked up a six pack of beer and a six pack of coke (the beer was for me) and we headed off to red frog beach. love the name. i brought my copy of hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy with me in case i got bored.

the boat ride was a little shorter than yesterday, which was cool cause we didn't have to wait as long. we got to the place but it wasn't even a beach. it was just a small dock surrounded by six or seven boats. no beach. we walked on to the dock and a dude stopped us and asked for ten bucks, two bucks per person. ok...so we got through the gate ok, and we did a mini hike just to get to the beach and crossed all these sand bridges and stuff. it was a trip; walking all this way for something nothing like it.

we eventually got to the beach and it was surrounded by tons of tourists. none were annoying or anything, it just intrigued me how so many people were able to fit in more than several boats, or was there some sort of invisible gate we missed? we all went swimming and there were definitely better waves to bodysurf on. i got out after a half hour or so and read a little before going back in. nothing else pretty much happened after that worth noting. we got back in the boat and headed for the hotel but not before meeting some weird red frog that looked poisonous. well, i guess red frog beach has...you know...

at the hotel we washed up a little and hung out in our rooms. we went down for dinner at the restaurant downstairs. my dad didn't want to go there before because he thought the service was too slow. but what the hell. me and my brother got a pepperoni pizza and the rest got lobster pasta or something like that. my dad told me that at the club last night, the police randomly came in and asked everyone for their identification. good thing i wasn't there. after my brother made a happy face out of his non consumed pizza crust and pepperoni slices, everyone was so stuffed that no one felt like going out. neither did i. so i guess it's hbo night again. american movies with spanish subtitles. sweetness.


i'm actually writing this day's events on the 18th; i was feeling kinda sick and goosebumpy, so forgive me if it's not detailed enough and i don't remember.

today was another beach day so we got on the boat and headed off to starfish beach. it was pretty sick, considering there were tons of starfish and whatnot. we broke out the masks and snorkels and swam around before heading back to have lunch. but before we did, we visited this island which just was a huge ass rock in the middle of nowhere but was remarkable about it was that there were tons of palm trees just growing out of it. it was pretty awesome. boating back, we noticed a volcano waaaaaaaaay in the distance. the boat dude told us that was costa rica; it would be a four hour boat ride to go there. pretty cool; i had just been there recently.

we had lunch at some random beach with tourists and there was a restaurant toward the back. can't remember what i got. but i remember after lunch my dad made me walk to the "point" and see what was there. nothing was there.

after coming back to the hotel, i took a shower and about half an hour after that, i didn't feel so good. my stomach hurt, and i got goosebumps everywhere. not to mention a headache that wouldn't cease. i didn't have dinner that night.

well that's as much as i can remember. what happened today? well......


today i woke up and i felt a little better but i still didn't feel myself. but i was able to finally...FINALLY...finish watching alias. like completely. amazing series. loved it. anyway, we really didn't do much today because we were gonna leave bocas and head back to my dad's apt in panama city. after having lunch at the awesome taco place again, we headed for the airport and checked ourselves in.

during the flight, i listened to tiësto's "just be" and read skymall. made the flight pretty easy. the thing that surprised me the most was the freakin baggage claim. in most airports, it's a huge room with a moving conveyor. here, the room was slightly larger than a regular bedroom and the claim itself took up just the corner and involved a padded floor and a hole in the wall. then some dude climbed up and started personally handing everyone their luggage. talk about service, no?

my dad's partner picked us up again in his signature red suv and off we went to the apt. after chillin' for 15, we headed for the hardware store to pick up an inflato-mattress. the one i had been sleeping on had been deflating and i kept waking up on the hard ground. the first place we went to didn't have any so we went to the mall, which also contained the restaurant we were eating at. after we picked up the mattress, we went over to eat dinner.

the mall has all these brands that you find in the states; off the top of my head, dairy queen, cinnabon, swatch watch...there were so many; it's insane that i'm blanking on all of them, anyway, our restaruant was right next to a benihana, if you can believe it. it was an outdoor place, kinda like a huge balcony. when we walked up, i heard awesome techno and i was like...

.D

i ordered a pineapple milk combo drink thing and a steak. it actually came with three steak lump things and it was like bbq all the way. i was feeling good, especially when two benny benassi songs came on. i almost danced in front of everyone. it would have been funny. after dinner we went to dairy queen and we each had an ice cream. pete had never been to one and he ordered a huge ass thing of cream. it was insane.


congratulations *SirceUnlimited for winning my 2,000 pageview! (he got my 1,000 too)



*SirceUnlimited 2,000 kiribian prize - original song (have to submit)
i see light chapter 3 (writing)


my clubs - join em'!


not my clubs - check em'! (out)



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and then there was...
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