Bells in Panama: Panamanian Thanksgiving and Playa Bijao

We were invited to join one of James' coworkers and his wife for a "Thanksgiving" dinner this past Saturday. Javier lived in LA for a couple of years and his wife lived in New York for five years and still celebrate this American tradition. On our way to Javier's house, he called us and said we'd actually be going to his father-in-law's house for the Thanksgiving feast. Once we arrived, Javier's wife introduced us to everyone (at least 25 family members) there, most of whom did not speak English. We had such a great time talking to everyone and Javier's wife made sure that my glass of her homemade sangria was never empty! As it turns out, Javier's father-in-law loved the American tradition of Thanksgiving feasts and when he got married, he convinced his wife to celebrate "Thanksgiving" with him every year. This tradition grew and grew until it became the big family celebration that it is today. They had 2 beautiful turkeys, excellent bread, potato salad (maybe the best I've ever had), 7-layer dip, ceviche, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, a cake...I mean, we left STUFFED! Javier's brother-in-law even invited us to come to his beach house in Coronado and ride his blond horse, haha. Everyone was so nice to talk to and we had a really great time!

Early Sunday morning, we got up and started packing for the all-inclusive Sheraton Bijao (pronounced BEE-HOW). November 28th is one of Panama's numerous Independence day's (This one celebrated their independence from Spain), so James had the day off. We headed west on the Pan American Highway and crossed over the America's Bridge (it goes over the Panama Canal).

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It was a little under 2 hours to our beach resort. The hotel was beautiful! James and I drank many Dirty Bananas and Dirty Monkeys, as well as margaritas, daiquiris, and cervezas! Genevieve really enjoyed the pools and loved playing with some of the fountains in the pools. Once again, Genevieve commanded the attention of everyone around us! Unfortunately, the sun was only really out for about the first hour we were there...then it began to rain. It was pretty gray and rainy for the rest of the evening as well as the next day. Our resort did have its own beach, so we took Genevieve down there to let her play in the sand. Of course, she loved it! Since it was still cloudy and rainy when were down at the pool/beach today, we decided to just head back to our apartment. Since we have our rental car until Tuesday morning, we decided to drive down to the Causeway and then around Panama City a bit. All in all, a great holiday weekend!