Wallamble

One of these is from New York and the other from London…

I was comforted to see some familiar friends in London…teaching the kids to spell in the US has been interesting for them and for us!

It was about 2pm, some were still in pajamas and mum said enough! We gotta get out of da house.
After a quick look on-line, GroupOn had a Fondue deal going … so fondue it is!
We packed a bag, jumped in a car and we were off to Edgewater NJ.

First stop was Fort Lee Historic Park in the Palisades…
(see if you can spot the woodchuck in these photos!

Where we could see the George Washington Bridge…
(double decker and 14 lane bridge!)

A quick drive down to the dock to look at the view….

Then dinner at That Fondue Place

A little walk (it was late and a little windy) along the forefront, showing the locals our ninja moves…

Then home to catch fire-flies and bed. A fun little excursion 🙂

🙂

This morning we flew home. Our carseat (that the airline had lost on the way to Panama), after following us by courier around Panama, rejoined us on the ground in the US. Not ideal but better than losing it 🙂

We got home to find that our garden hadn’t missed us. It had absolutely flourish and provided quite a welcome home!

Thanks Panama – we had a ball!

• 16 days = 14 days of swimming + 1 chilly day in the mountains + 1 day home on plane. Not a bad effort for my little fish 🙂
• Way too many “hamburguesas con queso” for mum! Whilst it wasn’t quite a culinary-road-trip, at least no one got sick 🙂
• Panama = Animal heaven: we saw 50+ dolphins, 100+ monkeys, 1000+ crabs (mainly hermit crabs), 8+ sloths, 1000+ fish, turtles, birds galore, frogs of all colours, lizards, crocodilos, 1000000+ bugs – and more!
• The Panama people are helpful and very friendly.
• Kindles are by far the best present we’ve ever given the kids.
• Our priorities when booking accomodation (not totally impossible to find):
  N: Queen sized bed (his feet stick out the end of a double / full)
  E+L: a pool
  B: a convenient location
• 2 pairs of shoes are not enough in the rainly season!
• Rain may slow your pace but won’t get in the way of much if you don’t let it.
• You can’t control when & where the turtles are going to nest and later hatch. Even in the peak season 😦
• Lachie broke the shackles on his fussier eating style. Besides being able to make do with whatever we find (eek!) or get offered on tour, he now loves buffet breakfasts, chicken nuggets and pancakes – welcome to the family!
• Eli & Lachie’s swimming improved in leaps and bounds. Eli: you can now let her swim with her friends while keeping an eye on her from a deck chair! Lachie: can now take breaths (3!) while swimming, do a couple of strokes of overarm, and swim across a pool (6 meters) unassisted. The improvement in Eli & Lachie’s swimming was incredible to watch. They can both now snorkel too!
• We didn’t come to Panama for the food (particularly as mum is the only one who truely loves seafood)
• DEET 100 really does work. Even with the oil slick left behind. Luckily we escaped with very few bites. Even more luckily we escaped without any diseases, sickness or ails – nothing worse than a blister from Eli’s fins. Phew!
• Travel is easier when you move at the pace of the location you are in, not at the pace you want to go!
• Bianca is super proud of Eli & Lachie’s Spanish interactions. They tried really hard and did an awesome job!
• Nathan can drive anywhere as long as he has GPS! Including through torrential rain, around car-sized pot holes and amongst traffic driving 4-5 cars across a two lane road.
• We took photos and surprisingly left nothing behind. This includes the special streamlined yet safe carseat that we bought for Lachie for the trip. We checked it in at Newark airport on the 5th July, it travelled around Panama separately from us for two weeks and then we picked it up back at Newark airport on the 20th July on our way home. It came back with some new scratches….hope it had fun too!

An awesome trip that we will remember for a long time 🙂

For our final hotel we thought we’d try the Hard Rock just to mix it up a little.
It was quite a contrast to some of the other places we’d stayed at – particularly the campsite in Isla Coiba National Park!
It had some really fun memorabilia and funky spaces 🙂

For our last day it was go go go!

Breakfast in Style!
(it is after all the kings meal!)

First stop was Panama Viejo…
(notably the little tigers did awesome walking in the heat)

Then off to the fish markets for lunch…

A walk along the water front to enjoy the green-space, playgrounds and views.

Afterwards we went to the mall, so that Eli & Lachie could complete the final remaining challenge from their Panama Travel Diaries. …To ask for and pay for an ice-cream in Spanish. The reward of course was the ice-cream 🙂

Down time + a swim 🙂

A walk around Marabellaand then for dinner. When we got home, Eli and I took a very quick trip to the rooftop of our hotel to check out the view

(luckily the night clubhadn’t opened yet and they kindly let us take a super quick peek!)

And off to bed. Only to see the gorgeous fireworks that Panama City kindly put on in honour of our visit. So kind!

The day started in Playa Blanca with a final swim before being chased out of the pool by a hail storm.
So it was time to head to Panama City.

After we found the hotel and had lunch at the mall attached to the hotel, and thenwe headed to Casco Viejo (The Old Town) to look around.

Mandatory of course is a Tradional Panamanian themed dinner.

Back to the hotel to find we now now had two robed-jedi-ninjas in the family! Fabulous!
(what more could we ask for?)

Then said good night to the view out our window 🙂