Matt and I had left home after work on Wednesday and driven up to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale, since we had an early flight to San Juan. It turns out the La Quinta near FLL is a great deal – it’s cheap, has free breakfast and a shuttle to the airport 10mn away, and they let you park your car in their lot for up to two weeks. We’ll definitely be doing that again in the future.

One of the benefits of our move much farther south – it’s now only a little over 2-hour flight to San Juan. We landed around noon and took a cab into town. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags at the Hotel Plaza de Armas. I’d forgotten that we’d stayed there before, because it has a different name – it used to be a HoJo. Nothing much had changed, and while the rooms were totally fine, they have no windows. Do not stay in a room with no windows or you’ll never be able to wake up in the morning. It was just one night, thankfully.

San Juan was decorated for the holidays in festive fashion. I love it.

We needed lunch right away, so I suggested checking one of the side streets nearby where I’d seen tables set up in the street on previous visits. We found a cute little place with Mexican food, so we sat down for tacos and Medallas.

After lunch, we walked down to the city gate. It was gorgeous outside, and even warmer than in Florida.

The city is so picturesque it kills me. I want to spend so much more time there.

If you’ve wandered around San Juan, you’ve probably noticed that the streets are blue-tinted cobblestones. (You’ve probably almost broken an ankle on one of them, too.) They’re called adoquines, and they started out as furnace slag in Spain that was then used as ship ballast. Over time they’ve weathered into this color. They’re threatened by car traffic, which is one of the many reasons it would be awesome if Old San Juan banned cars.

I think it’s funny that the facade of the cathedral is perfectly spotless, but the rest looks pretty weathered. (I mean, it’s the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere, so we can cut it some slack.)

Here’s El Batey, one of the greatest bars on earth. I had to stop and get a picture of it during the day.

This guy seemed pretty chill:

Our friends’ flight was arriving fairly soon, so Matt and I decided to go have a drink at the bar in El Convento. The former convent, now the fanciest hotel in OSJ, is a mere 356 years old. Their central courtyard seems to always be empty, which is kind of amazing. We grabbed seats at the bar, ordered papaya-ginger mojitos, and sat talking to the super-awesome bartender. He gave us samples of his coquito, the traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink. It’s like eggnog, but better.

Kris and Orsi found their way over to the hotel and joined us at the bar. We hung out there for a while, and then decided to walk down the block to La Barrachina, the restaurant that claims to have invented the pina colada.

Post-colada, we walked down the hill to get dinner at Old Harbor Brewery. I don’t love their food there, but their beers are decent and they had a vegetarian option, which is something. After dinner, we walked back up the hill to a cocktail bar Matt had heard about recently. It was billed as a speakeasy, which made it hard to find, because it wasn’t really hidden at all. OK, there’s a different bar’s sign on the wall, but still.

La Factoria was hopping, but we managed to get a table in the corner. Their cocktails were pretty excellent, too, but there wasn’t anything especially Puerto Rican about it. It was like any city bar anywhere. After a couple drinks there, it was time for the main event: El Batey.

We drank rum and Medalla, and played a half-assed partial game of Moby Dick and then dominoes. Orsi wrote their names on the wall, and I left a Key West sticker in the bathroom. It’s important to leave your mark at El Batey.

Then it was time to go sleep in our dark, windowless hotel rooms, so we could head out of town in the morning.

We got up Friday morning (painfully, since the lack of windows made it seem like it was 3am), and hauled our stuff downstairs on the slowest, tiniest elevator in the world. (It’s the kind with the two gates you have to pull shut yourself.) We found Kris and Orsi’s stuff sitting in the lobby, and Kris texted that they were getting the car. Matt and I walked over to Plaza de Armas. Kris said they were bringing coffee, but the plaza booth sold mallorcas.

I love this giant Christmas tree in the middle of the plaza. At night it’s fantastic.

You see the three wise men all over San Juan. We didn’t figure out what this was about until we got home. Apparently they like to hand out gifts to kids on the 12th night, the Noche de Reyes, when the reyes magos visit.

They arrived with the car and coffee, Matt arrived with the mallorcas, and we were off to Rincón.

Our first destination on our journey was La Ruta de Lechón, i.e. the pork highway. Matt had wanted to go there since he’d learned of its existence long ago, but obviously I was less than excited about visiting a road full of restaurants dedicated to pork. But we figured since there were now three meat eaters, we had to visit. Plus I kind of wanted to see it. (I had lunch backup in my bag just in case.)

When you exit the highway toward Guavate, you end up on a narrow road that winds up and down through the hills. There are restaurants and bars the entire way, and they all specialize in one thing: whole roasted suckling pig, the kind you have to start cooking at midnight the previous day. The lechoneras are up all night, and the places open when the meat is done. And it’s every single place.

For a while there’s a restaurant every half-mile or so, but if you keep going you’ll get to Guavate, which is an ENTIRE TOWN made up of lechón restaurants. It was amazing.

We parked and wandered down the block to find an ATM. We grabbed Medallas and stood around gawking at the sights. Then we went into El Rancho Express, since Kris had read that they were one of the recommended stops. It turns out they just have a pre-made plate, so they decided to cross over to El Rancho Original instead, where they could pick out all the meat they wanted.

The guys went to stand in the food line, and Orsi and I went to get beers and grab a table. We took note of the giant SANGRIIIA sign on the building across the street, because we’d seen that same banner at every single place along the way. (It was even more amusing knowing it’s made by a company called Gasolina, and comes in a pouch like Capri-Sun.)

Matt and Kris arrived with a giant spread that included various kinds of pig and pig skin, turkey, blood sausage, rice and peas, and roasted yam. And Sangriiia, of course. (Sadly, not in a pouch.) I was thrilled, because the rice and peas and yam were really good and I didn’t have to get out my Suncake.

While we ate, we watched the entertainment in the covered area next to us. It was full of picnic tables, and had a big stage where a couple of old guys were singing and playing. We didn’t know exactly what he was singing about, but one of the guys on stage had the old ladies swooning. People were dancing and singing along. It was fantastic. Every restaurant seemed to have their own version of that, too.

After lunch, we got back in the car and headed back to the highway toward Ponce. We hadn’t visited the western half of Puerto Rico before, but the landscape was really familiar since we’d flown over it on the way to and from Vieques. It’s very rural, with rolling hills and a constant view of the ocean.

We exited in Ponce, because Kris had a few stops there on his list. He told us there was a place called Cafe Cafe and another called Ponce Ponce. We found one of them (I don’t even remember which), and went in for coffee and beer. The other place didn’t exist. I think he was making the whole thing up.

Ponce is an adorable little town. (It’s actually second-largest in PR, but the historic downtown is small.) It has the same narrow streets as San Juan, and gorgeous old buildings. The town centers around a large square that features the Parque de Bombas. I’d seen photos of it before, but it was still kind of shocking to see sitting there. It’s such a weird, awesome building.

There’s a museum inside, with this awesome smoking goat in the lobby. (Note the cop not wanting to be photographed in the background.)

We did a lap of the square, picked up some souvenirs, and then headed down a pedestrian side street toward the town market that Kris had read about. The shops along the street were all kind of shady-looking, like stuff that fell off the back of a truck. We found the market, but it was closed. We couldn’t tell if it was closed for the day (it was mid-afternoon) or for renovations, but it seemed like the latter. I’d really like to go back and see it at some point, because it looked awesome. Also, Ponce was really cute.

We walked back to the car and headed toward Rincón. The highway was pretty fast until we hit Mayaguez, which appeared to be a town entirely made up of about 250 car dealerships and the brewery that makes Medalla and its much-crappier cousin, Silver Key. It took forever, between the traffic and the stoplights, since it was rush hour time. We finally made it to the far side of town where the turnoff for Rincón was, and found that the road was closed.

So we got to sit in more traffic, and finally got to the alternate route. From there, it wasn’t far into town. From the second we saw it, I knew we were going to like Rincón.

Orsi had rented a condo for us that was right across the street from the main beach. We drove through the tiny downtown and found the condo complex about a half-mile away. It was indeed across the street from the Balneario de Rincón.

They were quicker into the condo and claimed the master bedroom, so we were stuck with the room with the double bed, and bunk bed. The bunk bed was at least queen-sized, and ended up being fine. It’s a miracle neither of us got a concussion, though.

We unpacked and sat out on the patio while the sun set over the beach. We noted that there was some music and activity at the building right next to the beach, so we decided we’d need to check that out later.

We then went back down to the car and headed into town. We stopped at the grocery store to get supplies for our stay there (stuff to make breakfast, mixers, and snacks). Of course it took us forever to shop because people kept wandering off. After that, we went into the little downtown. The main square was all decorated for Christmas, and was adorable.

We stopped into Rincón Beer Company, where we got a table out on the sidewalk. Unfortunately they didn’t have any of their own beers on tap at the moment, but they had a good selection from other breweries (plus cocktails, and a small food menu).

After a couple rounds there, it was time to get dinner. We decided on La Cambija, because it had really good reviews. I was a little wary because it was a seafood restaurant, but it turned out they could make a few things vegetarian. (If there’s a note about it on the menu, that’s always a good sign.) Their mojitos were good, and the food was excellent. Plus it was just down the block from our condo.

After dinner, we stopped into the little restaurant/bar next door because they had a sign advertising that they sold ice, and the icemaker in our freezer didn’t work. Of course it just made sense to get a beer while were there, so we ended up sitting at the bar talking to the super-nice girl who worked there for a long time. Her name was Stefania, and she was Colombian. (Her English was excellent, and she told us she liked having the excuse to practice.) A couple guys we assumed were local came in, and Kris overheard them saying something about Minnesota, so he asked. It turned out that one of them lived in Maple Grove part-time, so he ended up being mercilessly hassled over that. Before they left, they gave us advice on other places to go in town, but the gist of it was “wait til it’s really late, drink a lot, get in your car, and drive up some winding mountain roads til you find a club”. So that wasn’t going to happen.

We said bye to Stefania and walked over to see what the music was about at the beach bar. It turned out to be a tiny hut with a big patio space full of tables, where old people hung out drinking cheap beer and singing karaoke. It was fantastic.

We grabbed a beer, then went back to the condo to play dominoes on the patio.

We had a very very early (pre-6AM) flight from Minneapolis to San Juan via Chicago, and given the dangers of flying in February in the Midwest, I started worrying about a week in advance. As the day neared, it became clear that we were in for a substantial amount of snow right around the time we’d be leaving for vacation, and I figured there was no way we’d ever make a 45-connection in Chicago, even we even managed to escape Minneapolis on Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon, the blizzard rolled in. Matt put his car in the garage in preparation for our trip, and I parked on the snow emergency route alongside our house, which meant I stood the best odds of getting my car out even in bad conditions. Usually Minneapolis waits until a storm is over before they declare snow emergency, but this time they were panicking in advance, too: they decided to start it at 9pm, which means my car had to move or get towed.

So let’s just forward to 8pm Thursday evening, when we and two neighbors spent an hour digging and pushing my car out of the intersection it was stuck in. We finally maneuvered it into a spot where it would be safe from towing til 8AM Saturday morning, but it was clear there was no way we were taking that to the airport. The snow was still coming down like crazy. We instead dug out the driveway as best we could, snowblowed the walks, and crossed our fingers before heading to bed. It never occurred to me that there was the possibility we wouldn’t even be able to make it to the airport in the morning.

I got up at 3AM Friday, put on my coat and boots, and went out to shovel the driveway again. I then came in and showered, finished packing bags, and we hauled everything out to Matt’s car in the garage. Thankfully, he was able to back it out onto the street, which had been cleared enough that it was driveable. I ran through the new snow on the sidewalks (it had been constant all night, and still hadn’t stopped), stashed the garage door opener and keys where our friends and family could find them (they were stuck with the job of trying to get my car free, and then shoveling), and hopped in the car to go to the airport. The roads were in terrible, icy shape, and it was actually a good thing it was so early in the morning, because nobody was out to crash in it. Matt drove very, very slowly, and we got to the airport on time. The flight was still scheduled on time, too!

We dumped all our winter gear in the car and went to the terminal. Pre-Chek was a breeze, and we stopped to get coffee and water for the flight. We boarded on time, but then we had to wait for de-icing. I occupied myself with the Skymall shopping list.

It was light by the time we de-iced, and we knew that we weren’t making the flight in Chicago unless they held it. Talking to the people around us, though, it sounded like many of us were headed to San Juan on the same flight, so that gave us hope that we’d make it.

Did you know the de-icing is orange? I’d never noticed that before.

We were indeed late to Chicago, but TripIt notified me right away that our second leg was delayed as well. They were clearly holding it for us. Matt and I were the first from the MSP flight to get there, and the gate people looked relieved that we were finally there. A whole bunch more people crowded on, and the flight ended up being entirely full.

It was a 5-hour flight, which is over my general limit for sitting still, but somehow it wasn’t that bad. (One of the reasons I prefer Delta is that you always lay over in Atlanta heading to the Caribbean, and that breaks up the time pretty well.) We had seatback TVs for entertainment, so we flipped around and I finally decided on Runner Runner, which killed a bunch of time. For the first two hours there was enough turbulence from storms that they couldn’t even get the carts out. They finally served food and drinks, so we got meal boxes and switched to the USA-Canada hockey game. And that’s when the inflight television cut out, because we were over the ocean. Sigh. (It’s probably for the best, since our team lost.)

Since they still had movies showing, I switched to Real Steel. I only made it half an hour before I had to turn it off and switch to the flight map. It was that bad.

We landed in San Juan only half an hour late. It had just rained there, but the sun came out as we landed, which I appreciate. We got our suitcases and grabbed a cab to Casa Blanca Hotel in Old San Juan. The lady at the desk told us they were working on something in the area so the power was out temporarily. They also had no elevator, but I knew that from the reviews. The porter brought our bags up for us, so that wasn’t really an issue (nor was the power, since we just wanted to head out again anyway). The hotel wasn’t anything fancy (the decor is nice), but it was a great price in a really excellent location in OSJ. God forbid you’d have to drive anywhere there, or even sit in the back of a cab in traffic.

It was late afternoon, so we decided to go get a beer at Old Harbor Brewery. The rain arrived there at the same time we did, but we weren’t terribly sad about sitting inside at the bar. We sampled their offerings and got tostones while we waited for the rain to let up. We ended up talking to one of the locals at the bar, who started exclaiming about how much he loved Prince when we told him we were from Minneapolis. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that someone has that association with my city, rather than the Mall of America, our mediocre pro sports teams, or a bunch of people living in igloos.

We decided to make another stop before dinner, mostly because we didn’t want to go to two dive bars in a row. I’d read really good things about El Farolito, so we walked over there, stopping to see some sights along the way.

It was a tiny place, with 6 seats at the bar and a balcony of questionable stability with a table on top. Matt and I sat at a chess board at the bar and ordered drinks. Then we started asking the bartender about the rums we hadn’t seen before, so he put together a tasting for us. I didn’t expect a really young guy to know much about them, but he absolutely did. We enjoyed the Brugal Anejo and Ron Barcelo quite a bit.

From there, we went off in search of dinner. I’d wanted to try Cafe Puerto Rico because they had some vegetarian versions of classic Puerto Rican food, but they were closed due to the lack of electricity in the area. (Thankfully, we’d seen that it had returned at our hotel.) Our bartender had recommended Cafe Berlin for vegetarian food, so we went with that instead. It had a monstrous menu, and was totally not what I’d expected at all. We got a seat on the patio, and ordered mojitos. The menu had tofu criollo, in addition to other vegetarian food. I was thrilled.

After our surprisingly good meal, it was time to head to El Batey, one of the greatest bars on earth. I had to use the restroom right away when we got there, so I took a picture so you can see the ambiance in there.

There were only a few people there when we arrived. Our bartender was Filipe, and he was something. He decided he was Matt’s best friend, and would come over and spend several minutes discussing films with him while other people waited for drinks. It was pretty entertaining.

We ordered Barrilitos, but somehow Filipe misheard and we ended up with a Medalla as well. We gave it to Bally.

While seated at the bar, I was also sitting inside a lamp that had a million business cards taped to it, forming a growing chandelier. Matt was wearing his Mac’s Club Deuce shirt (in honor of another excellent dive bar), and we found a Mac’s card taped inside the lamp. I verified that the pool room was not a dirt floor, as I’d remembered, just concrete. We also managed to locate our names on the wall from our previous visit. They’d been written over a bit with other graffiti, but they’re definitely still visible.

A group came in loudly, and I ended up talking to one of them who was next to me at the bar. They’d decided on an impromptu three-day trip to San Juan, which sounded like an excellent idea to me. The guy was drinking Dimple Pinch, which struck me as really strange… later we started to see it at every bar, and I’m still not sure what’s going on with that.

After a while, Matt went to the bathroom and the tab appeared in front of me. I didn’t take it personally; Filipe was kind of in a state. We paid up and headed back in the direction of our hotel, but weren’t quite ready for bed yet. We decided to stop into a too-brightly-lit bar called the Douglas Pub (which I’d coincidentally seen earlier and made fun of because it looked so crappy). I was ordering a rum and diet just as Matt pointed out the Fireball tap, so of course we had to partake in that too. And after that, it was definitely time to go across the street and up the many stairs to bed.

Saturday morning, we hauled our bags down to the lobby, checked out, and left them with the staff there. We headed down the street to La Mallorquina, since La Bombonera is currently closed for renovation. When in San Juan, you must have a mallorca for breakfast.

I had a mallorca con queso, and Matt had the standard jamon y queso. And, god, their coffee is fantastic. I don’t know why it’s so good, but it’s probably something to do with full-fat milk. Delicious.

After lunch, we did some more shopping and wandering in San Juan. It was raining on and off, but not much.

At some point I’ll remember where everything is in San Juan (OSJ is small, after all!), but I still can’t get it right. I at least know what general area I can find things in.

We headed up in the direction of El Morro to see La Iglesia de San Jose, because it’s the second-oldest church in the Americas. I know I’d see it before (I have photos of the statue of Columbus nearby), but I didn’t really know the history. Along the way, we encountered the customary cats hanging out on the street. I think this guy was annoyed that I woke him up for a photo.

The church is under renovation, so there’s a lot of scaffolding and you can’t go inside. Still, this time we knew what we were actually looking at.

I’ve been in El Morro a couple times, so we didn’t go in. We wandered around the giant park surrounding it, where tons of people were flying kites. The rain was now totally gone, and it was gorgeous outside.

We headed back through cat alley (there were at least 12 of them in there), walked through an awesome neighborhood, and came out along the city wall.

Seeing La Puerta (the city gate) never gets old. This walk at sunset is amazing.

We were near the Cathedral de San Juan, so we decided to actually go inside this time. I’d read that the remains of Ponce de Leon were in there, and I was set on finding them.

The cathedral is amazing, and in really good condition for a building that’s been in use for over 500 years.

We circled the outside, checking out the alcoves and many creepy shrines. (I can’t help it; religious stuff makes me nervous.) We found Ponce de Leon along the left side, near the back of the church:

Since we were across the street from Hotel El Convento, we decided to stop in for a drink. We found a very lovely courtyard full of tables, and had a seat at the bar. While we can’t afford to stay there, we can at least afford a mojito there. We sat and watched them setting up for a wedding that night. (I’d be shocked if they didn’t have weddings there every weekend.)

From there we headed back over near the city wall, because I also wanted to revisit Cappila del Cristo. I’d only recently learned the legend about it (that they used to race horses down Calle Cristo, and one rider couldn’t stop and went flying over the city wall at the end of the street), plus the gates were actually open this time.

The altar was amazing. This is to the right as you go into the chapel, behind gates.

The left side was photos and history, plus this impressive array of milagros:

After that, it was time to find some lunch. Because we’d walked past it earlier, we knew that Cafe Puerto Rico was still closed. We walked back down Calle Recinto Sur toward the middle of town to see what we’d find along the way. We finally decided on Lupi’s, because we were dying of hunger and knew they’d have something vegetarian. We got a table on the street, so we could people-watch while we dined.

After lunch, we walked down to where the cruise ships docked when they’re stopping in San Juan. That was boring, so we wandered back up in the direction of our hotel. We decided to stop and have a beer at the Jamaican restaurant there before going to get our suitcases. We hung out talking to the girl working at Blessed Cafe about other parts of Puerto Rico for a while, and then headed across the street to Casa Blanca. We got our bags and a taxi, and it was time to leave San Juan. SIGH.

The check-in process on our ship was really quick (it was 3pm, so we were fairly early), and we were on board in no time. They gave us glasses of champagne as we got on, and we decided to go directly to the cabin to check it out. As usual, we had carry-on bags and our suitcases would be delivered later.

We had cabin 7047, a veranda room on the port side near the forward elevators. Our cabin steward, Socorro, stopped by shortly after we arrived to introduce himself. I made sure to tell him it was Matt’s birthday that week. I’d also ordered the birthday package for him for our sailaway that day, so I expected to find champagne and a cake and such awaiting us, but it wasn’t there for some reason. I figured I’d wait and see if it showed up before telling Matt about it.

We’d sailed on the Celebrity Summit before, so we knew what to expect. The only big difference this time was that we had the beverage package; we’d gotten the basic drinks package for free with the booking (it covered anything up to $7, and if you ordered something more expensive you paid the entire amount, not the difference.) Based on my research, we’d decided to upgrade to the premium package, which covered everything up to $13. Plus if you went over, you only paid the difference. Based on our tab at the end of the last cruise, it was worth it.

There were also a few changes to some of the bars and public spaces since our last cruise, so I was excited to see that. But having sailed on the ship before, we didn’t have to devote our first day to exploring everything, like we usually do.

We headed up to the pool bar to get a drink. I ordered a mojito, and ended up with this, which ended up being a frozen margarita. At least it was pretty good.

We did some more wandering around the ship, and then headed back to the pool area when our drinks were empty. This time we went up and got seats at the Mast Bar overlooking the pool (and the entire port area). We marveled at how much better the drink menus had gotten… they were way more sophisticated, with less focus on ‘boat drinks’ and more on actual well-thought-out cocktails. And the best part was we had already prepaid for them, so we didn’t have to deal with that part at all.

After hanging out there a while we were starting to get hungry, so we tried the burger bar. There was a 10 minute wait for a veggie burger there, so we went into the buffet next door instead and got pizza. From there we went out to the bar at the back of the ship and learned that they had awesome Jamaican bartenders. Marlon quickly became our favorite.

We got drinks and took them down to the room to see if our bags had arrived yet. They had, so we unpacked and got our room in order. We hung out on the balcony for a bit as we started to sail away, and then went upstairs to Marlon’s bar again. It was already dark, since we sailed at 8:30, so there wasn’t too much to see from the deck.

For dinner we didn’t care much for dressing up for the dining room, so we went back to the buffet. Matt had sushi, and I had a giant salad and Indian food that was pretty decent. After that we went down to Michael’s Club, since it was one of the bars that had remodeled since our last trip. Then it was the cigar and scotch bar, and this time it was the craft beer bar (which also had scotch). That seemed pretty much perfect for us, and there were several things on the menu I’d never tried before. We had some beer, and hung out talking to an awesome couple we met from Pittsburgh. Also, we noticed that there were Canadians EVERYWHERE on the ship, and it made it especially easy to identify them because (in addition to their hilarious accents), they were all wearing hockey-related clothing. It was in the middle of the Olympics, so that at least made some sense.

We headed to the casino, where I went to play craps and Matt blackjack. I did well at craps for a bit, and then everything went badly. I took the rest of my chips and joined him at the blackjack table, where I got wiped out the rest of the way. Thankfully, he was at least doing well. When we were done playing, we went to grab a beer and take it up to the room.

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up and threw up like crazy. Hello, seasickness!

We got an early start Friday morning. Like, 3am early. Since it was the middle of winter, I was dressed in my finest convertible clothing: lightweight hoodie, pants with capri-straps, and wool socks under Keen water shoes. We left our jackets at home, of course!

Our cab arrived at 3:45, which put us at the airport before check-in opened at 4am. There was a long line, but they were efficient. We were able to board our flight right away, and I fell asleep right after take-off. I woke to the beverage cart, and did some knitting on the way to Atlanta.

We arrived in the ATL early (around 8:45am), and watched the ground crew dealing with an overturned baggage cart on the tarmac. We had brunch at the Sam Adams Brewpub, and got on our flight to San Juan a little after 11:00. Our awesome captain, Steve, announced that we had several returning vets from Iraq, which got them a round of applause and free drinks.

It was overcast til we reached the Bahamas, and then it was all ocean and islands and me dying of excitement. After which I fell asleep again, and napped til Turks and Caicos. Really, how often can you say that?

Our plane also had the back-of-seat display. Matt watched ESPN and played video games and trivia (with other people on the plane!), while I contented myself with my knitting and the map that shows you things like altitude, distance to San Juan, and air speed, in both English and Spanish.

We landed early again, got our bags, and hopped in a cab to the Sheraton Old San Juan. We dropped our bags off in the room and took off to see the city. Matt had never been there, and I was very excited to show him around!

I’m not sure how it’s possible to forget how gorgeous San Juan is.

We walked down toward El Morro and the city gate, following the long path around the outside of the island. The feral cats were everywhere, being cute.

I have several pictures of Isla De Cabras from our last visit, just because it’s amazing. What I learned from a very informative plaque is that it used to be a leper colony, too.

San Juan was decorated for Christmas. It was completely incongruous. We kept forgetting about the upcoming holidays!

We wandered up to La Barrachina for dinner, because we needed to visit the place that claims to have invented the pina colada.

I don’t even care if they invented them or not: they were fantastic. As was my mofongo with vegetables.

After dinner, we went to check out El Batey. We knew it was a favorite local dive, known for having the best jukebox on earth. It did not disappoint.

The bartender, Felipe, introduced us to the local rum: Ron de Barrilotos. You can drink it up or on the rocks, but at El Batey, it’s served in small plastic Dixie cups. We met Nicky and her cousin at the bar. Nicky had lived in New England for a long time, but her cousin seemed to not speak much English. He gave Matt a cigar, and the business card of the guy who sold them. Nicky also got us to write our names on the newly-repainted wall, so hopefully they’ll still be there next time we go!

We stayed far too late, of course, because El Batey was our newest favorite bar in the entire universe. Really. And then we made the decision to stop into Senor Frogs, because it was right by our hotel, and of course we had to. Plus they had food.

Two yards and two shots? A terrible idea, and yet that’s just how you do at Senor Frogs. I set myself up for a pretty epic hangover!

Saturday morning, we had to check out by 10am. That hurt a little! The perfect cure for a hangover, it turns out, is La Bombonera. We expected to have to wait in line at the most popular breakfast spot in San Juan, but we got a table right away!

After breakfast, we headed out to tour San Juan. We climbed up to San Sebastian and walked across the northern side of Old San Juan (essentially recreating the path I’d taken with Wendy and Stephanie on my first trip there).

We bought tickets to see El Morro; they’re only $3!

This is the view from the ladies’ room at El Morro. You could do worse. (That’s the leper colony in the background!)

It was insanely windy, and I’d already realized that I’d forgotten clips to put my hair up. Cue an entire week of me wearing my sunglasses on top of my head!

Above is the view through the troop barracks; below is the staircase they used to haul cannons up and down! Notice the spots to stop and rest every eight steps or so. If you’re hungover and it’s humid as hell, you don’t even need a cannon to make you want to rest on each platform.

From El Morro, we walked back into Old San Juan and decided to find a spot to sit, have a beer, and finish our Christmas cards. We were supposed to have worked on them on the plane, but I completely forgot. Really, what’s more cruel that mailing Xmas cards to people in Minnesota from the tropics? Sorry, guys.

This guy (called ‘chango’ in Spanish) sat and yelled at us loudly. He’s awesome.

After dropping off our cards at the post office, we walked over to Lupi’s for lunch. I’d heard in more than one place that it was closed, so I was thrilled that that was not the case. It was the same old bar… a dimly-lit Mexican restaurant with the naked lady machine on the bar. We had margaritas and plantain nachos, just like last time, and watched sports on TV.

Then it was time to go see about gettin’ on a boat! We picked up our bags at the hotel and hopped a cab to the cruise port.

We were pretty early for check-in (having learned the value of getting on the ship early), and it was an extremely quick process. We were on board the Celebrity Summit being handed glasses of champagne and ushered to cabin 6097 in no time.

Our cabin was very similar to the ones we’d had on Costa. Enough room for two people, with a nice balcony. And there was more champagne waiting for us, of course. We unpacked our bags, checked out the view from the balcony, and then set out to tour the ship, from the top down.

The ship had really nice pools… in that respect, it was nicer than Costa. No bocce, though! From the deck, we could see the yacht we’d passed on the way there: it’s called the Al Mirqab, owned by the prime minister of Qatar. Big pimpin’.

The lifeboat drills weren’t til the next day, so we were free to wander. We became acquainted with a hot Irish bartender at the pool bar, and then met the awesome Russian bartender at the coffee bar near the game room. We’d be seeing plenty of them over the next week.

Round about leaving time, we brought our champagne up to the deck for the celebration. There was a band playing by the pool, and a parade of boats covered in Christmas lights sailed past our ship in the port. We stood and watched as the ship passed Old San Juan and headed out to sea, then went back to the pool bar for some cocktails. Matt taught the Jamaican bartender how to make Johnny Jump-ups, and we had a long talk with a loud guy from Texas.

After a while, we decided it was time to check out the casino. We found spots at the blackjack table (which had a $6 minimum, not bad). For the first time in quite a while, I ended up winning – not much, I think I had $80 on my original $60, so I decided to leave ahead. I went to get a Rob Roy, and when I came back, Matt was still winning. We both did surprisingly well that night!

We got up at 8am and headed to breakfast unwashed, as the buffet closed at 8:30. It was insanely crowded, and I was a little sad to have my final gruel (and Echteboter) of the trip. We then went to shower, and gathered with the rest of our group in Revelations at 9:30. We were off the ship by 10.

A porter asked if he could help with our bags, so we said yes. Most people were insisting on hauling their own, but we made the right choice: after barely having to flash our passports at customs, he led us right to the front of the very long taxi line. WIN.

While we were sitting and waiting to get off the ship, we’d had a bright idea: why not rent a car for the rest of the trip, and go see more of Puerto Rico? I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to us before. The cab took us to Thrifty near the airport, and we picked up a car (that we promptly named El Dispo), threw our giant bags in the back, and were on our way to El Yunque National Rainforest.

It was awesome to see some of the small towns outside of San Juan. We missed the turnoff for El Yunque the first time (we could barely even find it with GPS turned on on our phones), but we still managed to get there in half an hour or so. Admission was only $3! We stopped at the visitor center to get a map and find out more about it.

We toured the displays and got a map with directions from an old guy at the front desk. Then we went on the short hike near the visitor center.

Wherever breadfruits had fallen and smashed on the ground, these gigantic snails were enjoying the buffet:

From the visitor center, we drove up the mountain to find La Coca Falls. El Dispo did surprisingly well on the steep hills.

Our next stop was Yokahu Tower, for the overlook. We had to climb a million stairs to get to the top, but the view was amazing.

On one side, we could see the cloud forest (the area of the rainforest that’s almost always in the clouds, and therefore has a completely different ecosystem):

In the other direction, we could see over the top of the rainforest canopy to the ocean, and a beach lined with resorts.

After climbing back down from the tower, we drove up the mountain even further to the hiking trail that leads to La Mina Falls.

The map showed that the trail was .75 miles long, 1.5 miles roundtrip, and that it was ‘somewhat difficult’. That didn’t worry me too much, considering I’ve hiked on ice in the mountains, and on the Sliding Sands trail on top of Haleakala. Still, everyone that was emerging from the trail looked like they were going to die. Along the way, two people even wished us good luck. Yikes!

The trail was definitely difficult, but not insane. It was paved for much of the way, but it would’ve been really hard without hiking shoes. The humidity played a big factor, too. It was worth the effort to see La Mina:

We sat around at the falls for a while, then headed back. The return trip wasn’t bad til the very end, when we had to climb back up to the parking lot. We still weren’t as worn out as most people looked, though!

After that, it was time for lunch. We drove up to Yuquiqu Delights, a little restaurant/picnic area even higher up on the mountain. The girl working there was awesome, and she was telling people all about how she moved there from New York with her husband. How you go from there to a cafe on a mountain in a rainforest… I don’t know, but I’m a fan. Since we have similar ambitions and all.

I’d be happy eating tostones and beans and rice every day. Matt probably feels the same about his empanadas and amarillos.

We headed back down the mountain, stopping on an overlook where we were able to pick up cell reception so I could call my parents and inform them that we were back in the US. It’s always good to hear that nothing very exciting is happening back home.

From there, we drove back toward San Juan. We made a few wrong turns on the way, even ending up at the airport, but we eventually found Isla Verde, Ocean Park, and Condado. They reminded me of… well, most coastal communities in the US. Fort Lauderdale or Myrtle Beach.

Long before we’d left for vacation, Matt had expressed an interest in visiting one of Wilo Benet‘s restaurants in Puerto Rico. We’d kind of written it off because they were far from Old San Juan, so imagine our surprise when we drove right past both Picayo and Varita. And they were at the Conrad Casino, which we figured had to have been named after Matt, just misspelled. We parked and went inside.

The Conrad has a little beach, and the lobby is gorgeous. We walked out onto the patio to see the ocean side, and noticed that they had hammocks everywhere. (I kind of want to stay there now!) We went upstairs to Pikayo, but it was closed. Varita was kind of empty-looking, so we decided to go hang out til Pikayo was open at 6pm. The main problem was that we had no idea what time it was, because both of our phones had died. We figured we could wander around Condado for a while, and eventually they’d be open.

We walked down a couple of blocks to a park with a beach, which had an outdoor bar next door. Perfect! We ordered a couple caipirinhas just as a pink limo pulled up, and out piled a wedding party. All the girls were dressed in neon dresses in different shades, with matching Chuck Taylors. The groomsmen had neon cummerbunds and shoelaces. We watched them take pictures on the beach, and it was a sight to behold.

From there, we wandered back to the Conrad and went to the front desk to ask the time. The guy working there told us it was 6pm exactly, so we were in luck. We stopped to browse at the gift store at the Conrad, and met a very loud, very drunk man from New Jersey, who entertained us for a while. We then went back up to Pikayo, and were the first people in the doors. We grabbed chairs at the bar.

I had a mojito made with cilantro and tequila, and we tried their version of rum punch, which had cinnamon syrup and bitters. We also ordered a couple appetizers, and ended up with a bonus order of tuna lollipops because he’d put in the order wrong. On TV, there was some kind of runway show with terrifying models. We learned the history of the place from the bartender, who went from chilly to friendly within a round of drinks. We’d have loved to have dinner there, but we were nowhere near hungry enough. Not to mention the fact we were severely underdressed.

The only downside to renting a car in Puerto Rico was the idea of driving it in Old San Juan. Traffic is crazy there, the streets are narrow and cobblestone, and we didn’t know the parking rules. Before we left, I tracked down a public parking ramp within a couple blocks of our hotel, and we made that our target: drive straight there, park, and don’t think about any more driving in town.

It didn’t exactly work out that way. A couple of the streets we needed to turn on were closed, and they were having some kind of festival near the port. We sat in crawlingly-slow traffic forever, but at least the people-watching was excellent. We ended up having to drive right by the festival, and then were finally able to head up the hill toward the parking garage. We sat on one street for 15 minutes due to a traffic jam behind a parallel parker. INSANE.

Finally, we found the ramp, but the door was closed, and there was no indication about how to get in there. We decided to circle and maybe we’d get lucky and find a spot, so we headed around the block and there it was!! A street parking spot! Directly across from the actual entrance to the parking garage, of course. We emptied the car and hauled our bags to the Howard Johnson Plaza de Las Armas.

I wasn’t expecting much of the HoJo, but the reviews were good, it was the only hotel under $200, and we were only going to be sleeping there one night. The guy at the front desk was fantastic, and he assured us that it was fine to leave the car parked on the street overnight. He pointed us to the tiny, ancient elevator that required instructions, because it had two sliding doors that had to be closed completely, or it wouldn’t move. Also, it went approximately .5 floors an hour, and was so tiny that the two of us could barely get in their with our giant suitcases and carry-ons.

Our room was actually very nice. It was clean and had a balcony overlooking Plaza de las Armas and The Best Souvenir Shop in San Juan, where another Christmas festival was in full swing. They even had a giant neon Christmas tree, and bands were playing.

We charged our phones, repacked our suitcases for the flight the next day, stopped at a supermarket for water, and headed to La Barrachina for another of their legendary pina coladas. The old bartender was fantastically opinionated: he went off on a rant about how the crazy weather changes were indicative of the fact that the world was going to end in 2012. He had made plans for that event, too: he was going to take his sons to a whorehouse, and his daughter to a convent so there’d be someone to pray for the family.

Then it was time to go find dinner. Quite possibly the saddest moment of vacation was when we left La Barrachina and noticed that the ship we’d just disembarked was heading back out to see with a new set of passengers. SIGH. We wandered around in Old San Juan til we came across the Blessed Cafe. We’d walked past it several times, and noticed the reggae blaring. The sign about Jamaican patties drew us in.

Their menu had 5 kinds of rum punch, which was immensely confusing. I ordered callaloo, but they were out. I asked the server (the owner’s wife) if they had anything else vegetarian, and she said just red beans and rice. I was totally happy with that, but she kept apologizing for not having anything else. When she brought it out, the rice was molded in a heart shape, and there was enough for two meals. She had nothing to apologize about!

After dinner, we did some more wandering in Old San Juan. We heard music coming from a spanish restaurant near El Convento, so we went in. I got a margarita that was so strong I couldn’t even finish it. We sat in the courtyard, and watched the band set up for the evening. Once Matt was finished with his drink, it was time to return to El Batey!

There was a different bartender with awesome tattoos this time, but he had basically the same attitude as the first. We had some Cuba Libres with Barrilitos (you can tell it gets you cred with the bartender just by ordering that brand as a non-Sanjuanero) and played the jukebox. My set ended with “No Woman, No Cry”, which made a bunch of people sing along. Also, our bartender uttered my favorite phrase of the entire trip: “Why pay for sex, why pay for water? Those are two things that should be fucking free.”

We wanted to stay there forever, but of course we still had things to see in San Juan the next day. We bid farewell to our new favorite bar, and headed back to the hotel.

We got up to check out at 10am. Leaving the room, we met another couple from Delaware who was standing and waiting for the elevator. They said they’d been there quite a while.

We’d have taken the stairs, but there was no way we were getting those monstrous suitcases down from the 3rd floor. When the elevator finally arrived, the four of us packed our bags inside like a Tetris game, and the tiny lady squeezed in with them while the rest of us took the stairs. We beat her by a lot.

We rolled the bags to the car, stopped at Starbucks, and then headed toward San Cristobal. It seemed a lot hotter than it’d been the last time we were in San Juan during the day. I was sweating my ass off, and all the hill-climbing didn’t help.

We paid our $3 admission and set off on a tour of San Cristobal. First up was the dungeon, which proved that people at all times have been pretty much the same (the graffiti says ‘shit’):

The views from the top were amazing. The above photo is looking east, toward Condado (that’s the capitol building with the dome). Below is the view to the west, with La Perla, the cemetery, and El Morro.

We saw the oldest guardhouse in San Juan, well below the current fort:

These are the tres banderas:

I was so hot that sweat was soaking the fronts of my pants below my knees. Also, I filled up the 4gb card on my camera, and of course the spare one was in the car. I had to go back through hundreds of photos and delete the duplicates! It’s not like I was going to stop taking photos.

We stopped for lunch at a little food court that advertised pina coladas in yards. We chose to have a Sol instead, and went to the Caribbean food counter in the back. I ordered vegetable mofongo and tostones. Matt got pastelon (plantain and beef pie) with cassava marinated in garlic and onion. It also came with about 6 pounds of rice and peas.

His came up right away, but the lady told me mine would take a little bit because they had to make it special. A little bit seemed to last 2 hours, but I finally got my food. It was enough for a week.

We took the tostones to go, because we had to hurry at that point. We did some last-minute souvenir shopping (including the Best Souvenir Shop in San Juan), then got the car and headed back to Thrifty Rent-A-Car at the airport. We only got lost once!

We shuttled to the airport, and found the check-in area so packed that we couldn’t roll our suitcases around. We walked up and down and couldn’t find the Delta counter at all. Finally, we found it in the back, and were overjoyed to see that there was barely a line. The check-in people told us we had to go through USDA inspection first, which seemed to consist of a scanner that may or may not have detected anything, and a man putting stickers on bags. When we got back, Matt sent his bag off, and then mine came up 9 pounds overweight. Of course.

The cost for a 59-pound bag? $90. What the hell, Delta? The other option was to check a third bag for $25, so we opted for that. The lady at the counter was actually very friendly, and helped us drag the bags over to a place where we could do the big switch. Matt still had his big leather carry-on, so we wrapped everything as well as possible (I was very nervous about putting glass rum bottles in that bag, but that was most of the weight), paid the extra money, and were on our way to security. They sent us through the ‘professional traveler’ line, probably because we only had one carry-on at that point. The best part was when they took my giant package of Go Ahead out and asked me what it was. If Go Ahead is contraband, I don’t want to go on living.

We stopped at the duty free shop for two bottles of Ron de Barrilitos (three star, of course – the bartenders at El Batey had taught us well), and got a free rum carrier that would serve as Matt’s carry-on bag. How perfect is that, really? We then saw a sign for an airport bar’s happy hour, so we took advantage of $3 caipirinhas and sports on TV. We both called home to say we were on our way, and then it was time to board the plane for Detroit.

Around the time we hit the continental US, there was all this frantic activity on the plane. Apparently an old lady up front was having a medical emergency, and the flight attendants were preparing for an emergency landing just in case. Thankfully, there was a nurse on the plane, and he was able to get the lady stabilized so we could continue. We landed in Detroit without incident, and an ambulance met her at the gate. Thanks, nameless nurse guy! You’re awesome.

We had dinner in the Detroit airport and learned that our flight was delayed like crazy coming from Philadelphia. The east coast had been experiencing horrible snowstorms, and they were still having trouble with that. We finally managed to board an hour and half late, and arrived in Minneapolis around midnight. Because it was so late, we told my parents to not bother picking us up, and got a cab instead.

Personally, I can’t believe we made it to work the next day.

Here are the spoils from our trip!!

We got up at 10 and had breakfast at our usual table, which was against the window so we could see the ocean. There were birds diving into the water, fishing, so we stood and watched them for a long time.

We sat out on the deck reading in the sun until it started to rain, then went to play canasta in the card room. There was a big group of old people from Long Island in there, arguing loudly. Since it was close enough to noon, we decided to have some drinks. Wendy set out on a mission to consume everything on the cocktail menu. It was substantial, so we all pitched in.

As we were eating lunch, we started to see land. We went up to the top deck to watch the approach to Puerto Rico, and then ran to our cabin to grab our things and line up for our first stop in San Juan. It was very exciting, and we were prepared.

san juan, puerto rico

We got off the boat around 4:30, after standing in line for almost half an hour. They were handing out ponchos as we left, even though it had stopped raining. In the customs building (where we expected to have to show our passports or something, but no), we were handed free samples of Bacardi, and a million flyers for local services.

We got our bearings and set off up the hill to San Cristobal. We couldn’t actually go into the fort, because there was a long line of army trucks exiting, but we walked around the back of it to overlook the ocean. It was gorgeous. I took approximately 10,000 photos.

san cristobal

We walked along Boulevard Del Valle toward El Morro, following my map. I loved the colors of the buildings, and the overlook from the city wall.

off boulevard del valle

mercado street

We got to El Morro just as San Felipe castle was closing, but that was fine; we wanted to cover as much ground as possible before it got dark. We took seats on some rocks near the castle and watched the sun set over the ocean.

Grateful for the fact that domestic rates still applied in Puerto Rico, I called Matt. I missed him a lot. Also, I give props to Wendy and Stephanie, who had to hear about how much I missed him at least a million times over the course of that week. They were very nice about it.

We headed back toward old San Juan, stopping to see the city gate and the cathedral. There were wild cats wandering everywhere.

plazuela de rogativa

the moon and san juan cathedral

Once it got dark, we decided to find dinner. There were a couple recommendations in our guide, so we walked to both of them and found them closed. We wandered all over the place looking, and were kind of dying of hunger. Before stopping, we ran into a liquor store and I picked up a couple bottles of rum to bring home.

We decided on a place called Lupi’s, which had Mexican food and a sports-bar atmosphere. We had amazing margaritas and tostones (on the menu as ‘plantain nachos’). For dinner, I had enchiladas, and I asked the bartender what the best rum in Puerto Rico was. He said it was Don Q, and made me the best Cuba Libre ever. After eating, we scooted down the bar to play Naked Ladies (you may know this as ‘Erotic Photo Hunt’ on Megatouch machines). We couldn’t have been more excited to find it in a bar in the Caribbean, and the dudes sitting along the wall behind us were quite amused.

After dinner, we headed to the destination toward which we’re inexplicably drawn: Señor Frog’s. Wendy had never been there, after all.

They had a slightly different drink policy than other Señor Frog’s: instead of having a pre-set selection of drinks in yard glasses, you could get anything you wanted. Premium liquors ran $17.50 a yard. It was like Christmas!! We took full advantage; I had a Cuba Libre with Diet Coke, Stephanie had a Long Island, and Wendy had a scary-looking fruity thing. We had Frog Legs shots, then something blue. Behind the bar, they were having contests for free shots. It was typical Señor Frog’s, which is to say: awesome.

Debating whether to order another round, Wendy announced, “hey, we’re not driving! Captain Giuseppe is!” We ordered, then asked our server if it was ok to bring drinks outside in San Juan. She told us sure, that anything goes! I told her I loved her. On the way out, though, the doorman told us no, we had to drink them inside. We sat near the entrance finishing our yards as the DJ played Sexyback. We loved Puerto Rico a lot.

no black men in the water.

We headed back toward the ship, stopping at a mailbox to drop off postcards. I may have been somewhat drunk, as I kept asking Wendy if we’d mailed our postcards yet, even though we’d just done so. When we got near the dock, Stephanie said, “what’s that thing floating in the water?” I yelled, “THERE’S A BLACK MAN IN THE WATER???” I may never live that down.

We boarded the ship, and had to show our passports to the security guards. I was nervous because I had bottles of liquor in my bag, and they’re supposed to take them and keep them for us until we returned to the US. They didn’t say a thing while xraying our bags, though, and they were amused by our collection of yard glasses. We staggered to our cabin, and didn’t even hear the boat’s giant whistle leaving port.