Day One

Hard to believe just how quickly the first day swept by. I was fortunate enough to be able to sleep during the hours of travel, which certainly helped. Some of my luck from flying to GSA carried over and on both the SMF-HOU and the HOU-PYT flights there were empty seats in my row! This was a complete game changer for the first leg of the trip, saving me from sitting in the center seat on a 6:00 am flight. And even though I had an aisle seat for my connection, it still ended up pretty close to disaster because I was in row 36 on the right-hand side -- directly to my left and right behind me were seats up against the wall with no hope of reclining. Despite the sleeping and the time change advantage, when I got to our lodging at around 10:00 pm local time, I was beat. We went over introductions and basic information briefly and as soon as I had the chance, I went straight to bed.

Much more went on than just travel, though! For one, I met some exceptionally nice people who shared my luck with the empty seats. Coming into Houston I sat by a man (can't remember his name!) who was on his way to Tulsa for a week to visit his family and watch his grandson compete in some wrestling matches. After hearing about how his son had come just short of winning Nationals, I understood that this was no in-for-the-fun-of-it type event. Even though I hardly gave him a waking moment to chat me up, he was still remarkably successful at coming across as a really great guy. On the flight to Panama I sat with Gary, a U.S. citizen who has been living in Panama for a year as CEO of a start-up seafood shipping company. He had tons of information about the places I should visit when I have time and gave me his email address in case I had any questions. My sense of Panama geography is God-awful, so I hope I can actually make it out to some of those locations with only two days off at a time.

The bedroom (top bunk for me)

I also got to meet Sam and Nicole (the other new interns) during the layover in Houston, though we ended up being somewhat separated on the flight. Still, it made customs much less stressful to have some faces I knew to look at in confusion, and we all came in handy for each other when we found out that we were missing a form and had to go searching for help. The people at STRI (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue) arranged a ride for us, along with a returning intern, Pedro, who had taken a separate flight from Los Angeles. Two cabs delivered us and our luggage to an apartment in Ancon, Panama City (yes, CITY), and to my delight this turned out to be where we will be staying for the next four months. Our supervisor, Aaron, and a graduate student, Carson, met us at the front door and took us up to our apartments on the second floor. We have three people in each two-bedroom unit, with Pedro and I sharing a bunk bed. It's unbelievably spacious, albeit with a small kitchen, and far surpassed the research station image I had formed in my head.

Bedrooms to the left, kitchen to the right

As much as anything I'm excited to see how this whole trip pans out in relation to my expectations because so far there have been surprises around every corner. Most of the information I received was pretty general and things could really go in any number of directions.