Greetings from San German

27.07.2011

This place is more beautiful then I imagined. The last couple of weeks have been so relaxing and peaceful. I've visited Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro and Fajardo lagoon. I have scuba dived to see the coral reefs, spent whole days lying on the beach with an amazing view and visited the Mayaguez Zoo. Caribbean has really exceeded my expectations a lot. I am thankful to everyone I've met and to those back home who helped me go.

The hotel I’ve been staying at is called Horned Dorset Primavera. It is beautiful and is right on the beach. The beach is always full, but right across the road and behind some bushes there`s another silent amazing beach. The only people I’ve seen on this beach is a Puerto Rican family that`s extremely kind and generous. The mother Estella is 56 years and is the sweetest little lady. Her husband Andrés, that`s 74, was very quiet and looked a bit angry, but when he got something to drink he became as chatty as a magpie.

Cruz is 23 and he was so grown-up. He goes to school and studies English literature and dreams of becoming a professor at the university in Mayaguez. We went out a couple of times just the two of us and he told me a lot about Puerto Rican history and he was eager to learn more English. The rest of the family consists by two more girls, Evita and Abigail and the three year old Braulio.

Cruz told me that the city was founded in 1511 and was earlier one of the capitals of Puerto Rico, but that was when the city was divided in the northern and southern division. The other capital was San Juan which has reminded the only capital today.

When I visited Fajardo I took a crash course in scuba diving, it only took one day. Then I was all set to go under water and explore the amazing coral reefs. I dived with Sea Ventures Dive Centers and it was the coolest experience on this journey so far. It was a bit scary at first, but when I saw all the fishes it definitely was worth it. I saw Nemo, a pink fish and Doris I think. I was so thrilled to see Nemo; I was literally hitting my diver coach. 
I now have a diver license and when I get home to Boston I`ll definitely dive some more. It won`t be as exiting or as pretty as in Fajardo, but it will be fun, I`m sure.

My instructor. Proud to say i took that picture :D

In Fajardo I also visited the lagoon. I went with a shockingly handsome guide and we had a ball together. He told me that lagoons are a body of shallow sea water separated from the sea by some sort of barrier. He also told me plenty other stuff but I couldn't really focus; I was only staring at his shirtless six-pack. I am tremendously mad at myself for not thinking about taking a picture as evidence that I found a hot Puerto Rican, no one would believe me if I say I did. In Fajardo they also had different golf courses but I couldn’t care less about golf so I didn't enter. I just thought I`d mention it because golf is a huge sport in Puerto Rico. Go figure.

One of Puerto Ricos most recognizable landmarks is Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro, or just El Morro. This is a huge fortress that has been used for the military for nearly half a century. It took almost 200 years to build too. They used it for protection against “the new world”, the ships and anything trying to force itself onto the island. When I was walking around I saw many canons built in the 15th century still facing the ocean and standing at the same spot they have for 500 years. I also stood inside a huge box to see how soldiers from the 15th century and till the 20th fought and died. It was really powerful to watch, and to think that where I was and stood people had fought, used the canons and survived. In World War 2 they used the place to track the movement of German submarines in the Caribbean, but thankfully the military work in El Morro ended with that war.

The Zoo in Mayaguez, the mighty, mighty zoo was wonderful. It was like being in a tropical garden or jungle. They had an outside room where tropical birds and parrots were free to fly, and this beautiful yellow and read parrot sat on my arm and it was spectacular. They had lions, zebras, monkeys, giraffes, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, elephants and flamingoes plus many others, and I can say that I have a story with some of them. How cool is that!

I had a tour of the whole zoo on an elephant, I fed a monkey as well as hugging it, I touched a cheetah and I pet a parrot. The animals were so nice and not dangerous at all. Well, the cheetah was scary but the zoologist reassured me it was fine.

In the Zoo

In Puerto Rico they talk Spanish. luckily I had Spanish in high school so I was able to say a few sentences. Some places they also are able to talk English. That was great because my Spanish sucks to be honest. In school English is a secondary language, but they only have Puerto Rican teachers so the English is not so good.

The best Spanish slang I learned was “encojonao”. It means “your gonads are red in anger” directly translated, but Puerto Ricans use it when they are pissed off. Cruz teached me another slang sentence that`s a bit odd, that`s why I like it so much. “Me tienes una teta hinchada y la otra en proceso” or you could just say “me tienes un huevo hinchado”. Directly translated it means “you've made my one tit inflamed and the other is in the process of becoming so too". Puerto Ricans use it when someone is fed up with a situation. How ridiculous is that. Or is it “fuego”? This means cool.

Before the spangles arrived at the island in 1493 it was inhabited by Arawak-Indians. They called the island Borinquèn. In 1508 Juan Ponce de Leon founded a colony in the name of the Spanish king. He created gold-minds and plantations with African slaves as a work force. On the plantations they made sugar, coffee and tobacco. 

Coffee plants

American tropes invaded the island around 1898-99 during the Spanish-American war. The Puerto Ricans welcomed America gladly because this meant that the spangles were out and they would be free, they thought. Instead they became an American colony. America controlled the economy and the land, so that everything made at the plantations were sold to America and most of the profits went straight to them. In 1920 about 75 % of the population was engaged in sugar-production, and since 1917 they have had American citizenship. In the 1940s Luis Munoz Marin was the first man ever elected governor of Puerto Rico.

Luis Munoz Marin

Since 52 Puerto Rico has had a status as a free associated state with America. What does that mean you wonder? Well I did too. So I asked Andrès who told me that it meant they had to obey American rules and that every fourth year they got to vote off a congressman in Washington that`s not allowed to vote. Andrès is really pissed off by this and he sat at the bar cursing like he didn't care who was listening. He thinks it is humiliating for their country to be taken over by America and to be allowed to vote off a congressman, but that he`s not able to vote, he`s just there for show. Luckily they can vote their own governor each fourth year and in 2006 they were allowed to vote in the president election.

Tomorrow I`m flying to Jamaica to meet Sophie, and I can`t wait. I`m sad to leave Puerto Rico though, it has given me so much. I feel more independent than ever, I am more thankful to what I`ve got. I have also realized that I can never live in the Caribbean forever. It`s way too hot and the culture is completely different. Puerto Rico is way more intense than Boston; here everybody hugs at the first meeting while in Boston nearly no one ever hugs. I was there alone so I did everything I wanted to and when something turned out to be boring I could just leave or quit doing it. It was never a doll moment in Puerto Rico, something was always happening from the moment I got up in the morning till I went to sleep.


Here`s one of Luis Marin's poems:



Now it is morning, Padre, and the sun Is up -- 


the sun that hid behind the rain,--


The sun that yester's holocaust has done,--


The sun you know so well, -- my sun again--


This is so beautiful, the sun is up and there is happiness to the people and they are free.




- Edda

Taking a break in Barbados

After years of living in the beautiful but exhausting city New York, I decided to travel to find myself and take a break from work and life in general as I know it. It was time to experience something new and what's better than going to an exotic place like the Caribbean. I left JFK airport early on a Saturday morning and after a four and a half hour long flight I landed at Grantley Adams International Airport, Bridgetown, Barbados. When I first got out of the plane I felt the heat and it felt great, it is autumn in New York at the moment so getting to a place where the temperature still is over 25c is a huge plus. Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados and it’s placed in the southwest of the island. It lives about 96 000 people here and the average temperature all year is 26 C, all year!

I was staying at this gorgeous hotel called Hilton Hotel Barbados Bridgetown; it was amazing but very expensive. So I was only going to stay there for the first two days. And Alex was so nice to me so she let me stay at her place the rest of the holiday; she’s definitely a friend for life and we have so much in common.


I’ve been here for almost a week now and I love it so far. I haven’t gotten to relax much yet though because Bridgetown is less of a beach town and more like a place where you can see lots of things. The first day I spent mostly of my time near by the hotel because I was tired and not up for something really exhausting. So I decided why not eat something, and what something is better than the national dish of Barbados. It’s called Cou Cou and Flying Fish, when I read the name I didn’t quite understand what it was, but the nice waitress told me something about it. It came out that Cou Cou is a unique blend of cornmeal and okra mixed with salad, peppers and hot sauce and that Flying fish is the most common found fish in the warm seas around Barbados, and they usually fried it or steamed it.

So you just combine those two dishes and you get Cou Cou and Flying Fish and I must admit that it tasted really good and not too hot, even though before I went here it was written everywhere that all Barbados food is really hot.

After a good meal and a good night sleep I wanted to see more of this beautiful Island. I decided to go swimming with the turtles and it was a wonderful experience. I’ve always wanted to dive and it was as amazing as I thought it was going to be, I will definitely recommend it to everybody who like turtles and colorful fish. At first I was really scared that I would meet a shark, but the guys that had been diving for a lifetime hadn’t ever seen one in that area so it calmed me down a bit. It was so beautiful there under water, I don’t think I’ve seen so many colors at once before and it was awesome.

I also met Alex there who lived nearby but was originally from Connecticut, she was planning to only stay for two weeks but ended up moving here, so the day after she showed me the city.

The City here in Bridgetown is big and when Alex told me we were going to the shopping street I imagined more of a street with lots of shops and cafés, but no. We went to Broad Street which is the main street in Bridgetown, but it was mostly banks, departments stores and some small shops there, but it was nice seeing it anyways. Alex decided that we were going to go to the Caribbean Cigar Factory. It was quite interesting to learn how they made the cigars but I was quite sick of the smell in the end of that night. It was mostly inside a huge building and it was about 30 C outside so it got pretty hot in the end.

Barbados is the home for a real famous singer, Rihanna. I’m a huge fan of her so I was really hoping she would be home while I was in the country. But she was on a tour so the chance of bumping into her randomly wasn’t that huge. But I was staying in Bridgetown, her hometown so the thought of the fact that she had been walking up this streets was okay by me.

While I’ve been here I’ve been totally relaxed and it was good for a change. Tomorrow I’m going to take the boat to St. Lucia and it’s probably going to take a while, but it will be interesting. And when I’ve stayed there for a week or so I’m going to Jamaica to meet Edda and I can’t wait. I’ll defiantly be back here in Barbados and now I know a place to stay as well, at Alex’s place.

- Maren

Puerto Rican Magic

After passing my finals on Harvard law school in Boston, Massachusetts, I decided to treat myself with a luxurious trip to the Caribbean. Going to Harvard has been so exhausting and I really needed a break from everything before I started my new job at Burns and Levinson as an attorney. I drove to JFK and took an airplane straight to Luis Munoz Marin airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ride took approximately 4 hours and I was sleeping the whole time. I only woke up when we were landing and when a baby behind me started crying. I remember how the burning heat from Puerto Rico just hit me right in the face. It felt like I was in an aluminum suite. Today it is 15 days ago and thank God I`ll be here for another 13 days! After that I am going to meet Sophie in Jamaica. She is my best friend and I know we will have so much fun together.

Going to Puerto Rico alone is a magnificent experience and the last 15 days has been incredible and so educational. Like, who knew that the world’s largest radio telescope that is about 305 meters in diameter is located in Puerto Rico, or that the island was discovered by Christopher Columbus on one of his trips. I for once did not, and now I would like to share some of my experiences with you.

I am staying at the Hotel El Convento in San Juan, the capital. This hotel is beautiful and gigantic. The hotel has four stars and the most amazing mofongo I've ever tasted, and I have tasted it in essentially every restaurant here. Mofongo is a mashed mound of baked bananas with seafood, vegetables or meat in it, you only get both seafood and vegetables at the hotel and it tastes like heaven. To top it off they serve it with rice and beans and a sauce I adore but don’t really know the name to. 

Puerto Rico is a wonderful island in the Caribbean. It has a rectangular shape and is approximately 100 miles long and 35 miles wide between the north and south coast and 90 miles wide between the east-west coasts. The island is the eastern most island in the island group Greater Antilles in Caribbean. The capital of Puerto Rico is San Juan and other big cities are Ponce, Patillas, San Germàn and El Yunque. Because Puerto Rico is an island it does not border to any country but the other main islands in the Caribbean. These are countries like Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There are also loads of small islands like St. Lucia, Barbados, British Virgin Islands and Bahamas plus a whole bunch of others. Puerto Rico lies thousand miles southeast of Florida, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the British Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico belongs to the United States but is in fact not a state. If it was, it would have been the third smallest state before Delaware and Rhode Island. Puerto Rico has 3.8 million inhabitants and most of them come from the U.S. It is calculated that almost every person has been in America. Puerto Rico also has many mountain ranges and the tallest mountain lies in the city Ponce and is 4,389 feet. It is called Cerro de Punta. I actually saw the mountain when I was in Ponce, it is kind of cool to say I have seen the highest mountain in Puerto Rico. I did not try to climb it though, that would have been too exhausting, plus I only were in Ponce for a day, and there was so much to do. There are also so many beaches here; you have the Ballenas, Isla Verde, Seven Seas, Conado beach and many more. The beaches are so soft and you feel like you are flying while walking on them, that's how soft they are. You just want to squeeze your feet under the sand and bury yourself onto the lightness and warmth of the white beaches. The longest river is Rio de la Plata which is 60, 5 miles and lies in the North Coast of the island, and flows from south to north and drains out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The island has a tropical Marine climate. That means it's hot all year round and the air is always steamy. The main temperature is 26 degrees all year round and there are always sunny and warm days here. It is the winds that blow in from east that determines the temperature and sometimes when the wind is extra strong hurricanes may arise, but hopefully not when I am here. In the months between May to October it rains the most and those months are called the hurricane season. Over all the year it rains about 60 inches in north and 36 inches in south. The last 15 days has not been as hot as I imagined, but it is hot enough.

Cerro de Punta

A while ago when I was in Ponce I had an English guide walk me through the city. She told me that Juan Ponce de Leon was the first European to ever visit Florida. He was of Spanish origin and worked as a boy for the royal court delivering messages. When he got older he joined the military and later on he sailed with Columbus. As a reward for his service to Spain, Ponce de Leon was given the right to find Bimini, an island in Bahamas that was supposed to be the place of the fountain of youth. The legend says that whoever drinks from the fountain of youth will never grow old. Ponce did travel, but not to Bimini, he travelled all the way to Florida. He thought he was on an island and called the place Florida because in Spanish Florida means flowers and supposedly there was so many of them. Ponce couldn’t find anything and sailed back. Five years later he decided to go on another voyage to find this fountain. This time he landed on the west coast of Florida … again, but he was met by Native Americans shooting at them instead of pretty little flowers. Ponce was shot and taken to Cuba where he died in 1521 from his wounds.

Juan Ponce de Leon

A city in Florida named after Ponce

It was fun to hear about Ponce de Leon especially because I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean; on stranger tides. And this movie is about finding the fountain of youth.

The capital San Juan is divided in the old and new city. The old city is located to the west of San Juan. It is a well maintained district from the 15th century. This was the only city there was, around was just landscape so they built a city wall around the entire place, this to prevent any intruders to come in. La Puerta de San Juan was the official gate into the city for those who came with ships. And just up the block is a Cathedral the travelers went to, to thank God for allowing them to make the journey. The Cathedral is also Juan Ponce de Leon’s grave chamber. That is why the capital is called “Juan”. It was really cool to go downstairs in the church and be guarded by monks to see Ponce’s grave. The monks were completely silent, they did not speak what so ever and I was not allowed to either. It was strange, I had to sit kneeling between two monks who were praying. I was too scared to even look up so I pretended to pray as well.

When I was walking through old San Juan which I have quite a few times now, I could see how beautiful the buildings were and I could just stare at them for hours. The balconies, coble stone streets and buildings made me feel like I went back in time for real. It was somewhat poetic to go there alone and take pictures. One of the many museums in San Juan fell particularly in my favor. I loved La Casa Blanca which is a house built for Ponce de Leon also the governor of San Juan. But he died before it was finished so his family lived there for 250 years.

In “the new San Juan” or more appropriate “materialized San Juan” they have a business district where all the office jobs are, and all the “fancy buildings”. San Juan also has some casinos. I was at a casino one night and things kind of got a bit wild. Partying with the locals of Puerto Rico was such an experience, and very different from Boston. People just came up to me all the time and asked me questions and expected that I would answer. They dragged me to the dance floor and gave me lots of drinks. But they were so nice and sweet, though. Especially this woman who started talking about something she had seen, out of the blue, I couldn't figure out exactly what but she wouldn`t stop talking. I also remember that at one point they were all showing me these tricks they could do and telling Puerto Rican jokes and I had no idea what they were saying, I just laughed along.

Me in the old San Juan

La Puerta de San Juan

The church

Ponce de Leon's grave

My casino, lots of memories there...

The business district

In Puerto Rico I couldn`t not go to a spa, so I took a train down to El Conquistador near Carolina and stayed one night at the spa resort they had there. And let me just say, it was an out of my body experience. I can still feel the cool air and breathe in the wonderful smells. The whole place was floweriest and smelled like roses and peonies. It is called the Golden Door Spa and it really was golden. They had many treatments there, for instance health and fitness care, beauty makeover, massages, Pilates, Yoga, saunas, baths, and so much more. Everything was so well prepared; I even got my own robe, and managed to take it with me. It was pink and had the letters GDS engraved in gold. I was served room-service for breakfast and lunch and dinner I ate in the garden under a pavilion whilst reading my Jane Austen novel and looking at the wavering sea. I know, it sounds just like a movie, and let me tell you it did feel like it. The food they had was healthy and organic and tasted like a mix of both heaven and paradise in one beautifully formed dish. The best thing I ordered was a plate of cheese. I got all kinds of cheese-types with walnuts, honey, apples and grapes. It was really delicious.

The massages I had were life-changing or at least need-to-sort-my-money-priorities changing. I was in there for about six hours. I had a head and neck massage and a back and shoulder massage. When they massaged my back they covered it with hot chocolate and surprisingly it was not bad at all, it felt great. At the end they did my nails both toe and finger-nails. It was just marvelous and I smelled like coconuts, olive oil and chocolate afterwards. I know it sounds gross but it really wasn’t.

This is exactly what they did to my back, no one could take my picture so I found one online.

Today I have done nothing else but to relax in a sunbed at the hotel reading my novel and packing my bags. You see, tomorrow I`m going to San Gèrman for two weeks.

 I'm so excited, so wish me luck!


- Edda