Puerto Rico Journal Day 10 & 11

March 18:

Our sleep was terrible with a capital T. The air conditioner has the most terribly loud rattle, like a slowly imploding car. It was hot as hell (I imagine) and the bathroom was down the hall. The hallways are like saunas, with all the air conditioner exhausts pouring into them. I was up around 630 (pretty common on this trip), enjoying the views from the patios. The city was alive, drying off after a quick morning shower.  

Puerto Rico Journal Day 9

March 17:

We were already packed and ready to leave when we woke up the next morning. I made a papaya and banana frappe to use up the last of our rotting fruit. We gathered everything into Charlie and went to breakfast at a neat little place called Aromas. It sits in the heart of Luquillo, which is densely packed with cars. Cars everywhere, every spot on the street, corner to corner (and some around the corners). It sounds odd to describe it by the cars, but that’s all I could see!

Puerto Rico Journal Day 8

March 16:

The game plan for today was simple: snorkel. We stopped for breakfast at Erik’s gyro and deli. The food was pretty decent, but it took nearly 30 minutes to get our very simple breakfast. We drove to the Fajardo marina for a snorkeling tour with Spread Eagle Catamaran tours. We were the first to get there, and we started drinking pina coladas right away. (They had such little rum in them it was pitiful, no chance of getting tipsy here).

Puerto Rico Journal Day 7

March 15:

Our sleep the night before we terrible. I’m not sure if it was the fear of cockroaches or the loudness of the air conditioner, but we were awake a lot that night. I turned off the air conditioner and opened the shutters and light poured in. The air is so wonderful first thing in the morning. I sat on the patio to write.

Aaaaaand, I'm back.

Hello World.

It's been forever, but no time at all.  What is time really?  I'm baking cookies right now, they're these ones.  I haven't made a duplicate of any recipe from the book in the year and a bit I've been baking from it, but I wanted these.  And so I made them.  The batter is on my hands, it tastes great.

Puerto Rico Journal Day 6

March 14:

We finally have a good breakfast on the island at Tradewinds. There are beautiful views of the ocean, a sea breeze and endless cups of coffee. After a plate of huevos ranchos, we’re satisfied. We were a little sad on our last walk back up the hill. After a far too short time it was time to leave the island. A taxi whisked us away for a nauseating ride to the airport.

Puerto Rico Journal Day 5

March 13:

We spend another day at Sun Bay. Stocked up again on beer and plantain chips we walked to the far end of the beach. The walk took a long while, luckily with the clouds in front of the sun. It came out again just as we reached our resting spot and set our towels in the sand.

Puerto Rico Journal Day 4

March 12:

After a calm, low key morning spent on the patio of our guesthouse, writing and enjoying the breeze, we squeezed into our swimsuits and set out for our first day at the beach. The sun was strong and Max walked with us from the house, down towards the beach. We filled a borrowed cooler with ice and beer, which went down especially well under these conditions.  

Puerto Rico Journal Day 3

March 11:

We had our first breakfast at Cafe Mallorca. As predicted we ate mallorca. Breakfast was perfect, fresh squeezed orange juice and great cafe con leche. Mallorca is two slices of a sweet brioche, cheese and ham, grilled then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Eaten with a knife and fork.  

Puerto Rico Journal Day 2

March 10:

Our flight was tight. Five very long hours on a turbulent red eye. I felt awful, I could barely cross my legs. I know I shouldn't complain, I'd never give up the convenience of air travel, but could the not do anything more for comfort? While everyone was asleep around 2.5 hours into the flight, the worst possible thing happened; I threw up. I’m blaming it on the constant turbulence, as I am prone to motion sickness, but I’ve never actually vomited from it before. Shane was amazing, and I had had some serious food in my stomach. He held a makeshift bag (a paper bagel bag inside a ripped piece of plastic bag, no sick bags in our chair pockets) over his lap as it got heavier and warmer. If the noises I was making on the almost silent plane weren’t embarrassing enough, the stench sure was. No napkins or water to rinse my mouth. Totally awful, and mortifying. I love my husband, he kept his cool. The rest of the flight was agonizingly slow. And smelly.  

Puerto Rico Journal Day 1

We went to Puerto Rico! It was fabulous in so many different ways, but I nearly had a breakdown when we returned and it was 4 degrees and pouring rain. Each day was balmy, humid and beautiful. The food was delicious, the scenery gorgeous and the people wonderful. I wrote a daily journal, some days more thorough than others, but I thought I’d share.

On a Jet Plane

We leave on our trip for Puerto Rico tomorrow.  The hours are dragging by very slowly, that much is true.  We're almost totally packed, somehow everything fits into our carry on luggage. But of course we're taking way too much stuff, as per norm.  I always dream about traveling light, but realistically I can't seem to get by on less than 5 pairs of shoes.  Five dresses, three shorts, numerous shirts, you know right? I call it packing light when I can't fit my hair dryer in my purse.  (Like this time. Drat!) Hopefully everything goes smoothly, because if we end up having to check a bag I'll be pissed.  I didn't spend all this time and energy "packing light" if I could have packed a whopper of a suitcase.

Shane's Birthday & February Date Night

So it's been a few days already that Shane turned 29.  Let me tell you, he wasn't to thrilled about it.  We made it low key, just a special blip on the calender.  I made him a nice breakfast that he brought to school (blueberry muffins and glazed bacon). And I drove to Burnaby for lunch at Fatburger.  He lost his wallet and we went out for dinner.  For dessert we had ice cream cake.  All and all, fairly uneventful. Just how he wanted it.

Dear March

From last year

MARCH! MARCH! MARCH!!

I'm shouting.

I'm very excited.

Good bye February and your hard to spell name,

and good riddance!

I'm glad to see you go.