Panama City, Florida

During spring break, a lot of Americans go to sunny places such as Cancun in Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica, but the most popular destination for students in America is still Panama City in Florida. This is where it all started in 1938 as a  swimming competition for college coaches. The students joined as spectators and were offered free beer during the competition. This attracted even more students through the years, and today it is an annual event for more than 500 000 students.

Panama City is a city close to one of the biggest beaches in the US, and has a relatively good temperature during spring break. The big amount of tourists during spring break, makes the locals try to show their best offers during this period of time, and it is also possible to rent scooters/motorbikes, play golf/minigolf or visit America's biggest club: Club La Vela with a capacity of more than 6000 people. Even though there was a lot of things happening there, while we were there, I do not believe that the city is very lively through the rest of the year. It was a very interesting cultural experience for me, but I am sure that I will never go back there on vacation later.

Spring Break

The last week, a lot of things have gone pretty wrong for me here in the states. Me, an Australian, a Frienchman and a Brazilian had booked our tickets to Panama City, Florida for Thursday afternoon. Everything was going to be perfect: we were going to travel in suits, looking fresh and fit for a week in the most popular travel destination for students in the states for spring break. I can say one thing for sure: things did not turn out exactly the way we had planned. Our first flight from Milwaukee had an eight hour delay. We ended up being in Atlanta, Georgia around two o'clock in the night, so we had to spend the first night in a hotel there, and then catch the next flight  scheduled to six o'clock the next morning. After a three hour of sleep, we rushed to the airport again, just a couple of minutes late to see our plane go up in the air, standing there, helpless. We begged the company for new tickets, and were luckily put on the next flight some hours later that day. When we came to Panama City, we took a taxi to our hotel, and were told that we could not use our reservation, since we were not 25, so we took a taxi to the next hotel we were put in, which was a really bad hotel, so we put in an extra couple of hundred to get a better hotel, which also was closer. We were hungry, tired and worn out when we arrived, and just after two days I managed to loose my passport and my wallet,  and could not join my friends out the next days, but I still managed to have a good time on the beach, mini golf resort and at the hotel the rest of the week.

In order to stay at Strtich during spring break, you have to fill out a form saying which days you want to stay. None of us filled out this form, so when we came back, they would not let us in before they had called resident life, and made sure that we could stay in our rooms over the break. So now I am just going to rest for a couple of days, before I go to the Norwegian Embassy in Washington DC to get a new passport.