Friday, May 29, 2009

vega baja

i must tell you about vega baja, which i have decided, is the most armpit-ey place i have ever visited (sorry new rochelle). vega baja is located on a mountain. i assume, because of the name that it's at the bottom of the bottom, but i assure you, that doesn't make the possibility of falling off any less terrifying. and in vega baja that actually is a very real possibility because of the one lane road that zig-zags cartoonishly up the side of the mountain. you have to beep when rounding a corner so that anyone who might be on the other side knows you're coming.
we ended up in vega baja after our expedition to old san juan. we were trying to find morovis, the town in which fluff's family is located, but when our gps decided to spazz out and stop working, we ended up in vega baja instead. i wish i had thought to take better pictures, but we were completely lost, with no cell phone service, and emotions were running high.
the thing that sucks about being lost in vega baja is that there is nothing but houses, or rather, i should say shacks. there are no defining characteristics. no place to stop and ask for directions. just one broken down shanty after another. at one point we saw a row of cars parked all the way down the road and we got ou hopes up, but when we drove by, we found that it was just a larger shack, inside of which they were apparently holding cock fights. we were all too scared to park and get out right there. (even fluff, who is truly a fearless warrior).
finally we found a bodega across the street from a negocio, where we managed to get spotty cell phone reception. we tried asking for directions, but they looked at us like we were crazy, even though three of my fellow travelers speak fluent spanish and were literally born right down the street from where we were.
finally we managed to get in touch with fluff's dad and explain to him where we were. the instructions he gave us were to wait for him, he would come to us. so we parked outside the negocio and ordered beers for $1, which they let us bring into our car. we watched a toothless drunk sitting outside with a stray dog in his lap attempt to get up and promptly fall on his ass. finally, fluff's dad showed up with his aunt netty, who instructed us to follow her and then got us the hell out of vega baja, going like, 90 around all those scary curves.

love always

Thursday, May 28, 2009

old san juan suavidad

did y'all happen to check out my sassy threads in the last post?
let's take a closer look:

bright green day dress from marshall's, about $15

ginormous floopy hat from forever 21 , about $10

sparkly necklace from some souvenir shop in old san juan, about $8

that beatific i'm in fucking puerto rico glow,

priceless!






love always

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

old town

On the second day, I decided that i'd like to see old san juan. my grandmother had been raving about it to me since childhood. she used to vacation in puerto rico and it was all beautiful, she'd say, but oh, how she loved old san juan, with the cobblestone streets and the quaint little shops and the big, ruined castles that they let you walk around in.
so in much the same fashion that i decided i'd like to go swimming and found, like some sort of miracle, that my wish had been granted, i decided, that very same day, that i'd like to see old juan and found myself en route just a few short hours later.
i was feeling quite romantic about this particular expedition, what with my grandmother's wistful descriptions, and the fact that i was still swooning over the idea that i was actually on a real life tropical island and all. even when the blue sky turned gray and threatened to pour rain all over my plans, even when fluff fell asleep on the way and then snapped at me when i tried to wake him up to look at the amazing scenery, i still felt romantic.
i didn't start feeling unromantic in fact, until the hunger set in. we had been driving in and out of san juan for the past fifteen minutes trying to find a parking spot, but all i could think about was eating.
when we finally did park, we walked straight towards the square in the center of town and looked around, hoping to find sustenance. since we were on a mission to eat only the most authentic, greasy, grimey puerto-rican food, we settled on a place marked san juan food court. unfortunately, it was two in the afternoon and all the vendors in the court had already put away their food for the afternoon. i consoled myself by drinking a coconut full of rum.

after the coconut, we became briefly distracted by all the absolutely outrageous tchockis in the overpriced souvenir shops, but quickly returned to our quest for food. after searching for about twenty minutes, we came to the conclusion that the only food available in san juan was ridiculously overpriced and decidedly not puerto-rican. we settled on a tapas restaurant called toro salao where i was finally able to order a salad. i thought that the food was awesome, but everyone else ordered croquetas with jamon serrano and then complained that the ham tasted weird.(i got my revenge later that afternoon when i sullked the entire time we were in senor frogs, a tourist trap where they sell you frozen drinks for eighteen dollars that don't even get you drunk.)

my favorite part of the day though, was when we visited the castillo de san cristobal and pretended that it was a playground.




love always

Sunday, May 17, 2009

golden sands

i can still remember every tiny little detail about our hotel.
driving through the gate where they would occasionally stop us and ask where we were going, as though they actually gave a fuck about our security. past the tree with the ginormous nest in the branches, housing god only know's what.

down the long strip of palm trees and golf course, past the toughest, meanest-looking ducks i have ever seen
(at least i think that's a duck)

to our perpetually full parking lot, where we would park in the corner and hop over the fence and onto the walkway that led to our suite (2192-2194).

i remember how unbearably cold it always was in our room and how we would rush to get back outside, because who the fuck wants to spend their tropical vacation shivering in a hotel room?
i remember waking up early and drinking coffee on our patio, thinking to myself how much i'd like to go swimming and then realizing that not only was this a completely viable option, but i had a choice between a pool or the ocean! (i ended up choosing both- first the ocean, then the pool)

one day we decided to explore our beach, walking to the edge where all the rocks were.


what we found was like another world. all these tiny creatures i'd never seen before
hermit crabs that were much, much bigger than any i've found in the northeast.

baby snails in brighter colors than i even knew existed in nature

flower-like creatures that opened and closed of their own accord.

we even found a plant that looked like nothing but a pile of curly grass, but when you touched it, would curl in on itself and almost dissapear.


and of course the flowers

and the palm trees

and the cocconuts
(and the silly boys i was staying with)

i've never traveled so far in my life, but somehow, at the end of the day, this always felt like home.

love always

Saturday, May 16, 2009

numero uno

I'm writing this from my beautiful suite at the golden sands resort in dorado, puerto rico, although, you won't be reading it for at least another week. We have no wi-fi here. Still, it felt important to me to document this in real time. I've spent a vast majority of my time on earth so far in the same small town, so any change from that is still a bit of a novelty to me.

I must say, it's a huge relief to be warm and secure under clean white hotel sheets, with disney channel playing in the background. It's been a long, hard journey getting here. Although, I did a lot better than the last time I flew. I actually only felt nauseous for about ten minutes on our first flight. The hard part this time was not in the flying itself, but rather in the departing of middletown for the airport.

I had to work last night, so while fluff enjoyed a relaxing farewell dinner, I was staring at the clock, counting down the minutes until I was officially allowed to slip into vacation mode. Naturally, the second that I got out, I called him in a frenzy like, dude, i'm ready to go!!!! and he's all nah son, I gotta finish dinner and get a haircut. At ten o'clock at night he had to get a haircut! (granted, his brother was the one cutting his hair, but still) For some reason, this irked me beyond belief. When I finally got to his house, I was already all cranky, and then to add insult to injury, fluff's brother in the next room, decided that the correct way to prepare for a five am flight to puerto rico is to watch the fast and the furious at max volume, so I got zero hours of sleep. When it was finally time to go, it felt like pulling teeth trying to get these dudes in the god damned car and we were of course, sprinting to our gate at the last second.

Of course it was all worth it. By no means am I complaining even one little bit. I could've come here crammed into the trunk of a car, and I still would've been ecstatic to be here. I'm just trying to paint a picture of how confused, and stressed and just absolutely raw I felt. Case in point; I watched bolt on the plane, and absolutely lost it. I'm talking sniffling, tears, the whole nine. The grumpy puerto-rican dude in the seat next to me was looking at me like what the hell is your problem woman?!

As we were descending, we were still over the ocean, so we got an absolutely amazing view of the coast on the way in. when we landed, the whole plane burst into applause (fluff says: only in puerto rico). So, we got off the plane and everything was in spanish! I know that to most people that's probably a given, but i've never been anywhere where english is not the primary language. It just felt so insane to see ads for things like mcdonalds, only in a different language than the one i'm so used to.

Outside, it was pouring. Worse than in ct even! I hardly noticed though, I was so wrapped up in just looking around. The best word I can think of to describe what I was looking at: green. Everywhere. Things growing out of the sides of mountains, along fences and buildings, even in san juan, which is by no means rural.

On the way to our hotel we spotted a truck with pastel pink rims selling food by the side of the road and nearly got ourselves killed pulling a u-turn just to get to it. We ate alcapurias doused in goya hot sauce and a pionono, which was by far, the best street food i've ever tried in my life. Crispy flaky dough surrounding a filling of ground seasoned meat and fried platano. It was beyond perfect. The salty, spicy meat and then soft, sticky-sweet plaintain, all crowned with that golden flaky dough.

Our hotel was, perhaps, the most pleasant surprise of my life. We paid a relatively small amount of money for a villa here, and after reading numerous online reviews that described the place as “out-of-date” and “sub-par”, we weren't expecting much. So imagine our surprise to find our suite was huge and comfortable with five beds, a kitchen complete with dishwasher, two bathrooms (one with a jacuzzi) and two patios, both overlooking this:

never in my wildest dreams did I ever think i'd be this fortunate.

the hotel also has an astounding pool, with waterfalls, jacuzzis and a sweet little bar in the center.It seemed imperative that we hit up this bar immediately, in order
to make it clear to ourselves and everyone else that we were officially on vacation. We ordered an assortment of tropical drinks, my favorite being the black cocconut (j.w. black and coconut water-yum!).

The other place that we drank has a name, but I don't know it. It's on the main strip in dorado, and is identifiable by a large sign that states simply patio bar. But to call it a patio bar is a drastic understatement. There are actually two patios. One high and high lower, both shaded by lush greenery, and the place smells like fucking gardenias and jasmine, which I know sounds like something of weetzie bat, but I swear, it's the truth. We ordered these amazing fried cheese cubes, somewhat akin to mozzarella sticks, only served with a sauce of mashed garlic, mayo and ketchup, which, believe it or not, is my new favorite condiment.

Totally drunk, totally overwhelmed, completely exhausted, we came back to our hotel and slept like babies, eased into dreaming by the lullaby of the coquis. I woke up in the morning a bit dissoriented for a second. I sat up in bed and thought where the fuck am I? And then I remembered.

Paradise.


love always

Thursday, May 14, 2009

warning!

i returned home to soggy, rainy connecticut early this morning after spending the past week in puerto rico. i worked a double, with only an hour long break to deposit my check into my empty bank account. i felt a sharp, stabbing pang in my chest everytime i remembered that this time yesterday i was somewhere else. needless to say, i'm a bit melancholy about being here.
the past week was everything a vacation could possibly hope to be; good, bad, rainy, sunny, humid, exhausting, emotional, unreal, exciting, terrifying, frustrating. i have stories to tell, pictures to show, moments to relive. i'm still in the process of digesting it all.
at the moment it seems pretty unlikely that i will want to write about anything besides this trip for what may seem like an unreasonably long time to some of you. for this i appologize in advance and offer up my sincerest hopes that it doesn't get old too quickly.

these are words that i need to write.


love always