Hello, Panama!

So it's almost midnight and I'm currently starting this post because I have a 7 A.M. flight tomorrow in which I have to wake up at around 3 to get to the airport at 4, and I prefer to stay up before early flights so that I can sleep during them. When my parents brought up Panama as this year's vacation destination, I was quite surprised. I would have never considered this location to be on their list, but the more I think about it, the more cool it sounds. I am not excited for the extreme heat, humidity, and abundance of mosquitoes, but I am certainly looking forward to seeing the great canal, sunshine, swimming, and impeccable food!

I usually procrastinate with packing, but I really waited until the last minute today. Packing was much harder than I anticipated because of the weather conditions and we might not be able to laundry, so I had to be quite selective of what I needed to bring with me. My suitcase is much smaller than my parents', so I needed them to take a few of my belongings in one of theirs.

What I'm looking forward to the most tomorrow is a nice dinner at the hotel and meeting everyone! Last time, there was really no one my age and I ended up bonding more with the people my parents befriended, as usual. This time, I am really hoping that there is someone my age that I can bond with throughout the week. I originally planned to try to keep up my exercising every other day, but I know that this tour company likes to pack their schedules as much as possible and it is also likely that we'll be getting enough daily exercise just getting around. I'm really excited to go swimming and I hope I can keep up a streak of swimming at every hotel like I did when we did the same thing in Costa Rica!

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It's the next day at 10:30 P.M. and I am completely exhausted. My flight, which I slept pretty much the entirety of, landed at exactly 1 pm and it was smooth sailing from customs to the hotel. We are staying at the Marriott Courtyard right next to the insanely huge mall and it's so nice here! We had lunch at the mall at this place called Pollo Tropical and had a great meal amongst the three of us for just $20! I walked around the mall for about an hour in search for some simple, cheap flip flops and it was surprisingly a very difficult task. It took me so long to just find a store that sold them, and when I did, it was $16 for a pair and I refused to spend that much on something that costs so little to make. Thankfully I found a cute and comfy pair for $5 soon after and I went for a nice swim before dinner. There are 40 people in my tour group, and surprisingly there is only one other person my age, who happens to go to UPenn, so that's pretty cool! I'm still really happy that I have someone to connect with, even if it's just one person. Can't wait to see what's in store for me these next seven days!