Today was a good day. We finally got to get off the ship and see another part of the world. Today’s theme is “Sights and Sounds of Old San Juan.” Here are the pictures.
We didn’t get to sleep last night until around 2:00 a.m. so we decided to sleep in. We were supposed to arrive in Puerto Rico around 2 p.m. and I really wanted to watch as we approached and docked so we got up around 11, showered and had some lunch… er… brunch.
Brunch was good. It was the tail end of breakfast and they were quickly swapping out the breakfast entrées for lunch ones. We feverishly grabbed what we could. I went for scrambled eggs and Alicia lunged for a few mini-boxes of Fruit Loops. We talked about our experience the night before. We laughed and looked forward to finally getting off the ship. We’d already started experiencing a little cabin fever. As much as we were enjoying our honeymoon and the time to be together, we realized that we’re not really “cruise people.” For us the cruise was a means to an end. Yes, the activities and the food were nice, but what we really wanted was to see the Bahamas. Don’t take me wrong, we both are having a wonderful time and enjoying ourselves. We’ve just got a little case of cabin fever.
We finished off our meal and headed back to the room to pack for our afternoon and evening in San Juan. We’d somehow gotten it in our heads that we were going to find a beach and experience the sun and sand of Puerto Rico. We packed two backpacks full of stuff that we “needed” – towels, sunscreen, book, computers, etc. There was still quite a bit of time left before we’d arrive in San Juan so we decided to seize this opportunity to address a very serious growing crisis we’d ignored since the start of our honeymoon – our dwindling supply of clean underwear. We took ten dollars in quarters to the guest laundry mat and washed a couple of loads of mostly socks and underwear.
Since we eaten only an hour prior, we decided to forego the lunch buffet and order in. We called room service and ordered some veggie trays and other snacks to tie us over until we got off the ship. On the television in the room they only offered four broadcast channels – ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. The other 30 channels were made up of 2 live camera shots of the ship (one showing the bow, the other showing the stern), two 24/7 looped tapes of the day’s previous activities as captured by the ship’s video team (Alicia and I were actually on these channels quite a bit), 1 channel dedicated to a morning show hosted by the Cruise Director and his assistant (both think they’re incredibly funny), 1 channel playing a pre-recorded show of the Cruise Director discussing all the shore excursions, 3 channels of music being played along with scenes from nature, 1 channel showing a GPS map of where the ship was on the globe, 1 channell showing movies were hurried out of the theaters, and 19 TV Guide channels. Yep. Lots of choices.
We flipped to the channel that showed the bow of the ship and saw that Puerto Rico was approaching quickly, so we hurried up and grabbed our bags and cameras and headed to the bow to watch and take pictures as the ship docked. The sky was ominous and yet beautiful as a storm had just broken. We slowly passed a 16th-century, Spanish fort called “El Morro” that used to guard the port of San Juan. We pulled into the small bay and immediately spotted the place where the ship would dock (it was the fanciest place within 5 miles). We took some pictures and grew antsier as the ship drew closer and closer. We really wanted to get off the ship. Alicia and I shared this dream of finding a dark, sweaty club playing Latin music so we could learn to dance and have a great time. Alicia imagined that it would something like the scene in “Romancing The Stone.”
In an anticlimactic twist, the ship docked and we were told to wait about an hour while the ship went through customs and filled out “paperwork.” So we… waited.
Finally we were able to leave the ship. We had heard that after a few days of sailing, we’d have trouble adjusting to land again. Not so. As we left the ship there were musicians playing, booths handing out Bacardi Rum-punch samples, maps, coupons and all sorts of things that we had no interest in. We wanted to see the sights and taste the food. Ironically, the first restaurant we passed had the word “burgers” in the title. We stopped at an information booth and asked a young man there about how to experience an authentic Puerto Rico. He directed us to a place called Raices, just a few blocks’ walk away. I also asked about any open-air markets that were nearby. It turned out that there were open-air markets everywhere. We walked a few blocks and passed a sidewalk sign advertising the Hard Rock Café. Of course, predictably, I had to go. The good news? It was on our way.
We turned left and headed up a small hill. The sticky warm air of the Caribbean made us very aware of the backpacks we were carrying – still filled with beach gear, laptops, cameras, change of clothes, assorted rocks, African mammals and a Volkswagen (or so it seemed) – but since our options were to carry the load or return to the ship, the choice was easy.
As we turned the corner onto the street where we’d have our authentic meal at Raices, we spotted the Hard Rock immediately. Alicia indulged me as we took pictures and went inside to buy a “city tee.” We didn’t do much exploring inside, since our time, and daylight was very limited. And honestly, after you’ve seen a dozen or so Hard Rocks, you’ve seen them all.
We left Hard Rock and walked 100 feet west and found Raices. The woman out front was dressed in a white cotton dress with her hair done up in a white wrap. I assumed it was authentic Puerto Rican female garb. We put our name on the waiting list and walked back east a few doors to a place called Camille’s. Camille’s was practically a clone of Panera except without the bakery. It offered American sandwiches, salads, soups and smoothies, but it offered something that we really wanted – Internet access. We assumed that the right thing to do to use Camille’s Internet would be to buy something, so we purchased a strawberry smoothie and settled down at a table outside on the sidewalk to check our email and send a status report to our loving friends and family. We also took advantage of this time to call our family on our cell phones. Even though we knew we were using a roaming signal and would be charged an arm and a leg, we absolutely HAD to speak with the kids. To our delight, and maybe a little of our sadness, the kids expressed how much they missed Alicia and I.
Our conversations didn’t last too long and it was a good thing because from down the street we heard the faint call of a Puerto Rican woman yelling “Hoooomerrrrrrr?” We quickly packed up (and I mean QUICKLY) and ran in the direction of the restaurant. Thankfully, the woman recognized us, smiled and led us to our table. There we met our waiter, Melvin (yeah, I know, authentic). He told us about all the amazing drinks that he could make for us, so Alicia picked the mango mojito and I had a sangria. Then we set to ordering our food. Neither of us really knew what we were doing since 100% of our experience was in Mexican food. Alicia looked for fajitas to no avail. I simply looked for anything that popped out to me. Melvin returned with the drinks and we placed our orders. Alicia ordered the pan cooked chicken with onions and fried plantains. I ordered the pan fried steak and onions, rice and beans. Both meals were awesome and delicious. At the end of dinner, as we were waiting for Melvin to return with our receipt, we overheard him telling a passionate and animated story about the latest episode of Mad TV featuring Stuart (a strange child played by Michael McDonald). He was SO into telling the story that Alicia and I were actually entertained. Since I knew the character, I asked him about it. Melvin ended up reenacting the entire episode for us. What made the whole situation even funnier is that Alicia had NO idea who or what he was talking about. She just smiled and nodded.
We left Raices and decided, since we’d heard it mentioned that we needed to find the local Walgreen’s. As we walked northeast, turning right, then left, then right, then left. On the way we stopped at a souvenir shop and bought things for the kids. We finally found ourselves in an open air mall that had been completely invaded by Franchised America. We passed a Starbucks, and a Wendy’s, and Arby’s and of course, the Golden Arches. There on the corner, nestled next to Marshalls was Walgreen’s. We purchased some supplies – hairspray, sunscreen, goggles, candy and a disposable underwater camera for tomorrow’s adventure in St. Thomas.
We stuffed the stuff into our already-stuffed baggage and headed off to find the dance club we’d been dreaming of. We wandered up one street and down another. Soon we found ourselves on the other side of Old San Juan, looking at the Atlantic Ocean. We walked along the shore for a bit, but not for long, since it was apparent that this was the low-income, non-tourist section of the city. We eventually made our way through the city again, and ended up on the other side of the peninsula that Old San Juan sits on. Not far away was a plaza with a huge gazebo. From this plaza emanated the sounds of music and singing. We couldn’t resist. We made our way to the plaza, found our seats on some stairs and just enjoyed the ambience. But, we only lasted so long, as the call of Internet access called to us (pitiful right?).
Off to Camille’s again. This time we found a table inside, plugged in and really dug into our email. We also checked our bank account balances and paid some bills. We stayed way past closing time, but the manager was nice enough to ignore us and let us stay as long as we wanted. Finally we set off to do the one last thing before heading back to our ship.
We stopped back at an open-air market and found a booth where two men had made handcrafted leather items like belts, bracelets, shoes, sandals, wallets, etc. One man was sitting there actually making the items, so we knew they weren’t knock-offs or retail resales. Alicia zeroed in on a red bracelet that was more of a wrist-cuff with two buckles. I sorted through some beautiful belts and narrowed my choices down to two – a brown belt with almost no design and a black one with a braded design on it. Alicia helped me decide on the black one. We doled out the money and took our wares back to the ship.
All in all it was a great visit. Did we dance? No, but we saw Old San Juan and we tasted the food. We were satisfied and, let’s face it, our shoulders REALLY hurt from all the luggage we hauled around. I’m so glad we decided to prepare for the day at the beach.
We didn’t get to sleep last night until around 2:00 a.m. so we decided to sleep in. We were supposed to arrive in Puerto Rico around 2 p.m. and I really wanted to watch as we approached and docked so we got up around 11, showered and had some lunch… er… brunch.
Brunch was good. It was the tail end of breakfast and they were quickly swapping out the breakfast entrées for lunch ones. We feverishly grabbed what we could. I went for scrambled eggs and Alicia lunged for a few mini-boxes of Fruit Loops. We talked about our experience the night before. We laughed and looked forward to finally getting off the ship. We’d already started experiencing a little cabin fever. As much as we were enjoying our honeymoon and the time to be together, we realized that we’re not really “cruise people.” For us the cruise was a means to an end. Yes, the activities and the food were nice, but what we really wanted was to see the Bahamas. Don’t take me wrong, we both are having a wonderful time and enjoying ourselves. We’ve just got a little case of cabin fever.
We finished off our meal and headed back to the room to pack for our afternoon and evening in San Juan. We’d somehow gotten it in our heads that we were going to find a beach and experience the sun and sand of Puerto Rico. We packed two backpacks full of stuff that we “needed” – towels, sunscreen, book, computers, etc. There was still quite a bit of time left before we’d arrive in San Juan so we decided to seize this opportunity to address a very serious growing crisis we’d ignored since the start of our honeymoon – our dwindling supply of clean underwear. We took ten dollars in quarters to the guest laundry mat and washed a couple of loads of mostly socks and underwear.
Since we eaten only an hour prior, we decided to forego the lunch buffet and order in. We called room service and ordered some veggie trays and other snacks to tie us over until we got off the ship. On the television in the room they only offered four broadcast channels – ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. The other 30 channels were made up of 2 live camera shots of the ship (one showing the bow, the other showing the stern), two 24/7 looped tapes of the day’s previous activities as captured by the ship’s video team (Alicia and I were actually on these channels quite a bit), 1 channel dedicated to a morning show hosted by the Cruise Director and his assistant (both think they’re incredibly funny), 1 channel playing a pre-recorded show of the Cruise Director discussing all the shore excursions, 3 channels of music being played along with scenes from nature, 1 channel showing a GPS map of where the ship was on the globe, 1 channell showing movies were hurried out of the theaters, and 19 TV Guide channels. Yep. Lots of choices.
We flipped to the channel that showed the bow of the ship and saw that Puerto Rico was approaching quickly, so we hurried up and grabbed our bags and cameras and headed to the bow to watch and take pictures as the ship docked. The sky was ominous and yet beautiful as a storm had just broken. We slowly passed a 16th-century, Spanish fort called “El Morro” that used to guard the port of San Juan. We pulled into the small bay and immediately spotted the place where the ship would dock (it was the fanciest place within 5 miles). We took some pictures and grew antsier as the ship drew closer and closer. We really wanted to get off the ship. Alicia and I shared this dream of finding a dark, sweaty club playing Latin music so we could learn to dance and have a great time. Alicia imagined that it would something like the scene in “Romancing The Stone.”
In an anticlimactic twist, the ship docked and we were told to wait about an hour while the ship went through customs and filled out “paperwork.” So we… waited.
Finally we were able to leave the ship. We had heard that after a few days of sailing, we’d have trouble adjusting to land again. Not so. As we left the ship there were musicians playing, booths handing out Bacardi Rum-punch samples, maps, coupons and all sorts of things that we had no interest in. We wanted to see the sights and taste the food. Ironically, the first restaurant we passed had the word “burgers” in the title. We stopped at an information booth and asked a young man there about how to experience an authentic Puerto Rico. He directed us to a place called Raices, just a few blocks’ walk away. I also asked about any open-air markets that were nearby. It turned out that there were open-air markets everywhere. We walked a few blocks and passed a sidewalk sign advertising the Hard Rock Café. Of course, predictably, I had to go. The good news? It was on our way.
We turned left and headed up a small hill. The sticky warm air of the Caribbean made us very aware of the backpacks we were carrying – still filled with beach gear, laptops, cameras, change of clothes, assorted rocks, African mammals and a Volkswagen (or so it seemed) – but since our options were to carry the load or return to the ship, the choice was easy.
As we turned the corner onto the street where we’d have our authentic meal at Raices, we spotted the Hard Rock immediately. Alicia indulged me as we took pictures and went inside to buy a “city tee.” We didn’t do much exploring inside, since our time, and daylight was very limited. And honestly, after you’ve seen a dozen or so Hard Rocks, you’ve seen them all.
We left Hard Rock and walked 100 feet west and found Raices. The woman out front was dressed in a white cotton dress with her hair done up in a white wrap. I assumed it was authentic Puerto Rican female garb. We put our name on the waiting list and walked back east a few doors to a place called Camille’s. Camille’s was practically a clone of Panera except without the bakery. It offered American sandwiches, salads, soups and smoothies, but it offered something that we really wanted – Internet access. We assumed that the right thing to do to use Camille’s Internet would be to buy something, so we purchased a strawberry smoothie and settled down at a table outside on the sidewalk to check our email and send a status report to our loving friends and family. We also took advantage of this time to call our family on our cell phones. Even though we knew we were using a roaming signal and would be charged an arm and a leg, we absolutely HAD to speak with the kids. To our delight, and maybe a little of our sadness, the kids expressed how much they missed Alicia and I.
Our conversations didn’t last too long and it was a good thing because from down the street we heard the faint call of a Puerto Rican woman yelling “Hoooomerrrrrrr?” We quickly packed up (and I mean QUICKLY) and ran in the direction of the restaurant. Thankfully, the woman recognized us, smiled and led us to our table. There we met our waiter, Melvin (yeah, I know, authentic). He told us about all the amazing drinks that he could make for us, so Alicia picked the mango mojito and I had a sangria. Then we set to ordering our food. Neither of us really knew what we were doing since 100% of our experience was in Mexican food. Alicia looked for fajitas to no avail. I simply looked for anything that popped out to me. Melvin returned with the drinks and we placed our orders. Alicia ordered the pan cooked chicken with onions and fried plantains. I ordered the pan fried steak and onions, rice and beans. Both meals were awesome and delicious. At the end of dinner, as we were waiting for Melvin to return with our receipt, we overheard him telling a passionate and animated story about the latest episode of Mad TV featuring Stuart (a strange child played by Michael McDonald). He was SO into telling the story that Alicia and I were actually entertained. Since I knew the character, I asked him about it. Melvin ended up reenacting the entire episode for us. What made the whole situation even funnier is that Alicia had NO idea who or what he was talking about. She just smiled and nodded.
We left Raices and decided, since we’d heard it mentioned that we needed to find the local Walgreen’s. As we walked northeast, turning right, then left, then right, then left. On the way we stopped at a souvenir shop and bought things for the kids. We finally found ourselves in an open air mall that had been completely invaded by Franchised America. We passed a Starbucks, and a Wendy’s, and Arby’s and of course, the Golden Arches. There on the corner, nestled next to Marshalls was Walgreen’s. We purchased some supplies – hairspray, sunscreen, goggles, candy and a disposable underwater camera for tomorrow’s adventure in St. Thomas.
We stuffed the stuff into our already-stuffed baggage and headed off to find the dance club we’d been dreaming of. We wandered up one street and down another. Soon we found ourselves on the other side of Old San Juan, looking at the Atlantic Ocean. We walked along the shore for a bit, but not for long, since it was apparent that this was the low-income, non-tourist section of the city. We eventually made our way through the city again, and ended up on the other side of the peninsula that Old San Juan sits on. Not far away was a plaza with a huge gazebo. From this plaza emanated the sounds of music and singing. We couldn’t resist. We made our way to the plaza, found our seats on some stairs and just enjoyed the ambience. But, we only lasted so long, as the call of Internet access called to us (pitiful right?).
Off to Camille’s again. This time we found a table inside, plugged in and really dug into our email. We also checked our bank account balances and paid some bills. We stayed way past closing time, but the manager was nice enough to ignore us and let us stay as long as we wanted. Finally we set off to do the one last thing before heading back to our ship.
We stopped back at an open-air market and found a booth where two men had made handcrafted leather items like belts, bracelets, shoes, sandals, wallets, etc. One man was sitting there actually making the items, so we knew they weren’t knock-offs or retail resales. Alicia zeroed in on a red bracelet that was more of a wrist-cuff with two buckles. I sorted through some beautiful belts and narrowed my choices down to two – a brown belt with almost no design and a black one with a braded design on it. Alicia helped me decide on the black one. We doled out the money and took our wares back to the ship.
All in all it was a great visit. Did we dance? No, but we saw Old San Juan and we tasted the food. We were satisfied and, let’s face it, our shoulders REALLY hurt from all the luggage we hauled around. I’m so glad we decided to prepare for the day at the beach.
1 comment:
i'm anxious to hear what you guys did i st. thomas...we're heading there next week!!
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