Crepas

Hola! Today (Sunday, when I wrote this) was great because it was the first time I used my bike to get to work! It totally worked. Then, once I got there, I could finally use the internet since ours at home has not been working, which is actually making me homesick because I feel really isolated without it.

     If I haven´t mentioned this already, the trip to work is really beautiful and wonderful. From the islands where the lab is located, there is an excellent view of the Bridge of the Americas and sunrise or sunset, depending on when you´re there. The causeway that leads to the islands from Panama City is at least half a kilometer long, it´s always safe to be on it, and there is always a salty breeze. My favorite part is the dozens of small boats all queued up to pass through the canal. I have yet to figure out exactly what it is, but there´s something very peaceful about small white boats. Maybe it´s that they seem very quiet and contemplative, just bobbing there, patiently waiting for something. Though I know that they are owned and controlled by people, I find it hard to imagine that when I look out at them. It ruins their peaceful façade to acknowledge they are tools for humanity. I prefer to view their silent calmness as a choice.
     Another striking aspect of these boats is that when you look from above, as when we are travelling to or from our field site over the bridge, you see that they have arranged themselves in a grid. I´m not sure how they do it, but it´s really fun to look at.

Above, you can see the boats anchored by that long dock that looks like it's sticking out of the cloud. There is a yacht club on the other side of the dock, and a nice park right next to it where we play soccer twice a week. Previously, I had written that the boats were waiting to go through the canal, but I asked people about that and it turns out that's not what they are doing. The Bridge of the Americas is in the upper left of the picture and the Naos STRI lab is beyond the picture towards the lower right, which you can see in the picture below.

At the end of the causeway, Naos Island is right above the word "in" in this sentence.

     Later today, five of us got together and made our own Crepes & Waffles-inspired dinner crepes! I made an asparagus curry in coconut milk and Allan and Marcela cooked some chicken with broccoli cheddar soup. It was all really delicious, or at least, I can say from experience that the vegan dish was delicious, and everyone else seemed to like the chicken crepes.

The crepe dinner! We are all posing for the camera.

     I'm really glad there are such nice people here to hang out with! We keep doing really fun things together, including of course lots of good research. On Wednesday Allan and I will go to two field sites to count egg masses and then collect a bunch of limpets (a nonspecific type of intertidal snail). Yesterday we collected some moon snails and are keeping them in the lab for observation, and I also can't wait to go check on them tomorrow, too! If we are lucky, they will make some egg masses for us.

Chau!