Back in the States, Part III

Here I am, sitting at Best Coffee Shop Ever (hence forth referred to as BCSE), where I should be working on lots of things.... graduate school shit, Environmental Chemistry homework... but instead I'm blogging. Just for you!

Before I finish my blogger trilogy of Panama, I'm going to discuss the awesomeness that occurred last night. As CL already documented, there was some drunkenness going on. The night started with me, CL, Charles Shaw, and Brokeback Mountain. CL and I decided to have our own personal tribute to the dearly departed Heath Ledger this weekend. We rented our high school favorite, 10 Things I Hate About You, (watched on Thursday!) and our new favorite, Brokeback Mountain. I hadn't seen it until last night, but wow. That was a beautiful movie. I think we're going to watch it again today. CL only stuck around for the first half of it anyway, then she and MW went over to Local Pub to watch and band and engage in various shenanigans... leaving me alone with a 1/2 bottle of 2-buck Chuck and Heath Ledger. Ooh la la.

After finishing the bottle, I went over to Local Pub to meet up with the crew. Fortunately, the band playing was really popular, meaning a big crowd at the pub and lots of friends and fun. Incriminating pictures posted on facebook: check!

But back to what you came for: more pictures of Panama!

So, here we go. We arrived at Bocas del Toro, and immediately fell in love with it. It's fucking beautiful!!! We stayed on Isla Colon, in the province (or state? I'm not really sure) of Bocas del Toro, which is on the Caribbean side of Panama. We stayed at the Smithsonian field station there, and they took good care of us. It's on the inland side of the island, so the water was clear and calm and all of the shorelines are covered in mangrove trees. You can kind of see that in this picture, it's taken of the dock at the Smithsonian station:


While at Bocas, we went batting with a professor from Florida. We went to La Gruta, a bat cave and also a grotto to Mary (interesting combination, I know). The story goes that a woman was washing her clothes in the stream that comes out of the cave and saw an image of Mary. I say that it is pretty nasty to be washing clothes in a stream full of bat shit, but whatever. Anyway, the area there is absolutely beautiful, too.


And while we were there we saw some really awesome bugs! Stink bugs? Maybe? If anyone knows, speak up!


On the grounds of the station there's this little pond. In the pond lives a few caymans. Here's one of them! They're so cute. Aww.


Back to Gamboa... here's a shot of the rain forest from the back of our truck. Riding in the trucks through the rain forest felt a little bit too much like Jurassic Park... but it was really cool.


Then we went over to Barro Colorado Island. It's a whole island owned by the Smithsonian and used for research. So... it's pretty cool. We went on a hike through the rain forest there, and it was amazing. Even the ferry ride over was cool. We had to get there at some ungodly hour of the morning, but (bonus!) we got to see the sunrise over the Panama Canal. And that, my friends, is fucking awesome.


I had about a million and a half pictures of things I saw on the hike through Barro Colorado. Here's my favorite. That's a big spider!


So, that's all the awesome biology-licious photos I'm going to post. Then we saw the locks at the Panama Canal. Sure, it was cool, but whatever. Not as cool as huge-ass spiders and monkeys. Seriously. But here she is, in all her glory:


And that wraps up my Panama story. If you want anymore info, go on and e-mail me. Bottom line: it was amazing. Yes, you should go. No, you should not wait. Go on, get up and go! Before even more of the rain forest is cut down (cattle-ranching bastards).

love, allie

Back in the States, Part II; or, Holy Hell! What Easy Classes I Have!

Dear Blog Reader,

Here comes part 2 of my Panama experience. This edition comes after meeting with the Panama Boys at Local Pub for some drinks and burgers. Yum. Now allie is a bit tipsy. Please forgive her.

So, if I hadn't mentioned it enough in previous entries... Panama was fucking awesome. And Grace is right. I wouldn't be able to explain the full awesomeness of it unless you gave me approximately three hours and bought me a pitcher of Spotted Cow at Local Pub. Until then, thou shalt never know.

But for all you busy-bodies... here's the super condensed, Cliff-Notes version:

We spent most of our time in Gamboa, a small town in the canal zone. From there, we were able to travel into the rain forest quite easily. That's where we saw the howler monkey I showed a picture of in my previous post. Also, we went up into the canopy crane in the Parque Natural Metropolitano. Here's a super-cool picture!!


So, you get in a little basket. This basket is hoisted up the crane, then out to the tippy-tippy end. Then you see awesome stuff! Like this sloth!


That was probably the best thing about Gamboa. Spider sampling was pretty sweet, too. Pictures coming with Part III. After spending about a week, we headed off to Bocas del Toro....


Yeah! That's our plane!

Ok, I'm going to stop tipsy-blogging.

Do not fret. I will have plenty of time to blog these next couple months. I have no homework. Ever. What?

love, allie

PS - I hate Miley Cyrus! Sorry CL, M and Grace!

Back in the States, Part I

I'm back, y'all!

So, one week at home, two weeks in sunny Panama, one more week at home, and here I am; back from my long absence. Classes started up again on Monday (damn you small liberal arts colleges for not observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day)... I wasn't really ready for it, but that's ok.

Here's the beginning of my recap from my wonderful, wonderful holiday to Panama...

Back story: Lucky me! I was selected to take a travel course to Panama through the Biology/Environmental Science department of my school. It was slightly over two weeks, leaving just after Christmas and returning on Jan. 12th.

Going to Panama was probably the highlight of college for me. The trees, the ocean, the monkeys, the spiders... Panama Cerveza...

Ahhh, the good life.

We were there for a little over 2 weeks, mostly staying at Smithsonian field stations. We got to frolic in the rain forest, listen to howler monkeys, snorkel near coral reefs, catch spiders... You know, normal stuff.

I took a shit-load of pictures while there and my computer is being a little fussy about uploading them. I'll post some in my "Back in the States, Part II" post.

The best part of my trip, I think, was that we got to celebrate New Year's in Panama. We went over to this swanky resort nearby to our field station, drank Panama Cerveza, and danced to Van Halen's "Panama." Haha, a little overkill I guess, but at the time (and after a few cervezas) we thought it was awesome.

My favorite thing we saw in Panama: howler monkeys!


Ok, yes, that's a picture I took. My camera had one crappy zoom for being so new. Camera with a decent zoom = #1 need for next trip to Panama.

Now that I'm back in the States, back in Wisconsin (ugg), I'm having trouble re-adjusting to winter. Especially since the temperatures didn't get above zero for a few days there. Classes have started, too. Good thing most of my classes are easy this semester. It's my last semester as an undergrad; I don't think I could handle another hard one.

On tap for this semester:

• Oceanography - biggest. joke. ever. Today we learned that there are 1000 meters in a kilometer. 7th grade anyone?
• Art History - fun, awesome professor, and only 1 paper. Hooray!
• Environmental Chemistry - my last required class, taught by my advisor. Nice.

That's it! Hooray!

I'll update more about Panama soon, I promise.

love, allie

ps - I'm sorry for not updating for so long. Naughty girl. I missed you guys :)

Sexy Time!

Plans for tonight: watching Y Tu Mamá También with the girls and getting drunk off of sangria! Updates to follow.

+

= Friday night fun with the girls!

love, allie

All I need in life

Well, I took the GRE yesterday*. The weird thing about the GRE is that, since it's entirely computer-based, you receive your scores instantly. I know, it's so convenient, and you don't have to worry that you won't get your scores in time, but for me that was the scariest part of the whole damn thing. Turns out I did... ok. Yep, just ok. To clarify - for me, "ok" means that I don't have to worry about not getting into grad school based on these scores... but they're not as high as I'd like. Maybe it has to do with my bringing up. I'm simply not satisfied with being merely average. Check that. I'm not satisfied with being merely above average. I need to work on this pesky perfectionist complex. Damn it.

Now I've just got the rest of the application process for grad schools ahead of me. And that's quite a task in itself. Any suggestions?

In other news, the bf was extremely nice to me all day yesterday even when I freaked out about my merely above-average score. What a nice guy. Plus, I figured out all it takes to make me happy! Here's the short list:

• pizza (preferably Papa Murphy's... mmm, home-baked)
• beer - andI got the good stuff, Hoegaarden (which, I learned recently is pronounced "who-garden" not "hoe-garden", FYI)
  
• chocolate truffles
  
• caramel apple

love, allie

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*"yesterday" in the section above actually refers to Wednesday, not actually yesterday yesterday. Finishing the post took longer than I thought. oops!

drinking games

tonight, instead of homework or other general productivity, caro, the bf and i played drinking games while watching tv shows. awesome sunday night! we started with the antiques roadshow drinking game (find it here), which is apparently inspired by frasier? let me know if you know anything about that one. then we changed the channel to abc (yes, no cable for us!) and started watching extreme makeover: home edition... probably the cheesiest television show ever made. That made us decided that it would make an excellent drinking game. bear with us, these rules may seem kind of mean, especially since most of the people on the show are terminally ill... but come on, if they didn't want people to make fun of it they shouldn't make it so damn cheesy!

here are the official rules for the extreme makeover: home edition drinking game:

• drink every time ty uses that annoying megaphone
• drink every time anyone says that something or someone is "special" or "inspirational"
• drink every time anyone hugs anyone else
• drink every time anyone cries - if they audibly squeak or make another weird noise, chug the rest of your beer

in an hour-long episode, you should make it through at least 2-3 beers. this game will get you significantly drunker than will the antiques roadshow drinking game, and is therefore much better.

in other news... the dreaded gre is coming up this week. i'm taking the test on wednesday and dreading it more than i have anything in a long time. i haven't really studied much, so i'll just have to hope for a good score. i figure, i didn't really study for the act and i did pretty good, so why should the gre be any different? i know, that's probably pretty awful reasoning, and my vocabulary is apparently shit, as far as my stupid gre study books have shown me. so for now, i'm just hoping that other people do worse than i do. also mean - i'm in a mean mood tonight, aren't i?

oh well, i should go soon. more stuff to do tonight that's not drinking or blogging (sad!). such is life.

love, allie

friends and lovers

what a weekend! CR was up here, and we had an awesome time as usual whenever she's in town. sitting at luna, lingerie shopping, cosmos, and football... does it get any better than this? yes it does, because she got me the bestest birthday gift ever - pretty tea! see, there it is! isn't it pretty? haha, CR - i've had two of them already and they're not only pretty, they're damn good, too! yay!

speaking of good, those cosmos we made were amazing! triple sec and limes make every drink taste like heaven. for the record, here is the best cosmopolitan recipe you will ever have:

• 2 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. triple sec
• 3 oz. cranberry juice
• 1/2 oz. fresh lime juice

shake with ice and pour into your best excuse for a martini glass! seriously, once you have this recipe you will never want to drink anything else. ever. ok, so we didn't have fancy glassware like that (yeah, they were in wine glasses), but they still tasted awesome!

oh yeah, and the football game was awesome, too. there's nothing like pbr at 10am. mmm... better than coffee. what a great way to have girl time before miss meg leaves the country! by the way, that is coming up way faster than i'd expected. wow. we'll miss her so much!

in other news, the bf and i were invited but not invited to a wedding this friday - and we finally received the invitation a few days ago. confusing, i know. good news: i just bought awesome shoes and a sweater to go with my dress, so i'll look pretty! bad news: i didn't realize that the wedding was going to be so early (3pm on a friday - wtf?)... and i still haven't found anyone to work for me. i'm supposed to be closing that night (i.e. working until 6:30, which clearly won't work). ah, i know they get pissed at me when i ask off work so much, but i can't help it. i'm a busy girl. if worst comes to worst, i'll just find someone to close for me and i'll skip out on the ceremony and just meet rob at the reception. that's not in bad taste... is it? i hope not. i mean, if they can't get a wedding invite out to me more than a week before the wedding i can't be expected to be at their beck and call.

enough.

other crappy news: our wireless connection is being snooty and not letting me on. hmph. oh wireless, you think you're too good for me. well you're not. i disconnect you!

ok, i've done nothing with my night except try on pretty dresses and stalk people on facebook... oh yeah, and write this lovely post. i should try to at least get something done now that's it's almost 11pm.

love, allie

a little time...

right now i have a little break between my classes and work. but not work work, i'm the botany t.a. this semester, which means that i go along on labs and help out, and this week we're going to frolic in the woods. no really.

anyway, i promised myself that i'd get one thing done on my overly-optimistic to-do list i made yesterday before 3:00 comes and i have to go run around in the forest. but first, i'm going to post on my brand new baby blog and give it a little more volume.

at the same time, i'm listening to "this american life" on podcast. yes, it's good. yes, you should listen to it. yes, i might be a huge dork for listening to it every week, but you have to understand my undying love for all things public broadcasting.

it's true. one day public broadcasting and i will probably run away to mexico together, but until then i'll just have to listen faithfully to their podcasts.

i still need to come up with something good to do this weekend. i need something to look forward to, you know? last week CL and i went to the wine bar across the bridge. and it was really good - but pretty expensive. i'm looking back at my credit card statement in disbelief because i spend $19 on just two glasses of wine. oh well, i considerate that money well spent towards mental health. everyone needs a little mental health worked into their budget.

ok, time to be productive. here goes some work.

love, allie