Luna's Castle Adventures

So life at the Castle is as exciting as ever... literally never a dull moment (unless I seek it out). The last couple months have been a whirlwind of adventure, change, loss and excitement that has left me loving Panama, but also missing home to a degree I have never experienced. We have had several more of our friends from home come through and we have steadily increased our ranks of long term and return guests that make the Castle feel that much more like home.

It seems that the happy is always mixed with the sad... se la vi. Dain gave me a ring made of tagwa and asked me to marry him, so after 7 years we are officially engaged to be married! Very exciting! I have never been happier about anything in my life.
Two weeks later we found out that one of our best friends from home, David Minor, was struck by a car while riding his bike and died shortly after. Dain, Meredith and I all flew home after we found out as we soon realized that this was not something that we could cope with from afar. Being home and being around all of our wonderful friends was exactly what I needed... and going through that process with everyone who knew and loved him was the only way I could have gotten through this. The outpouring of support and love was overwhelming, and even back in Panama we are still processing the loss. You are deeply missed David!

We are slowly working back into the routine of things, and we have an awesome group of people here that are incredibly supportive of us. I love my Luna's Family!

So many friends have come to visit in the past couple months, which helps me feel like I am not too far from home. It was very exciting to see Shauna and the Joshs', who came down from Honduras for a quick vacation. We had some fun adventures, some tasty food and many good laughs... I can't wait to see you guys again at Fair! Then Todd, Justin and Mike came down from Oregon... and proved all the doubters wrong. We got to stay on our own private island in the San Blas archipelago for my birthday and I even got in a few days in Bocas del Toro before having to resume my duties here in the city. Then my friend Heather, who I hadn't seen in about 4 years, arrived last night from Oregon for a couple weeks here in Panama. We had a wickedly debaucherous night at the music festival that was going on here in Casco Viejo. There were 7 different stages with live music ranging from Reggaetone and Rock to Classical and Jazz... all within a couple blocks of the hostel. Awesome!





Luna's is doing fabulously... and keeps me thoroughly entertained. I have met some of the coolest people, some of whom I will hopefully keep in contact with for a long time. We have been having way too much fun... we have been having a lot of BBQ's, with the biggest feeding 71 people, 10 of us piled in a van and went to a World Cup qualifying fubol game, El Salvador vs. Panama (Panama won!), we rocked Casco Viejo for the music festival this weekend... even got to see DJ Black (chucha tu madre), watched some horse races, and many nights of clubbing and other debaucherous activities. We have been very full lately with the busiest time being last week... almost all week we were over full with several people sleeping in our movie theater (73 people was our max), so the energy here has been very busy and fun filled. I love my Castle!!