puerto rico!
hola, de ciudad de san juan
kris and i arrived at the port in puerto rico very early this morning (after we went to bed) and could see the lights of the city from our veranda. We woke up early this morning to the sounds of announcements over the pa system. It seems that once during every cruise (i remember this from our past cruises) Homeland Security comes aboard to check citizenship and stuff… just to be sure. So, at 8am kris and i put on some clothes and wandered downstairs to the lower decks, we turned toward the dining room (where the checking was taking place) to see a giant line that stretched the length of the ship and back! we hopped in the back of the line and waited. Every few steps forward, some old guy behind us would ram into our heels with a wheelchair he was pushing. Luckily it was empty so it didn’t really hurt, it was just sort of obnoxious. Not only that, he wouldn’t let go of the fact that yes the line was long, and yes, people were cutting in line… apparently this was going to cause the end of the world… “Those damn kids are buckin’ the line again! It’s just not fair, how can they do somethin’ like that!?” I wanted to turn around and ‘politely’ tell him to let it go… i didn’t. Thankfully, the line was moving pretty quickly and we only ended up waiting for about 15 minutes. Once the security guards verified that kris and i were actually who we claimed to be, we headed up to the windjammer buffet for breakfast.
After breakfast, kris and i gathered our things (passports and camera) and headed to deck 1 to the gangplank. We hopped off the ship into more hot and humid weather; it was another beautiful day in the caribbean! Our morning on the island started well with a quick stop at a local Starbucks! I got my regular iced double tall, soy latte; and kristen had some ice water.
We headed out and realized we left the map of the city on the boat, but an information center was nearby.
The streets were very small. Cars zoomed by us as we walked in a single file line along the sidewalk! Blue brick lay on the streets in ‘old town’ and led up to the cathedrals and statues. We followed the map working to translate the spanish names and words. It was easy to follow the street signs and noticing that all the things we wanted to see were clearly marked in purple on the map, it wasn’t too bad finding our way around. We walked up the streets and down the streets taking loads and loads of pictures. The colors of the buildings were all different and made for some really good contrast. Here is a shot were there are six or so houses in a row and all of them are different.
One of our favorite sights in the city was the fort. There is a very large wall, that runs along the coast, and acted as a fort in old times. The wall is about 2 and a half stories high and 18 feet thick! On the other side of the wall was a cemetery that (we assume) held the dead from past battles. Beyond that was the Atlantic coast. There were several places to look out over the water and up towards the fort and a lighthouse. There was a giant field leading up to the fort that was filled with children flying kites. Here is a shot of kris hiding in one of the holes in the side of the giant wall.
After our adventure at the fort, we headed toward the ‘parque de los palomas’; the park of the pigeons. We bought a bag of birdseed for a dollar and started spreading it around. There were pigeons all over the place, gobbling up the corn and seed that several kids were tossing about. kris took a video of me feeding them, i’ll be sure to post it when we get back to our house in tennessee.
It was time for some lunch. We walked through the tight streets stopping at each restaurant to check out the menu and found one that we liked. It was a cool, modern restaurant that seemed to have an ‘underwater’ theme. The lights were shaped like jellyfish and the walls were painted a light blue color. kristen had a toasty chicken and mozzarella and i had a shrimp salad sandwich. The food was great and for a very reasonable price!
After our lunch, we walked around a bit more then back to the ship. Since most people were out still, there was not a lot happening on the ship; so kris took a nap while i sat out on the veranda smoking a cigar and sipping some wine. Eventually, kris woke up and we watched as we sailed away from Puerto Rico. We got some great pictures of the front side of the fort we visited out on the peninsula.
Next we wandered out to the pool to catch some ‘pool-side olympics.’ They ended up starting late and we lost interest pretty quickly, so we grabbed a self-serve, soft-serve ice cream cone on the way back to the room to dress for dinner.
Tonight was semi-formal night and kris wore a fancy little brown cocktail dress which she looked absolutely stunning in (as usual) and i wore a nice shirt and tie. We ate a pretty good meal and headed over to our theater for the show. Tonight was a Beatles tribute band. Cool, i guess, i’m just not really into the beatles. Oh-well. kristen says that ‘Rain’ was better anyway.
So now we are back at the room. I think i’ll order some room service (cookies) and maybe kris and i will sit on the veranda for a bit before ‘bed.’ … followed by sleep. =)
Goodnight to you all! Keep an eye out for kristen’s post tomorrow evening after our greatly anticipated say at Labadee, Haiti!
-simple
