If you've been thinking about moving to Panama, one of your top 10 questions is probably, "How easy is it to setup cable service in Panama?" After all, living in Panama is one thing but living without TV or Internet is completely out of the question!

There are two main cable providers in Panama, and they each offer Internet, phone and cable TV services. You can buy the services individually or you can have them bundled for a better rate. The companies are CableOnda and Cable and Wireless Panama. When setting up service, you will sign a contract for an agreed-upon amount of time, from three months to one year. The longer your contract, the cheaper per month your service. For example, you can get Internet starting at $20 per month by itself, but if you get a bundled service plan for one year, expect to pay $100-$200 per month for Internet, cable TV, and phone service, depending on the package you choose. You will also pay a nominal fee for deposit and installation, but these can often get waived if you put your monthly billing on a  credit card.

Internet
Different connection speeds are offered at different prices. Just like elsewhere, the higher the speed, the more expensive it is each month. At the most basic speed (10 mbs), you can browse websites, watch streaming movies, and send emails without noticing the speed is slower than what you're used to. Unless you need a high-speed Internet connection for work, the only problem comes when you try to use a service like Skype for video calling. If you like to do a lot of video calling, consider a higher-speed connection. Base internet service costs approximately $30-$50 per month, unless you opt for the lightning fast connection.

Another Internet option is to use a wireless router. You can buy a router and hot spot combo device that's about the size of a cell phone for $125. You then charge it as you need it and pay by the day, from one day to 30 days. A full month of wireless Internet costs about $45 after tax, and a device can support up to five different devices. This is great for traveling around the country because it gives you wireless service in your car. The download speed is slower, which means Internet browsing can take a bit longer and video calls are likely to drop frequently, but it's great to have as a backup solution or if you plan to roam around the country a lot.

Home Telephone
Many people don't have home phone service, especially if they live in an area with good cell phone coverage. I'm in an area with limited cell phone coverage and work out of my apartment so I needed a phone line I could count on. I have a home phone with unlimited calling, and when bundled into my other services, costs less than $20 per month.

Cable TV
Many people who move to Panama watch little or no television because there are so many other things to do. If you're a TV addict, don't worry, though, there are hundreds of channels you can watch. The lineup has many of the same things as you would expect--sports, cooking, news, adventure, reality, and nonstop movies. Some TV channels are in English with Spanish subtitles and some are in Spanish. But for non-Spanish speakers, there is still plenty to watch.

If you need customer service in English, just call the phone number and say, "Habla Ingles?" until you are connected to an English-speaking customer service representative. The beauty about capitalism is that it ensures there is always someone who speaks English to help take your money.

I've written a book on dating and consider myself a dating expert in the U.S. But dating a Latin man is like taking a final exam in a different language... you might know the subject but the nuances are different.

A Latin Man's Relationship with His Family
I love my family, and I even talk to them regularly, but I've learned that my relationship with my family is very American. A Latin is intertwined with his family in many ways that I never fathomed. For example, when I started dating my sweetheart, I met his family on Skype. Once they realized we were serious, each family member took turns Skyping me and then stared at me as if I were an animal in a zoo. As uncomfortable as I felt, I just had to smile and make small talk (translated, of course) while they stared and commented on my white skin or my green eyes. After the novelty of Melissa-gazing wore off, I started having almost daily chats with his mother and brother. They wanted to know everything about me, from my religious beliefs to my opinions about my country. I've never had a two-hour chat with a family member of anyone I've been involved with before, let alone a two-hour chat once or twice a week.

A Latin Man's Relationship with His Friends
I have been blessed with amazing friends, and they are my sounding board. But as much as I love my friends, I keep some things to myself. It's not that I don't trust them... au contraire... it's just that I've been hardwired to keep some things private. My Latin man shared many details with his friends that I assumed were private. In the middle of the day, I would get a call from one of his many different friends, wanting to discuss my relationship plans. Whoah! Was I even sure what my relationship plans were? No need for me to know, because his friends helped me figure them out.

A Latin Man's Need to Take Care of His Woman
I love and protect my little dogs, and I've often wondered what it would be like to be so coddled and cared for. Dating a Latin man shows me what that is like that. He wants to love me, spoil me, care for me, and protect me. Not only does he open my door, drive when we go out, and do other similarly chivalrous acts, but I also know he would also do physical harm to anyone who tried to hurt me. Although I don't like or condone violence, I feel very safe with him at all times.

A Latin Man's Language
If you go to Google Translate and you type in ten sentences in English, the Spanish (or Portuguese) translation will take up much more physical space. Latins have a beautiful language, but it has many more syllables than English does. In a perfect world, my Latin man would understand all of my pithy comebacks and American slang the moment I say them. The reality is that communication takes a little longer. There are words and phrases we need to translate, and there are entire sentences that just don't make sense. Knowing that we'll never have a Spencer and Bacall relationship is okay, though, because I love listening to him speak his native language when he's talking about something he loves, whether it's Formula 1 racing or his family or his love for me.

A Latin Man Is Fundamentally Latin
Living in Latin America, I've made friends with other "American-female and Latin-male" couples. The thing that they all say after being in a relationship long-term is that the positives outweigh the negatives. But the main difference at the end of the proverbial day is that I am fundamentally American in how I think and act and he is fundamentally Latin. If I try to  make him a mini-me American, our relationship will fail miserably. I need to embrace the differences and understand that there are indeed differences. 

Knowing the positives and the negatives, I'd date another Latin man in a heartbeat. But since I've already got a great Latin man, hopefully my dating career has come to an end. 

I'm an unabashed foodie. On my first visit to Panama, I headed straight for the grocery store because I wanted to find out what was available. I remember being shocked when I first went into a grocery store. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I don't think I was expecting a regular grocery store.

Grocery shopping in Panama isn't that different than grocery shopping anywhere in North America. Grocery stores are laid out the same, with dry goods in the center and the meat, fruit and refrigerated items at the perimeter of the store. Many of the products are exactly the same, and others are almost the same except for the Spanish labeling. 

You can find most of the products you're used to buying, some with familiar brand names and others that have Panama labels. It's no surprise that American brands are readily available since Panama is the bridge to the Americas. What is surprising, though, is the breadth of American products that are available in Panama. You can get everything from Tabasco hot sauce to Wheat Thins crackers to Dryer's ice cream. But don't head straight for the brands you know until you try the Panama brands. Aside from being less expensive, they often taste better.

If you're attached to American brands, be prepared to pay more. After all, they have to be shipped to Panama and then trucked in. Dairy products are the most expensive. A half gallon of Dryer's ice cream is in the mid seven dollar range. I like ice cream, but I don't love it enough to pay the price tag and then feel guilty when it turns to ice crystals in my freezer.

The curious thing about grocery shopping in Panama is that some of the differences make sense to my Western brain and others do not. Here's a quick list of the idiosyncrasies you'll find in Panama grocery stores.

• Things aren't always where you expect them to be. After searching 4 different grocery stores for baking soda, I was convinced they didn't have any in the entire country. Then one day when perusing the cleaning products, I saw it on the bottom shelf. Of course. Why didn't I think if the cleaning aisle for baking soda! If you look for granulated sugar in the baking aisle, you'll scratch your head wondering why you see brown sugar and powdered sugar, but no white sugar. The reason is actually pretty simple. Rice, beans and sugar are staples in Panama and most people buy huge sacks at a time.  Because they are so important, there is a special aisle in Panama for food staples. 
• The produce is local. Most of the produce you get at the grocery store is locally grown. The freshness is something you will appreciate, but you won't find everything you're used to finding. Things that are easy to get include potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, eggplant, mangoes, bananas, plantains, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapples, and limes. Harder things to find include cilantro, figs, blueberries and apples. 
• Produce is tagged in the produce section. This is something that I think makes a lot of sense. After you bag the produce you want, you go to an employee in the produce section to have your produce weighed and tagged. This makes it easier on the checkers at the front of the store because they don't have to look up prices.
• Grocery carts are protected like precious diamonds. When you enter a grocery store, you get a grocery cart just like you would expect to. But when you go to the checkout stand, you unload your groceries onto the conveyor belt and then push the cart back toward the food aisles rather than bringing it through the line with you. I'll be honest. I don't get this one. The carts are often pushed back into a queue of people waiting to pay, which further congests traffic at checkout. When your food is bagged, a bag boy loads it onto a completely different type of cart and pushes it out to the parking lot for you. Under no circumstances are you allowed to be alone with a cart in the parking lot. There must have been a lot of grocery cart thefts to cause grocery stores to run this way. But hey, at least I don't have to haul my own groceries.
• Alcohol is sampled often. God bless Panama. In Texas, a grocery store in a "dry" area can't even sell beer or wine. Even if the grocery store is in a "wet" area, sampling wine breaks a whole other set of backwards laws. In Panama, grocery stores are always sampling something alcoholic. It doesn't matter to me if they're giving away tastes of wine or a rum and coke... I always taste it. Grocery shopping to me is a necessary evil--something I have to do to buy the food I want--so the little samples help make grocery shopping in Panama a bit more fun.

For the most part, you can get everything you need when grocery shopping in Panama. Be prepared to try new food and experiment. After all, Panama is an adventure worth savoring with all of your senses.

I have grown to love the fish market in Panama City. Located on the Cinta Costera, just outside of Casco Viejo, the fish market is both a tourist attraction and a local's destination for fresh fish. You can buy just about any type of fish imaginable, but I have yet to venture out to the extremes by trying anything exotic, such as Barracuda.

I took some friends to the Panama City fish market recently, and they were amazed at how good the ceviche was. One friend said it was unequivocally the best ceviche she had ever tasted. You can buy a container of ceviche to take home with you, or you can enjoy it as a snack right there at the fish market. The price ranges from $1-$4 for a heaping Styrofoam cup full of the fresh ceviche, and you get soda crackers on the side.



One of the things I like best about the fish market is that it doesn't smell fishy. Although you won't mistake your surroundings for a bakery, the ultra-fresh fish is kept on ice, which keeps the smell from getting out of control. 

The day this photo was taken, I was at the fish marketing looking for Ahi Tuna. I told this fishmonger that I wanted a medium-sized whole Ahi tuna, and he came back with a 56-pound monster. For kicks, I had him price it. For $112 (just $2 per pound), I could have fed an entire football team. Since I don't have that many hungry friends, I opted for the 6-pound slab that he's holding in his hand. He cut the skin and fat off and cut them into sushi-type fillets for a whopping $16. Yes, it's a bit more than $2 per pound, but it's less than one good Ahi Tuna Tower at my favorite sushi house in Dallas. 

I seared the tuna and served it rare with Coconut Pineapple Brown Rice. Even though we had eaten at some very nice restaurants, my guests thought this meal was one of the highlights of their Panama trip.