Februrary 7th SAN JUAN (1st day)

Wednesday, February 7^th

The night had been kind of unsettling. I woke up, probably because the rocking was a bit more than usual.

When my alarm went off at 6:15 it was still dark outside, but I saw the light of another boat or a ship. We were definitely close.

I took a shower and was getting ready in the bathroom when I heard Priya say she sees land.

The sun was gradually starting to shine on the water and we could see San Juan in the distance. We ran out onto the deck armed with cameras and camcorders.

It was simply amazing. The sun was rising just over the horizon and the mix of ancient forts and walls and modern buildings of San Juan lit up right there in front of us.

We had breakfast and watched the ship pull into port.

Then we all gathered in the Union to hear a welcome speech by the governor of Puerto Rico himself. He was young (the second youngest in the history of PR) and quite handsome. It’s definitely nice to know you’re being welcomed by a country.

Immigration wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It went pretty smoothly.

Finally we were off the ship and stepped on to the land of Puerto Rico. It was sweltering hot. Priya and I walked out of the gate right into the streets of San Juan. It was quite a walk to the actual city, and there wasn’t much of anything. We saw a McDonald’s, lots of run down houses, and lots of apartments and tenants. It was funny though, how even the run down buildings gave off such a warm and positive vibe in the hot rays of the Puerto Rican sun.

As the scenery became more city-like, with governmental buildings and neatly trimmed bushes and trees, the hustle and bustle caught our ears. We passed a couple of street vendors and I just had to buy something. I ordered a papas con queso at the next stand, which had a line forming. I had expected fries with cheese from the name, but what came out was a grilled cheese sandwich. Huh??? Although the name and what I got did not make any sense, it was really good. It wasn’t any old grilled cheese. It was more like toasted cheese. The outside was some sort of bread-ish thing I had never had before that was really crunchy. Yummmm.

When we approached what seemed to be close to the center of Old San Juan, we decided to ride the trolley. We were kind of lost trying to figure out how to get to Castillo de San Cristobal, when a kind man helped us out. He said to just take the trolley up.

Since he wasn’t sure exactly where the trolley stopped, we ended up having to ask a security guard who spoke no English at all. That was fun. We figured it out, but man was my Spanish sucky. Haha.

Then when we were waiting for our trolley to come, these two guys who were cleaning the street come and start talking to us. Again, I was completely lost except for some simple parts of the conversation. I must have said “como?” (a polite way to say what?) a dozen times! Bahhhh.

It was funny though, when we asked them their names they said Charlie and Johnny, and we knew it wasn’t true.

So anyway, we got on to the trolley safe and sound. The people were really interesting, a good mix of locals and tourists. Since it’s a free trolley, I felt like we got to see a good variety of people. We actually met a guy a little older than us who was from Germany. He was backpacking around the world and it was his 7^th month already! He had been to Nepal, India, Indonesia, China, Barbados, among other countries, and was planning to head to Trinidad and Tobago after Puerto Rico before starting school again in April.

He said he had an around the world air ticket, which contained 19 flights, for just $4300. I am so gonna do that someday.

So we crawled through the streets of Old San Juan (yes crawled, there was so much traffic) and we didn’t really see the fort so we didn’t get off. Then we were right back again to the stop we had gotten on at. We were on a trolley that didn’t even stop at our destination!

So we just decided to get off at some random street and try to find out way to San Cristobal, which ended up working better than we expected. San Juan is definitely an easy city to get around.

Castillo de San Cristobal was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was amazing and the view was breathtaking. We could see all of San Juan and Old San Juan; it’s buildings and the beaches. Every view was a postcard picture. It was surreal. (like everything else on this trip)

After that we headed to Café Maolin, which the ticket guy at the fort had recommended to us. It was really crowded, with locals and SAS students (damn, we wanted some hide out restaurant). I ordered Camarones Ajillos (garlic shrimp) with rice, beans, and fried plantains. It was sooooooo good. I chopped up the shrimp and mixed it together with the rice and beans, along with this special hot sauce that they had (which totally made me think of muna and tenzin). The fried plantains are amazing here. I could live off of them.

Ok, and then out in to the sweltering heat again. We headed for a pharmacy we had seen so Priya could get toothpaste and contact cases. It turned out to be a pharmacy/souvenir store/grocery store. I got a Spanish magazine and postcards.

It’s funny how Puerto Rico is. It’s the US sometimes, but then it is completely not at others. I still find it weird when I see the US flag being sold next to the Puerto Rican flags in the souvenir stores.

The walk back to the ship didn’t seem that bad but it was about 50minutes in the sticky mess of a heat. Ashley had joined us. We walked through a street that might have been a bit shady, although it was ok since it was day time. There were apartments and in front of the entrance, there were tons of sneakers hanging from the electricity wires.

I was completely oblivious to what they meant, but Ashley and Priya told me that they most likely meant that drugs were being sold there. Wow.

So once we got back to the ship, Priya needed to get ready for her trip so she kind of left in a rush. I was exhausted, but took a shower and washed my clothes before taking a quick nap.

At 7:30 I left to get on the bus to go to a reception held by the university students of Puerto Rico. I was in the bus to go to Caribbean University. When we got there, we were greeted by amazing music and performance. There were dancing girls on stilts, people with costumes and masks on, and a whole bunch of students clapping and cheering. It was quite a scene. We were ushered into an auditorium where we had a great warm welcome and a blurb about the university.

The main deal was in this outside space where tents and a stage were set up. There was amazing music and people were dancing, dancing, dancing. Of course. It’s Latin America. The performance that was going on was a whole medley of traditional dances and music. It was mostly chanting and drums, with colorful long dresses for the females (which they would hold the hems in their hands and flap around) and white tuxedo-ish suits for the males. The dance was actually quite amazing. The guy would bow to the audience, tipping his hat, and then he would move his lower part of the body in crazy ways while the drumming got insanely fast. The ladies would twirl around with their skirts flapping in many different ways. It was so lively and it made me smile.

They also served us this whole variety of Puerto Rican appetizers. I had fried plantains (yes!), fried chicken, fried dough-ish thingy, fried chicharron (cow intestines) and such.

As I wandered around, I met a guy named Robert who was an alumnus of the university. He was really chill and nice, eventually headed for the navy. He said he had lots of Japanese friends and that he liked anime. Good thing he wasn’t one of those creepers.

When the dance floor opened up for everyone to dance on, I joined the edge of the crowd. I totally wished then that my girls were there with me. Dancing alone without knowing anyone is not exactly the same.

But it was really weird how I felt in that atmosphere. Spanish being spoken, passionate Latin music filling the air… I loved it so much and felt genuinely happy. It was completely unexpected and so sudden, but right then and there I missed Marcos. I know it was him that really impacted my love and connection to the Latin culture. I felt so thankful and memories that I had not really looked back on, came back as fond ones. Wow. Never saw that coming.

In the bus on the way back to the ship, I sat next to this guy Theo who I had just met. He’s a mega chill dude from San Francisco and we had a good conversation. He’s one of those guys that’s really thankful for things that happen to him, has appreciation for life and, on a side note, kinda looks like Bob Marley.

So there was my first day in Puerto Rico.