Last night in Panama City...finalmente

I forgot to say that yesterday when we went to mail the tube package the post office was closed.

We have an ongoing joke that whenever something is closed it´s like "Only restaurant in town is closed wednesday, errybody know dat!" because that´s pretty much how people respond when we´re confused about something being closed. And things are always, inexplicably closed, generally when we need them the most.

As in when we went to the Starfish beach in Bocas Del Toro (prettiest beach i´ve ever seen, btw) and the only restaurant was closed on tuesdays. Annnddd it was a tuesday, of course.

ANYWAYS. Why was the post office closed on a Thursday?
Because a Panama dude won the gold medal for long jump. Really. I guess Panama hadn´t won a gold medal in 60 years, so I´ve got to give them props, but close down the whole government because of it (banks were also closed)? I guess any excuse is a good excuse for not working here...damn mexicans...just kidding.

Today we were going to try and go to this cheap zoo that this richard gere-esq american dude told us at a bar last night but when we went to mail the package and catch a bus to said zoo it was fucking POURING again. Even with an umbrella we were taking a pounding from the sideways rain. omg. Sooo needless to say we went back to the hotel and amused ourselves and waited for it to stop raining.

We were afraid it would start raining again so we decided to go to the bus terminal because it had a dunkin donuts and a dairy queen and then we were going to catch another bus to the movie theatre we saw batman in but when we got to the terminal we realized there was a massive mall and movie theatre next door to the terminal! So we went and saw Wanted (new angelina jolie film) and...it was pretty badass. Totally unbelievable but SUPER badass. Very entertaining.

Afterwards we ate sushi and nachos (sweet combo) in the mall food court and headed back. Now we are doing this and figuring out some flight stuff and then going to take a sleeping pill since we have to wake up at god-forsaken o`clock in the morning. By that I mean like 4 or so.

I´m now reading Killer Angels which is about the Civil War. I tried to read this book called `The Scorpio Illusion` that Anton read (and hated) that´s by the same guy that wrote The Bourne Identity and I literally couldn´t get through it. I was making any excuse possible not to read, including and not limited to watching reruns of Made, True Life (love mtv), old 80´s videos on VH1, hours of CNN, reruns of Seinfeld...movies that i didn´t understand because I started watching halfway through...part of a hallmark movie....oh man. Yëah. So for one of the first times in my life, I gave up. I actually intentionally stopped. I´ve certainly failed to finish books before, but it´s out of lazyness and genuine intent to oneday finish them, not pure pure hatred.

It was that bad. Robert Ludlumm should rot in hell. I guess after Matt Damon makes one of your books into a famous movie you can, as Anton says, "Shit on a page and make it a bestseller".

Here is one choice review on Amazon, "somebody already beat me to it", says Anton.
"I've never thought Ludlum was a great writer (I've never bought one of his books new, at full price, either) but I have to agree with Ronin - this one is simply a joke. It's hard to believe this was actually written by Ludlum. Nothing is believable about the plot or the action. No, intelligence and military personnel are far from perfect and very human, but if they were as poorly trained, as witless and unprofessional as they and the allegedly brilliant and sophisticated terrorists in this book are - the world would have been blown to hell and back a couple of hundred times since WWII. The dialogue is absurd, and Ludlum "padded" the book by at least 100 pages with pointless "explanatory" parentheticals and asides that detract from the dialogue and narrative flow.

I've always treated Ludlum books as light, fluffy beach or airplane reading and they've always served that end well; this one is almost like reading the text on the side of a toothpaste tube. I can only assume Ludlum either needed money badly or found himself with a contract obligation to fulfill and turned out this piece of bilge in as short of time as possible with as little attention paid to it as possible. "

Now I´m onto Killer Angels. Thank god.

We also picked up a few other books that look good. One is by the guy that wrote The Beach, another one is a comedy, and some other weird sci fi action book that Anton wanted. Hopefully it won´t be as barf inducing as the Scorpio Illusion.

Anyways, I can´t wait to get to Colombia.