We had a pretty relaxing day today. We started it in the hotel swimming pool, which was cold; I counted to 5 and got in but A didn’t at first. (I can’t ever do anything on the count of 3, but I always do stuff on the count of 5.) I splashed around for a while but she stayed on the edge; just when I was ready to give up and get out, she decided to come in. We played around together but didn’t stay in much longer. We did do a front-side piggy-back ride which was a lot of fun but a maid passed by and she stared at us a little strangely!

We got out and decided what to do for the day; it was about 10:30am by this point. I decided we should go to the Parque Luís Muñoz Marín, because there was a cache there. The cache page mentioned a skyride, paddleboats, and other activities, so we figured it would be a nice place to spend the day. We were hungry by the time we got to the area, so we went into the Plaza las Américas mall and ate at the food court - I was pleasantly surprised to find a really good soy turkey sandwich! We headed into the park, and drove around checking it out. We were surprised that there wasn’t a $3 parking charge as we had been expecting, and inside the park we found out why…it was absolutely empty! I’d expect that somewhere it gets cold in the winter, but I was surprised to find that a park in the Caribbean could be empty too. We drove around until my GPSr got a lock on where the cache was, and then we parked at the nearest lot, about a quarter-mile away. It took me about 20 minutes to find it…I’m not used to searching in bamboo, so I wasn’t sure what hallmarks to look for - there were no fallen logs in the forest to hide it under! I finally got it, though. After this, we decided to go back to the bike rental place we’d seen on the way in. When we got there, we found all the bikes we’d seen earlier had been taken inside! The skyride wasn’t running and we hadn’t seen anybody at the paddleboat stand either, so we gave up and went back to the car. We tried to find another cache a couple of miles away, but the streets in that area were insane. A finally pulled over where she could and I ran back to try to find it, but without any luck. We thought about going to the Casa Bacardí factory after this, as there is a cache there too as well as a free tour that culminates with a free drink, but it was too far a drive to bother.

We came back to the hotel instead, and relaxed by the pool for several hours. A read her book while I played on the computer - the wifi reception was good there so it was easy to do. I got all riled up about a really stupid thread on a forum, and argued with a (probable) troll more than I should have, but oh well. Eventually we decided we would go to dinner at the restaurant adjoining, the hotel, Nikko, a Chinese restaurant with a sushi bar. Boy, was that a mistake! We had to wait forever for our food…A’s sushi came promptly but by the time my broccoli in garlic sauce arrived, her food was cold! So I waited until they nuked hers and brought it back before trying…the worst Chinese food I’ve had in my life. I don’t think there was any actual garlic in the sauce, it was mostly vinegar and brown sauce! I couldn’t finish it, and they offered to box up the rest, but I declined as politely as possible. I can’t believe we paid $35 for two entrees and a cup of tea! A said her unagi wasn’t very good either…only now have I discovered that nobody likes Nikko! We went to the bakery down the street to get something sweet to put the awful dinner behind us. Oh well!

We have to return the rental car tomorrow by noon, so after that we will take a bus into Old San Juan and look at the shops there. I am keeping up okay with my homework; I didn’t actually do any today, but Thursdays are my day off anyway! I tried to read my book for Deaf Studies, but it’s a book I used 10 years ago the first time I took the class, and as I read through the first couple of chapters I realized I remembered the entire thing almost verbatim from before. So I gave up on that. I handed in my lab report yesterday and my art show reaction paper, and I’m up to date on my history reading. I have some linguistics reading to do, but I will probably save that for tomorrow…Valentine’s Day is not the night to be doing homework! Oh, yikes, I just remembered - I have a test that was posted three hours ago and is due tomorrow by 1pm (my time!) - I better take a look at that too!