Wednesday, 8/3

We are doing well.  Here are some highlights:

• Our boxes arrived yesterday. All 18 of them! Some of them looked like they had been through a tornado. How they made it to Panama I'll never know! Wait until you see the pictures. But I'm happy to say that all the things I had professionally packed made it just fine. I haven{t unpacked all, but so far, nothing is broken.  Truly, a miracle!!
• We still don''t have hot water, but honestly, that hasn't been as much of a problem as I thought it would be initially. Max is a trooper with taking cold showers. That process is a mixture of laughing and crying. Quite funny!
• I bought a car (Hyundai Santa Fe, 2006), which, hopefully, will be ready today. We went to pick it up the other day, but when I drove home, the airconditioning wouldn{t work. Well, that's just not an option, so back it went. 

(as I'm writing this, there is a torrential downpour going on right now. It's raining HARD, and in 10 minutes it will all be over, but the street will be flooded and crazy!)

• He is also doing so well in school. His school is called El Jardin de la Cuadra, and his teachers' name is Teacher Angélica. She truly is an angel. She was a psychologist before, and now is a teacher. Max loves her, she speaks a little English, and really has made an effort with me and him. He loves going, especially now that he's being picked up by his school bus and Señor José, his bus driver.  So great!
• He's picking up some small Spanish words, like gracias and por favor - a great start! 
• I have started school, and doing some observations of classes to get to know the place a little first. My schedule is from 7:00 until 3:00, which is nice because then I can run errands before going home.  But quite honestly, school has been the last thing on my mind as I've spent most of my time setting us up here. So now that we're settling, everything else can start taking shape as well. 
• Driving is a little crazy - you have to be somewhat aggressive and not afraid to use your horn. Quite different from quiet and peaceful Seattle!! :) And I{m getting better about learning the streets. I can pretty much get myself to the places I need to get to: my school Max´s school, the park, the pool, the grocery store, therapy, etc. I know I'll get lost at some point, which might actually  be good! Traffic is horrible, especially during rush hour, but my route to/from school is against traffic, which is great. 
• We live just a few minutes from a large park that has an outside path (pretty and green - a little like Green Lake) with a huge playground as part of it too. I can imagine spending a lot of time there!! But I don{t think I can walk to the park, which is too bad, because parking there is crazy. The sidewalks are in such poor shape. When I tried to walk with Max in the stroller, it was like going 4-wheelin'! Quite an adventure. Maybe we'll have a better time when he's not in the stroller anymore. We'll see.
• Today, I meet with a friend of Carolyn's. Ericka and I walk La Cinta, and speak Spanish. It's a great way for me to practice speaking Spanish and getting exercise at the same time. She is wonderfully patient with me!!  

More later!