More Panama - Week 1 (Part one of maybe 4)

My new camera is great, but the tiny laptop is hard-ish to deal with many, many photos, so stay tuned.

We left New Orleans early on a Saturday morning (6 am flight, 4:15 cab pick up). Because we were traveling internationally, we could each check a bag for free (yay!). So we did. As we thought about this trip and the logistics, we realized that traditional luggage could be an impediment, so we packed in our backpacks. Ria's had not been used this way for a while (it still had an airline tag about a decade old). We got them out of storage, and packed. (I put my stuff in 2 gallon plastic zip bags -- just in case.)

The flight to Miami was uneventful. In addition to our checked luggage, R had her sling bag/purse, I had a day pack (computer, paperwork, travel books, etc.) and camera bag. We changed flights, walked the length of Terminal D, and the flight to Panama City was also uneventful.

Clearing immigration was no big deal (short lines), and to clear customs there, all, and I mean all, luggage is x-rayed (again). We had reservations at a mid-city hotel, the Hotel El Panama. It is in a central location, has a great pool, and was a great room! We walked some around the city, had dinner. In the morning (since we had an afternoon flight out..) we went to Casco Viejo. That is the oldest part of the currently Panama City. The guidebooks were right, it reminded us in many ways of the French Quarter! Narrow streets, slight decay, buildings with balconies, scenic views. It was Sunday morning so it was very quiet. There will be some great pics on Flickr later!

That afternoon, we taxied over to Albrook Airport. [Panama City has two airports: Tocumen (PTY) is the international airport, about 20 km south/east of the city; Albrook (PAC), a former US airbase, is along the Canal and serves domestic flights.] Since we were last there (in July), construction has moved along, and there are visible improvements. There are two airlines, Air Panama and Aeropelas.

Our flight to Bocas del Toro was more or less on time, but was very full. The flight was uneventful, and we got there and collected our luggage. That is when things began to fall apart. We were supposed to be met, and driven from the airport to the water taxi. No one was there. However there were two other groups (of three each) there, and an enterprising young man convinced us to walk with him the 3-4 blocks to the waterfront to get a water taxi. It was a hike, and we were glad to have backpacks rather than some other luggage. Some of the roads were unpaved, and we were definitely not in the "first world" any more. The water taxi was $5 each for a 20 or so minute ride over to the island where the resort was.

Once we got there, no one was at the dock. However, one of the owners of the resort was picking up some family (the seats in front of us on the flight, and the row next to us, too), and made sure we were picked up.

We were staying at Red Frog Beach villas. We rented a golf cart, and are glad we did. While the villas are near the beach, it is about a 1/2 mile trek along a dirt road to get there. It was very bumpy in the cart! The set up - for us- was interesting. The villa had 4 (or 5) bed rooms, each of which was rented out to someone different, a large living room, great kitchen, and a plunge pool. All three of the upstairs bed rooms were "en suite" and had balconies -- ours had two. The resort consists of many villas, all separate homes, essentially. There was no real common dining. We cooked once at home (after getting more groceries), but otherwise ate at the beach or at the restaurant by the hostel.

The beach was great, I already posted one photo for my Facebook friends. It had surf which reminded me of Surfside on Nantucket or at the southern Rhode Island shore. The only difference was that the water temp was about 80 degrees. Even without a lot of time in the sun, at 9 degrees above the equator, it did not take much for us to show the results.

We had a great, quiet several days.

As I think about this, I think that I will save the adventure of leaving for the next post, followed by our stay in David and Boquete for a third post, and the trip home for the final installment.

Are you ready for some

more Panama??

We are escaping the madness which is New Orleans at Mardi Gras, and going somewhere warm. (Yes, I know, my northern friends think that NOLA is warm, but at least a half dozen times this winter we have run the A/C and the heat on the same day.) Get ready for some pictures, and maybe a narrative. We are exploring more this time, so stay tuned for an ex post facto report (unless I get really ambitious).

Libraries Change Lives

I was sitting reading my accumulated blog feeds. I have a couple hundred in my reading list. Any where from 50 - 100 posts appear each day. Some are just one line, like the Library Link of the Day, or Awful Library Books, or Will Unwound.

One hit me like a ton of bricks today. It was from Eric Hellman. I have said before that the name of his blog is great: Go to Hellman. Eric is the brains behind Unglue It. But this post was not about publishing or technology. It was about one of his experiences at ALA Midwinter. He called it Libraries Happen. I would have called it Libraries Change Lives. (The latter was an ALA Presidential theme a few years ago.)

The emotionally powerful part of the story begins this way: "I had the fortune to witness a 'library' happening in its purest, most human form."

I encourage you to read it (rather than reposting it here). The end line is the clincher:

Whatever stripes it wears or what name it answers to, the simple act of letting a book bring joy and wonderment to a little girl will define what a library must be, no more, no less.

Thank you, Eric.

Books Read in 2011

End of the calendar year is often a time for reflection. This year it seems like I read less than usual (and I can't quite put my finger on why.) I have also listened to more radio and fewer books. A part of that my be related to the rearrangement of the collection at MPOW from an accession number arrangement to Dewey. Here is the list. (It is in reverse chronological order, since I just cut and pasted from the side bar where I keep track.) Note that this is a full year list, not a half year like some prior lists.

Books Read (paper)

1. The Chalk Girl by Carol O'Connell ARC
2. The Invisible Ones: A Novel by Stef Penney ARC
3. Grimus: a novel by Salman Rushdie
4. If Jack's in Love: A Novel by Stephen Wetta ARC
5. Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman ARC
6. Too Far by Rich Shapero ARC
7. Broken Pieces: A Library Life, 1941-1978 by Michael Gorman
8. Delirious New Orleans: Maifesto for an Extraordinary American City by Stephen Verderber
9. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
10. The Weird Sisters: a novel by Eleanor Brown
11. The girls from Ames: a story of women and a forty-year friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow
12. Doing social media so it matters: a librarian's guide by Laura Solomon
13. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel by Beth Hoffman
14. Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
15. Room: A novel by Emma Donoghue
16. The Glory Wind by Valerie Sherrard a review copy
17. The Rievers by William Faulkner

I had been planing to read Water for elephants by Sara Gruen in paper, but I wound up listening to it.

Read on the Nook

1. Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
2. A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio by Bob Edwards
3. Main Street Public Library: Community Places and Reading Spaces in the Rural Heartland, 1876-1956 by Wayne Wiegand
   Advance PDF copy for review in Public Libraries
   

Recorded books/Listening

Lots of NPR on both WWNO and WRKF
Neither station covers my whole trip. I also sometimes listen to NPR Now on Sirius XM

1. All the king's men by Robert Penn Warren, read by Michael Emerson
2. Play Dirty by Sandra Brown, read by Victor Slezak
3. Cream Puff Murder by Joanne Fluke, read by Suzanne Toren
4. Lies and the lying liars who tell them: [a fair and balanced look at the right] by Al Franken, read by the author
5. Car talk: doesn't anyone screen these calls?: calls about animals and cars
6. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, read by Robert Whitfield
7. Various speaker disks to select a speaker for an upcoming even
8. 'Tis by Frank McCourt, read by the author
9. Islam : a short history by Karen Armstrong read by Richard M. Davidson
10. Water for elephants: a novel by Sara Gruen, read by David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones
11. Remarkable creatures by Tracy Chevalier, read by Charlotte Parry and Susan Lyons
12. The necklace: thirteen women and the experiment that formed their lives by Cheryl Jarvis, read by Pam Ward
13. Attack poodles and other media mutants: the looting of the news in a time of terror by James Wolcott read by Dennis Boutsikaris
14. Executive privilege by Phillip Margolin, read by Jonathan Davis
15. My year of meats by Ruth L. Ozeki, read by Anna Fields
16. Stonehenge: [a novel of 2000 BC] by Bernard Cornwell, read by Sean Barrett
17. My life as a fake by Peter Carey, read by Susan Lyons
18. Smoke by John Ed Bradley, read by Christopher Hurt

Hiatus?

If anyone still reads this, you may have noticed that my posting frequency has declined quite a bit. Only 37 posts in the first ten months of the year. Of those, 4 were vacation notes in July, 3 were "Library Day in the Life" posts (2 for round 6, one for round 7), and 7 were related to ALA (midwinter, annual, and the LITA "kerfluffle").

While one of the recent uses has been for me to track some interesting blog posts from others (by including links here), I am considering a hiatus. Most of the posts during this calendar year (12 of 20) were collections of links. That is an average of "only" one per week for the non-special topics.

So, maybe I no longer have much to say. Or maybe I don't have the time and burning desire to say it. How long long will the hiatus last? I don't know.

Permanent death? Maybe, we will see.