Oh Captain, my Captain!

Puerto Rico:

Hola from San Juan! I apologize profusely to those of you who have been checking this blog obsessively, for my lack of posts. I will try to do better in the future…things should be ok from now on, as I will soon be getting my computer configured for the ship’s (NOT a boat, mind you) internet stuff. I know I have been a slacker for not doing it yet, but hey…I have been in Puerto Rico…who can blame me right?

I believe my last post was before we boarded the ship, so let me tell you all about it. We have seven decks (not floors, stories, or levels…DECKS), two dining rooms, nine classrooms, a computer lab, library, student store, and swimming pool. Yes…this is my college campus for the next three months. Our cabins are definitely live-able. Two beds, drawers and closets to share, a mini-fridge, a TV and our own bathroom and shower, which is very nice. We also have a little vanity and a table thing…it works out quite nicely. I feel extremely spoiled…we have cabin stewards that come in and clean and make our beds and give us fresh towels every morning…cruise? No…VOYAGE. It’s a little weird, but I’m not complaining. My roommate is fantastic. Her name is Lindsey and she’s from Virginia. We get along great…I wouldn’t have things any other way. She just gave me a caramel hershey’s kiss….this is going to work out JUST FINE.

We had one day of classes before we got into San Juan. My Abnormal Psych class is going to be awesome…for our field project we have to choose a country and a common psychological disorder from said country (my current favorite being the one called genital retraction disorder where males are afraid their genitals are going to retract into their body) and talk to a local about it…how it’s dealt with etc. that’s going to be a very interesting experience, and I can’t wait to share it with you all. I also had Life on a Blue Planet…I think that one’s going to be good…I can’t really say for sure though. That class was right after lunch and I was exhausted and I ended up being that kid in the back that keeps jerking their head around because they can’t stay awake. It was awesome…Note to self: sit in the front of Life on a Blue Planet…then it will be impossible to fall asleep. After classes that day we had our pre-port meeting. We will be having one of those before each port to go over where not to go, what not to eat, etc. That was fun…then we had Salsa lessons right afterwards in which me and my friends proceeded to shake it and make fools out of ourselves in the middle of the dance floor. Needless to say, it was amazing. We then had the brilliant idea of sleeping out on the deck so that we could watch the sunrise over San Juan when we pulled in. Yah…that plan didn’t work out so great…there were a few reasons why, with the main one being that the crew cleans the deck every morning at 4 30..heh..pleasant wake up call? Not so much. The plan was to go back to sleep in our rooms until 6 and then wake up….but I think most of you can guess what happened. Seven rolled around and I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and go to the top deck…yah the sun was already up. Note to self: If you try that again…DON’T GO BACK TO SLEEP AT 4 30. YOU WILL NOT WAKE UP.

The days in San Juan were absolutely amazing. Our first morning there, the governor came to talk to us on the ship. There were news crews everywhere…yes…I am a celebrity in Puerto Rico…feel lucky that you have my blog address. Haha…but no really…there were cameras flashing all over the place…it was cool. Then we have to go through immigration and finally got off the boat at around 10:30-ish. We had a small group of people consisting of me, Dave (Nash), Kevin (Team Bauer), Anna (Team insert incredibly cool name here) and Tina who I am failing to have a nickname for at this moment in time. We just decided that we wanted to check out Old San Juan, so we walked there and decided we needed food. We found this local Puerto Rican restaurant called Mojitos…it was pretty cool. Our waiter had to describe everything on the menu because we don’t speak Spanish so well…I think he might have been a bit irritated, but oh well. We all ordered a mojito, which is crushed mint leaves, sugar, light rum, lime and club soda. It was pretty delicious. Different, but delicious. Then we just toured around…we actually decided to not do any shopping on the first day…we wanted to take in as much of the city as we could, so we walked around and took about a million pictures. The architecture was so beautiful…there were cobblestone streets and everything. After walking around for awhile, we found this closed off secret garden…thing. There were lizards everywhere, and the trees and flowers were so beautiful. It was such a peaceful place. We found some fountains where we all decided to lay down and take a nap. We were in there for about an hour and a half. I will definitely be sharing those pictures with all of you ( I do apologize for the lack of pictures, but with the internet minutes being so tight, I really don’t have any time to upload them for you…I will try and figure something out for you later). From there we walked over to the end of the island where El Morro is located. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about…it’s an old castle/fort that the Spanish built when they first came to Puerto Rico…it was their defense against anyone trying to attack the island. El Morro was beautiful. First of all, it was gigantic. It had a small chapel, and a kitchen, and a prisoner holding place and everything. We got to go up on the roof and check out the cannons, and the hideouts where the gun men hid…it was awesome. The castle was overlooking the whole ocean, and the waves crashing up against the rocks were amazing. For most of you who know me…you know that I am a freak about two things: ocean and sky. Expect to hear me rave about both a lot. From the castle we just walked around and wound up at a local bar. At this point, it was around 5 ish so we were ready to sit for a bit. I got to try the local beer Medalla, which was voted the best beer in the world two years ago. It was very good…and from me, that’s sayin’ something. I generally hate beer, but this one was so smooth. I would recommend it to anyone. Anna and Tina had to be back at the boat for an SAS trip, so we all walked back…in total we walked for about 8 hours that day…it was good exercise, but my feet were screaming at me at the end of the day. Kevin had scored and made friends with Roberto, a student on SAS who is from Puerto Rico. He is like the celebrity on the ship. He offered to pick us up in his car (SWEET!) and take us to the bars where he worked. That ended up being amazing…I got 3 drinks for 5 bucks and got to talk to Maria (the owner of the bar. It turns out that she used to be a prostitute and now runs the bar…hmmmmm). We ran into our friends there and then Roberto took us to his other bar. Another margarita, and a bit of dancing later, we decided to head back. It was around 2 in the morning and Nash had to be up at 6 for his caving expedition. Ouch.
Day Two: After a late start (can anyone guess why? Hmmmm) Me, Team Bauer, Dannie (AKA Captain…you will hear that story in a bit), and Sam decided to go chill on the beach for a bit. Hey…we’re in Puerto Rico…why not? The beach was beautiful, with giant palm trees and the waves crashing on rocks out in the ocean. I loved it…we buried Sam and Kevin in the sand…typical? Yes…fun? Yes…Ridiculous? YES! After enjoying the water and searching for sea shells (to no avail), we walked down to Old San Juan for some dinner. We found a nice Mexican place…oddly enough I ordered a salad and the rest of the crew ordered burgers...heh…typical Americans. We were starving, so we chowed our food and then went back to the ship. Kevin and Dannie had an indy trip that they had planned, and I decided to jump on the band wagon. The trip? Kayaking the bioluminescent bay (one of four in the entire world). Some people who were signed up didn’t show, so I was lucky to be able to join. The drive to get to the bay was an hour and a half in a van. Captain, team bauer, me and brenna were shoved in the very back seat listening to a very awe inspiring conversation of the girls in front of us. One of the amazing comments included…”so…what actually fights..in a cockfight?” AHHHH!!!! (ps we passed a cock fighting place..that’s how it came up). Needless to say…it was a LONG VAN RIDE. Dannie and I decided it was ok though because our driver Hector (only to be said with a hott, sexy, Spanish accent) was very attractive and we got to drool for a bit. When we got to our destination, we stripped down to our bikinis and were oh-so-graciously helped into our lifejackets…necessary? No…boob grazing? Yes…haha. Dannie and I decided to be partners…she was my captain (in the back of the kayak), and I was the first mate. “oh captain my captain” became my saying of choice for the night, and now Dannie and I have an everlasting bond…she will always be my captain. Kayaking on the ocean at night ROCKS. It took us awhile to get used to the paddling…actually…I’m not sure that we ever quite got it down, but hey…we made it. The tour guides led us through this mangrove canal/tunnel thing for about 20 minutes. Maneuvering was difficult…but we rocked it out. The canal opened up into this huge bay where we tied our kayaks together and got the low-down on the plankton in the bay. If you ever have a question about dinoflagellates…come to me…I know all about it. The plankton in the bay let off quantums of light when they were disturbed so the wake from our kayak and the splash of the paddles glowed green. When we sat up and looked in the puddle we were sitting in, it was twinkling…kind of like lightening bugs in the water. We were allowed to swim in the bay, which I think was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced. When we would swim, all the water around us would be glowing green…if we lifted our arms out of the water, sparkles would slide down…it was amazing. I don’t really even know the words to describe it. Team Bauer swam under the water and we could see his glow the whole way…it was so awesome. We were basically swimming angels with giant body halos. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see something so beautiful occur in nature. It was sad to learn that the mangrove trees that keep the plankton alive are endangered. Dannie and I decided that if we take everyone in the entire world to the bay, then people will stop polluting and killing mangrove trees. That’s the plan for the moment anyway. When it was time to get back in the boat, Dannie and I lost each other…and our boat. There we were, swimming in circles around the group, the last ones to get in their boat, trying to locate the kayak and each other. I started yelling O captain my captain, and in the distance I heard…FIRRST MATE! So we found each other…it was a joyous reunion. We managed to find a boat…it wasn’t our original one, but hey…it worked out fine. On the way back we only had one near-decapitation, and two beached whale episodes…we were pretty proud of ourselves for our kayaking skills. The tour guides gave us pina coladas…I don’t think there was any alcohol in them, but they were still delicious. Then…(duh duh duhhhhhh) it was time to GET BACK IN THE VAN…meeehh. After another hour and a half of torture, which consisted of Kevin passing out, and the three of us girls left to suffer and try as hard as we could to suppress our laughter, we got back to the ship (NOT BOAT!) at around 11. Apparently, that wasn’t late enough, as we decided to shower and go BACK OUT, only Jordi joined us this time. We had the cab driver take us to a place where we could get food and drinks at one in the morning and we ended up at some local bar…thing. It was fun…I had my first ever shot of tequila (lick it, slam it, suck it! That’s my new motto) and Dannie got groped by some local rhastafari man with dreads down to his knees named Spice ( I proceeded to ask him his name again…he said spice again…then I said NO REALLY…yah his name was Robby..haha). Some guy Rudy was trying to be smooth with me, but I wasn’t having it…then Spice wanted to dance with me and I said no…he asked again and I said no..he asked again..guess what I said? NO…then he said why…I couldn’t think of anything so I just pointed to Team Bauer..haha..it worked out great…no more Spice in my face. We were all finished with the bar right about then, so we came home and crashed…it was a great day.

Day Three: ADIOS PUERTO RICO!

For our last day in San Juan, Jordi, Captain, Team Bauer, Eric, and myself decided that we needed to do some shopping. Up to that point, I had only spent money on food, alcohol and taxies…so we needed to fix that. We hit up starbucks first for some free internet time (YES!) and then hit up the shops. We found some really cute stuff and had a good time, but the best time of all was the hour (plus) that we spent in the post office. Kevin and his genius self accidentally bought 5 pre-paid blank postcard things, instead of 5 stamps. So we had a jolly time filling those out for our loved ones…some of you will be receiving the ridiculousness very soon. We strolled around for a bit longer…I bought a shot glass…I decided that I am going to buy one in every port…I think that’s a fun idea. We also invested in some Walkie-talkies at radio shack for the boat, and for in other countries if we lose each other…PS…if you are ever in Old San Juan DO NOT USE THE BATHROOMS AT SUBWAY! I myself had a traumatic experience that included darkness, receipts, and no soap. Trust me…don’t do it.

Now I am sitting on the boat…gah..excuse me..SHIP. We will be heading out at 11, and on our way to Brazil. Overall, I love San Juan. The locals that we encountered were so nice and laid back. I love the feel of the city…Puerto Ricans are very proud of their culture and who they are as a people, and that really comes out here. I can’t believe that this is only the first stop…I could go home now and be happy…but no…we still have three more months! I am so looking forward to Brazil and learning the way of life there…only a few more days until we pull in to Salvador. As for now, I am off to study a bit for my classes. I hope everything is going well at home.