Trying again, lost my text the first time too.
Oldest part of town, reminds me of colonial zone in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Interesting restored colonial buildings, dilapidated ones, empty shells (just walls) and ruins.
When the canal was started 100 years ago, i thus was the entire city.
Lots of them, pretty tall too (some are 70 stories, panama I’d guess)
This green spiral one is cool
It’s hard to capture the scale, and with the hazy weather you can barely see the new bigger lock being constructed next door (where the lock will be the size of 4 football fields)
That tanker coming in paid $100K to transit the canal once.
Visitor center (US$15) itself is so so, but I don’t think you can see the lock without going through it (they have several raised viewing decks)
US$8-10 each way for a taxi to get there.
I don’t recall seeing this one before
I should have eaten more in the lounge, as I left home without eating, and lunch on the flight won’t be until 11:30 (on a 9:30 departure) and no pdb (pre departure beverage) either – need some coffee with Bailey’s, stat!
Biz class on Cops is like domestic biz on United, which is to say old school barcaloungers and no individual entertainment or power ports. At least they call it business and not “first” (it’s a B737-800).
One hour in and have coffee, watching Maleficent..
Feeling rather unprepared for this trip, with all the crazy work hours lately. Even had to squeeze in a last minute data fix before heading to the airport thus morning, where in my foggy state I misread one request (and passed it on to someone else instead of doing the wrong thing)
Biz lunch after selecting entree from a printed menu… And I guess the salad counts as “veggies” (oh wait, and there’s a bit of spinach under the steak)
I might pre-order a veggie meal on the way back since its actually an option
Cheese melted on the mashed potatoes, and blue cheese sauce for the steak, mmm!
And now I’m glad I didn’t over indulge at breakfast.
Oh well, might as well have the sundae too 
Side note: after seeing an article about CATSA (the CDN TSA) being inefficient and over zealous, i found it amusing that they inspected my carryon to look more closely at my nail clippers… And but I was literally the only person at that checkpoint
These early flights (9:30) are killing me
One night stop on way to Guyana…
Have my free status upgrade on Cops Air (they use United Airline’s frequent flyer program).
Will be 30C with daily chance of thunderstorms in both places (and 80-90% chance of rain), even though it’s not the rainy season yet.
My rental car was a Chevy Cruze with only 38 miles on it. Not a bad car. (The lady there said she wasn’t going to give me an old car far away just because I booked on Priceline)
My hotel had an odd airport shuttle policy, in that it’s free if you booked directly, I or $20 if you booked through an OTA or priceline (I was curious to see if I should return my rental car previous evening or not)
On the right shoulder of one highway was a stove that had fallen off a truck, surprisingly close to the right now lane. Yikes!
I accidentally packed mine in checked luggage and paid the price.
In the plus side I did get upgraded on 5 of 6 legs this trip.
Here is the biz meal from today’s flight to Chicago where I’ll catch up with a friend tonight before continuing to Toronto tomorrow to see my beloved.
Pod 51 hotel in Manhattan conveniently near my client’s office, on, you guessed it, 51st St.
Racy sign in my shoebox sized NYC hotel room (reminds me of Hong Kong)
Tiny room, with bathrooms down the hall
Prison sink? All stainless steel
Safe can be licked with a code or a credit card swipe – haven’t seen that option before. Just don’t lock the cc in the safe!
There are 4 shared full bathrooms in the hall (on my floor). Conveniently the is a panel indicating whether they are occupied or not (like in an airplane, I guess. Haven’t seen that before)