Tag Archives: Photos

Carnival fireworks and our failed attempt to be festive

Sadly, I don’t have much to write about Carnival.  On Tuesday night, after hearing music for two nights, seeing people gather, watching fireworks, and seeing several stages from our apartment, we knew we had to walk down to check things out.  I was still really weak and not feeling well, but we decided to give it a try, and we would turn back if we had to.  So here’s a picture from our living room of the scene down the road.  We didn’t have all that far to walk, but it was far enough away that we couldn’t tell exactly what was going on.

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Of course as it got later, more people gathered, the lights came on, and the bands started to play.  Around 10:30 or so, we started walking.  The plan was to get near the crowd and the closest stage, take a few pictures, take a selfie to show that we were there, then walk back.  I really wasn’t feeling great, but when are we ever going to have this chance again?

Unfortunately, when we got close, we saw this:

There were two huge lines, one for women and one for men.  For the first time in the history of the world, the line for the women was shorter.  Much shorter.  As we got closer, we discovered it was because the police were patting EVERYONE down, but the men were really getting searched.  I almost blushed when I watched what the cops were doing to these guys.  There was definitely no room left for anyone to be sneaking anything in.  Eric said that it looked like they were pretty standard pat-downs, but if it had been a law school exam scenario, I would have plenty to write about.  Looked pretty intimate to me.

At that point, between how I felt, the lines, and the required intimacy with La Policía, we decided it was time to call it a night.  We took our required selfie:

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obviously not even taking time to see if it turned out well, and headed home.  The whole Carnival experience was not a complete loss, however.  We spent a lot of time both nights practicing taking night shots and photos of the fireworks.  We’re not experts yet, but I was especially happy with this one.  Eric understands the technical aspects of photography well enough to coach me, and sometimes we get lucky…

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It could’ve been clearer if we’d had a tripod, but I’m really happy with it.  I love the waves on the left side, the lights from the Cinta Costera (Coastal Beltway) and Casco Viejo (the Old City) on the top left, plus the stages and all the people on the right.  This represents our experience of Carnival this year, and it makes me happy.

Carnival!

[Written on Monday, February 16…see, I told you they’d be out of order.  Sorry!]

As some of you may know, it is Carnival time! I’m sure both Katie and our NOLA friends, the Goulds, would prefer if I referred to it as Mardi Gras, but that’s just not what it is down here. I assumed the city would be packed with people going crazy in the streets, particularly on Avenida Balboa, right in front of our new place. Apparently, however, the Interior (pretty much the rest of the country besides Panama City) is where people go. The city is completely desolate right now. It’s the most bizarre thing. Eric and I rolled the last of our suitcases from our old place to the new one down the road without any worries about cars this morning. Yes, we got weird looks, but it was only 4-5 blocks, so getting a cab would’ve been silly. I took a picture of Avenida Balboa and the Cinta Costera this morning (two of the main roads in the city) because I’m sure I’ll never again see them so empty! I’ll have to take a photo when people get back to town and post the side-by-side comparison. It’s really bizarre.

Anyway, people are gathering in the streets not too far down from us to celebrate. Eric came inside from the balcony to get me earlier today saying “Grab your camera and come look at the boats!” I was confused because, well, we live: 1) in a building called the Yacht Club which is directly across the street from the actual Yacht Club, and 2) within 15 minutes of the Panamá Canal. Of course there are boats! Turns out he said “floats”! There were several parade floats driving down Avenida Balboa at a snail’s pace right below us. Here are a few photos:

What a fun holiday! Everyone is off work. Businesses and many restaurants are closed. I’m really hoping that tonight or tomorrow I’ll feel up to walking down to see what’s going on and to take some photos. When Eric was moving some of our stuff last night around 11 (again, I thank God for my sweet and long-suffering husband a million times a day), he said the party was just getting started. Tomorrow is the main celebration day, as you might imagine (Fat Tuesday), so I can’t wait to see what happens then. If we had wifi in our apartment already, I would be checking out what’s going on and where we should be. But, we couldn’t get internet access this weekend or for part of this week because of Carnival. No one is working. I get it! It’s a great concept! We should do that in the States…or rather in more states than just Louisiana! Everyone take a break and spend time outside with family and friends and strangers dressed in bright colors. Listen to live music, celebrate, get sprayed by a hose (this apparently happens, which is great b/c it’s hot as blazes…again, sorry), and just have fun!

Eric and I both have more stories to tell that we’ve been saving up, but I’ll end this post for now. More soon…maybe even a guest appearance by Eric!

Roasting chicken or How I managed to not burn down the apartment

[Written on Tuesday, Feb. 17 – first full day in the new apartment.]

Well, I just survived my first experience 1) roasting chicken, 2) in a gas oven, 3) in Celsius, 4) without oven mitts, 5) in a steamy hot kitchen. Most of you know that I am not a chef. I can bake, I can follow a recipe, but when it comes to cooking meat, I am terrified of undercooking. Eric has eaten his share of dry chicken, and he also cooks 90% of the time or more.

Today, the main day of Carnival (or Mardi Gras, if you’re Katie or Sarah G.), we are without Internet access and Eric had a couple of meetings he needed to attend. Our gracious friends, Tricia and Michael (the missionaries from a few weeks ago), were kind enough to allow him to come over for a couple of hours to use their wifi. During that time, I planned to work on unpacking in the new place, do some cleaning, and, most pertinent to this post, roast some chicken legs in a lovely rosemary sauce. My mom is wondering who I am right now, I know.

It started out easy enough. Put chicken in pyrex with olive oil. Check. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Hmm…why does this oven only go up to 250 degrees? Okay, convert to Celsius. Check. After the 40 minutes called for in the recipe (read: on the prepackaged sauce label), the apartment was smelling good and I thought I was actually going to pull this off. But wait! Chicken should be golden after 40 minutes? It still looks raw!!! Since I do not have the experience in the kitchen to know about how much longer it would need to get “golden” in a 200 degree C oven, I did my usual set-a-timer-for-five-minutes-then-check routine. And repeated. And repeated. Okay…10 min this time. Still nothing.

After a good 90 min or so, I finally used a hand towel as an oven mitt, unsteadily lifted this dish out of the oven one handed, and somehow miraculously managed not to burn myself or light the hand towel on fire on the flame in the oven. [Aside: This gas cooking stuff really freaks me out. I know it’s easier to control and blah blah blah, but at the end of the day, you’re cooking over a fire like a caveman. It’s scary and I don’t like it.] I did what any woman of our generation would do and promptly sent a picture of the chicken both to my mom and to Eric, asking them both if it looked “golden.” I got an “eww. I don’t do chicken” from my mom – see, I come from a long line of female chicken chefs – and a “meh?” from Eric.

Actually, Eric was bit more helpful. I followed his suggestion, turned the oven up a random number of Celsius degrees (I mean, it doesn’t really mean anything if it’s not in Fahrenheit anyway, right?), left it for 10 min, then said screw it and poured in the sauce. Ten minutes later, I don’t know if the juices were running clear as called for by the recipe, but when I butchered a couple of the legs (just really tore them apart…no points for presentation here!), I was pretty sure they were about perfect! I texted Eric: “either I did it right or we’ll get salmonella.” Should be a good night.***

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Meanwhile, I wiped out the closets and drawers in the bedroom and unpacked some of our clothes. Now…I apologize in advance if this is an overshare, but while I was sick I got extremely dehydrated, so naturally the doctors were pumping me full of saline for five days in the hospital. I learned quickly that the human body decides to hold onto as much of that water as it can since it’s pretty sure you’re trying to kill it by dehydrating it. Either that or the salt causes you to retain the water? I don’t know the science behind it, but I do know that I gained about 10 pounds of pure water in a couple of days. My whole body puffed up. I would show pictures, but well, first of all I’m just plain embarrassed, and secondly, you already know what cankles look like. It’s amazing. When I rolled over in bed, I could feel the water slosh to the other side of my body. If I stood up after lying on one side, you could see that there was more weight on one side of my body than the other. Eric thinks this is hilarious. I think it’s uncomfortable and really really weird.

Why did I tell you this right after the chicken story? Well, I’m finding that a couple of days out of the hospital, after several hours of cooking, cleaning, and unpacking, I have to lie down and put my feet up like a pregnant woman b/c the lower half of my body feels too heavy and full of water. It is the most bizarre thing ever. And for those of you who constantly wonder if a newlywed who says she feels bloated or nauseous is pregnant, I’ll go ahead and spell it out for you. NOT pregnant. Calm it down.

***For the record, the chicken was AMAZING!  Absolutely perfect, and went well with the rice.  I also used the extra sauce on potatoes the next day for lunch, and those were also phenomenal.  If you happen to find Red Fork Rosemary Chicken Seasoning Sauce (with roasted garlic, lemon and white wine), you have to try it.  Amazing.