New Years in Panama City — December 31, 2012 and into January 1, 2013

 Ola

Here’s the quick summary of New Year’s Eve.. gotta pack after this and head to airport.

First a few explanations for those of you who have been asking..

• I have been working on a blog of all of these travel notes from all over the world — actually the written part is done, with about 200+ posts as of 2012, and surely more to come over the years. It’s taking me a long time to select photos from the many thousands I have.. but eventually, hopefully in the coming months this will happen and I will alert you to the blog site address, and yes it will link to the FTA site.
• We picked Panama because we wanted to stay in this hemisphere, go to a small country where we could get the flavor without having to make it a very very long trip, and we wanted to stop in Florida on the way going or coming to visit my 92-year old aunt…

We left the hotel around 7:15 to head to Helene’s for drinks. Naturally we were a little early, since she said people would come between 7 and 9… and it’s Latin time.. so getting there at 7:30 we were the first – except for Jacqueline who I suspect spent the day with Helene after the fish market. Gave us a chance to learn more about them and to chat quietly. Helene served champagne, wonderful pate, ceviche (she bought the ceviche at the market, then soaked the fish in orange juice, added a pinch of rum (!), and served it on seaweed… Really good. And a few other treats. We tasted everything, but kept saying we shouldn’t eat because we were off for a big dinner.

So we learned that Helene’s grandfather or maybe her father (Helene is 70) was Jewish but became Catholic before WWII and Helene was raised Catholic. She has a daughter here in Panama who is an interior architect and she has 5 grandchildren, the eldest is 16 and wants to go to medical school in the states. Helene’s father worked for GM in Europe and Helene was sent to Palm Beach, Florida for a year when she was 16 to learn English. She returns to France annually because her mother is 94 years old. She considers herself a painter (water colors) and got involved in fashion design and promotion of local designers because of her interest in preserving the quality and culture of indigenous Panamanian groups.

Jacqueline has only been in Panama City for three years and she seems to have mixed feelings about the place, although she sees a lot of hope. She’s still figuring out what she might do here… her gallery in Miami represented mostly emerging artists (North America and Europe) and she doesn’t feel the market is here yet in Panama to do the same. She was explaining how Miami had built a wonderful new opera house with phenomenal acoustics but the programming was amateurish.. so the building was ahead of the people. I think she left Miami because she began to feel unsafe.

Soon another woman (also French, from Burgundy) arrived. Never really got her name because they referred to her as Madame something. Anyway, she is a part timer here in Panama City. She still lives in France (I think she was a professor, but not certain.. her English was weaker than Helene’s and Jacqueline’s).. She’s retired and her son and daughter-in-law live in Panama, so she bought a small apartment and comes for two months every year.

Funny story… her daughter-in-law was in finance (has an MBA), but decided to learn how to make ice cream. Apprenticed in France. Now has an ice cream store in Casco Viejo (the area where we stayed when we first arrived in Panama)… She brought some samples to Helene… so before we headed to our dinner we topped off the pate and ceviche with delightful coconut and raspberry ice cream.. felt like I was in Paris at Bertillon!

The women were all quite fascinated with the work that Mike and I do… and decided that we MUST return and they will try to arrange for a conference about community development and housing and other issues. I wouldn’t put it pass them to actually move ahead with this idea. They have lots of connections and seem to be friends with people in important positions, like the director for the new Metro that is under construction.

We left before the others arrived, including a musician from NY who is married to a Panamanian.

We said our farewells and off we went to Casco Viejo for our new year’s dinner at Las Bovedas… a former Spanish prison from the 1600s converted into a restaurant… that sits on the waterfront at the tip of the old section. We arrived around 9:15. Mike made the reservations and said that this was the last seating.. But actually it was the first and only seating for the evening.. and no one else came until about 10..  Dinner was good (not great).. but the best was the fireworks at midnight — everyone left the restaurant to go outside (it was actually a delightful night — breezy and drier.. and about a cool 80 degrees) up some stairs to the Casco Viejo pedestrian “terrace”.. a sort of embarcadero or malecon.  From there we could see all the fireworks going on simultaneously around the city… It was like competing fireworks!

Back in the restaurant for a final glass of champagne.. and to the hotel to sleep.

Chatted with the restaurant owner who turns out to have been in finance in Europe.. retired.. and felt that if you really retire you die in 6 months, so he had to figure something out.. and he moved to Panama and opened this restaurant!

By the way, Mike is now sporting a panama hat!! And the New Years’ Eve beads.

OK.. that’s it until the next trip.

Fern