1. Matty was on spring break for two weeks.
2. We love to travel, and I have always wanted to go to Puerto Rico.
3. In order to maintain my extended-stay visitors' visa, it is necessary that I leave the island of St. Kitts once a year. Since round-trip tickets to Michigan for both of us are so very expensive, we opted to fly somewhere closer to fulfill my visa requirements. Last August, we traveled to the Pacific Northwest to visit our friends, Heather and Corey, as well as to explore the area and visit OSU. In December, we chose to stay in St. Kitts and enjoy a Caribbean Christmas Staycation. So for this April break, we decided to spend some of it in PR, and the rest of it in SK---fulfilling our love for traveling and exploring, as well as maintaining my legal visitor status. Haha.
So moving on...
Day 1:
The flight was about an hour long. I chose not to take a dosage of dramamine because I figured I'd be okay for sixty minutes. Ha. Not so much. It was a bumpy ride on a much smaller airplane, and I almost threw up. What an amateur. Needless to say, I have vowed to self-medicate regardless of the amount of estimated travel time.
Things turned up once we landed and walked into the air-conditioned airport. As we made our way through customs, we spoke with a very friendly immigration officer who checked our passports, and wished us a fun vacation.
After making our way through the airport, we flagged down a taxi and headed to the Verdanza Hotel, located in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Our first impressions of San Juan:
Matthew: Whoa. There are tall buildings here. And nice cars. Looks super clean too!
Me: Yeah. It's totally like mainland America...except everything is in Spanish.
Once we unloaded our luggage and checked out our room, we went back downstairs to talk to the concierge about getting to Old San Juan. Our options were to either ride the bus for 75 cents which would be about a 30 minute bus ride, or call a taxi and pay $22, one-way. Since we weren't in any hurry, we opted to ride the bus. And it was just fine...definitely worth saving $40 USD.
When we arrived in OSJ, we pulled out our tourist map, and began our exploration. We spent most of the day just wandering around, admiring the 17th century buildings full of old world charm. I loved their bright bold colors and ornate doors. The original blue cobblestone streets were a sight to see as well. In addition to sightseeing, we did a little shopping, making our way through interesting little shops, stopping and lingering when seeing interesting artwork or handcrafted items.
After five or six hours, we headed back to our hotel. By then, we were exhausted! We had been up really early that day to catch our flight, and OSJ was quite hilly. We definitely got our exercise in, walking miles and miles under that hot Caribbean sun. Since we were so tired, we settled for dinner at a restaurant within our hotel that evening, and opted to go to bed early. What a day!
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| Looks like US mainland to me. |
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| An empty street in Old San Juan. |
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| This is no joke. All of the doors in OSJ are different and full of character. |
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| The Raíces Fountain |
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| Snapshot of us at dinner. |
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