Ok since the last post got me back in here, I'll add a little bit more today.
Thursday we just had a lazy day and we actually spent the morning looking at one of the Jewish schools. We're very interested in the Jewish community for a number of reasons and we also have a friend that had a job possibility at one of the schools so we went to check it out for all those reasons. I have to say, that I was
BLOWN AWAY.
The school was so amazing and the things they offer the kids puts American day schools to shame. One of the schools also TOTALLY teaches in English (one school won't take a child after 2nd grade that can't read and write in English) because they want their children to be able to go on to higher education in the US and Israel. They have 4 Orthodox day schools there plus a boys' Yeshiva, girls Bais Yaacov HS AND a girls BY type college program (for a community of 12,000 total Jews, can you imagine??). ...gotta love Sephardim and how they try to keep their WHOLE kehilla involved, even if someone is not so outwardly observant.
To compare, we have 90k Jews in Denver and two orthodox elementary schools, a modern co-ed highschool, BY and Yeshiva, all probably adding up to the kids in one of their day schools. For someone that has an internet based business or other job, Panama could be an amazing place to live (they also will give residency to all Americans). Tuition is about the same (a little less than the US), oh and also tuition includes all their meals and snacks at the schools and a live in housekeeper/nanny costs about $600 a month...umm, call me sold, I wanna move!
Seriously, I've looked into a lot of things about living there so if you guys have any questions about schools or other stuff feel free to ask.
Since our school tour took up the whole morning and I obviously didn't take pictures there (but I wish I did because the campus was so gorgeous), I'm just gonna put a few city and food pics for the day.
After the tour we took an Uber over to La Spezia, dairy Italian place. On the way we passed through a lot of the city and you can see all the Ritzy malls feel all the energy of it being a financial hub. We passed a super high-end mall and also their famous Corkscrew building (apparently exactly the same as the one in Dubai but Panama's one doesn't spin...lol).
I did NOT take these two pictures below (I have some I took but my family is mugging for the camera in all of them).
Here is the main mall:
La Spezia is literally around the corner from the Sortis (Marriott brand) hotel and the Kava restaurant inside. They are all in the Obarrio district. It is the financial and business hub of the city and where the Jews actually used to live. There are still active synagogues and minyanim there although most of the community has moved the couple miles over to Paitilla and Punta Pacifica to live the new buildings with huge apartments, Shabbat elevators and lots of other amenities.
DH and I agreed that La Spezia offered one of the best thin crust, brick oven pizzas I've had in my life (and that's saying alot since we didn't always keep fully kosher)! Also, unlike all the other places that were uber-modern and trendy (which is awesome), this restaurant is in an older building with a beautiful courtyard that really gave you a vibe of being in a Latin Hacienda or courtyard of an old building in Europe. As is a common theme my family is in most of our food pics but we had amazing pizza, great salads, and a killer pasta with Pesto. This was one of the only places that I don't think they had a menu in English but the waiter was helpful and I'd hope people can figure out a basic menu.
We got a great salad (one pizza is in the background) and you can see their brick oven:
Most restaurants in Panama don't have actual websites but Facebook pages so here is the one for La Spezia:
https://www.facebook.com/La-Spezia-Pizzeria-306501802711500/After lunch, we walked back over to the Sortis hotel and Kava because I wanted to see how close it really was (it was a two minute walk) and I figured it would be easier for an Uber to find us at the hotel (the old buildings in Panama City literally don't have numbers and people just use cross streets to figure location out). You can see Kava is such a cool place to hang out and it's also got a great vibe, with a whole bar menu and hookahs if you're not running around like me with a bunch of kids!
After lunch we took a quick $3 uber back to the Hilton and hung out at the pool. Then obviously my kids were hungry again...can any other parent relate? So right after swimming we walked the block over to the complex that has the Coffee Bean and inside is a Pinkberry Yogurt with a teudah and everything is under hasgacha. You can see the teudah in the background along with the menu of smoothies, parfaits, etc. I believe they even have some parve sorbets for people that keep CY but would eat parve there.
Then we headed back home. My husband had a business meeting that evening that he got ready for and I just hung out with the kids. Obviously, in an hour or two my kids were hungry AGAIN so we headed out to get some dinner. We went to Pita Plus (meat restaurant). It's actually the only restaurant we went to twice because my kids begged to go back. It's not super fancy but they have a solid meat menu with Israeli, Sephardic, Panamanian and even Chinese food. I had let my one son get a steak there because it was so reasonably priced and the other one said the chicken tenders were the best he'd ever had so they convinced me to go back. It's actually in the same little complex in Paitilla that has four kosher restaurants: Prime grill for meat, Pita Pan which is an awesome family, dairy pizza place and bakery (we ate there earlier in the week and picked up bread for Shabbat that same evening) and a parve fish and sushi place called Metsuyan. The first time we Ubered there but since I knew my way, we just walked this time.
That tells you how safe I felt that I walked alone with my kids the mile to dinner. Here is a picture of my Sancochio soup (my friend who had been the month before told me I HAD to order it) which was a really good chicken soup with Yucca (similar to potato).
You can see the Pita Plus menu here:
https://www.facebook.com/pitapluspty/After dinner it was fully dark, my kids were tired and since I was carrying bags of bread and food and wouldn't really be able to hold my youngest's hand on the walk, I decided not to walk back (but I would have felt totally safe walking) and we "splurged" for another $3 Uber. I hope you can see how compact all the locations and neighborhoods in Panama City are and how convenient vacationing here is with kids and not worrying about food or driving. We headed back home to the Hilton after another happy day!
Next Installment: The Canal and Monkey Island on Friday!
