We started today by asking at the front desk for a rental car. The person there called and a van came to pick us up. When we got there, we learned that we would need to have a letter from the insurance agency saying we were covered to drive in Puerto Rico. We couldn’t find a toll-free number for A’s agency - State Farm uses local offices, and nobody was answering at hers - so we ended up renting the car in my name! I’ve never actually rented a car myself before. It almost didn’t work out because I couldn’t find my proper credit card (rental agencies don’t like debit cards) but suddenly it turned up in a place I thought I’d already checked. We rented a GPS unit with the car too; it turned out to be a worthwhile investment for $10/day.

Once the car was ready, we got in and I drove away. We’d planned that I would drive it off the lot, and then we’d pull in somewhere and switch drivers. But I actually felt quite comfortable in this car, so I stayed in the driver’s seat. We drove out to Arecibo, and traced the insane winding path that is the route to the Arecibo Observatory. The road to get there is almost not wide enough for two cars, and it has hairpin twists and turns plus rapid changes in elevation. So it was a rather nervewracking trip, but we made it okay! We stopped at a restaurant right before the observatory and got some lunch; I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty the rice and beans I had were.

We went up to the observatory and parked where we were instructed to. And then began the climb of 500 steps that it takes to get to the actual visitor center. There’s probably only about 100 stairs, but the rest of the walk is rather steep; in the parking lot they say to talk to the guard if you’re disabled, and I guess they let you drive up. (I think the ADA still applies in Puerto Rico, right?) The exhibits were pretty boring, because half of them were broken and the other half were things you could find on the internet. I did notice that they still have Pluto listed as the outermost planet in our solar system! Once we had finished looking at all the exhibits, we went out the door to see the world’s largest reflector. That thing is huuuuuuuge. There were some people on the actual telescope itself, doing maintenance or something; everyone on the observation balcony was chattering about how they’d never want to go up on something so high! The little bridge leading out to the telescope definitely looks treacherous, and if you dropped something it would fall a LONG way and probably crack some of the nearly 40,000 panels. We were kind of surprised by how dirty the reflector was - we had both been expecting something at least reflective, if not actually shiny. When we were done gaping, we decided to skip the movie presentation and headed to the gift shop. They had a cute shirt that I wanted - it would have been a very geeky souvenir of Puerto Rico - but they didn’t have it in anything but a size small.

I was really tired, so A drove us back to San Juan and I caught naps where I could - mostly after we got back on Highway 22, because the GPS voice shut up for 45 miles. We wanted to look around Old San Juan a little bit, so we parked near the ocean and walked around; we got back in the car and drove to another part of town to look for a particular store A remembered from when we were here three and a half years ago. We got kind of lost getting to the right area, and ended up not finding the store at all. We had dinner at Señor Frog’s, which is a total tourist trap…A was surprised that I wanted to eat there, but it amused me.

After dinner we had to come back to the hotel so I could do homework, but we got lost on the way. (The GPS unit wasn’t clear about which “slight left” to take, and we took the wrong one; it had trouble recalculating for some reason.) We ended up driving in a bus-only lane, which we didn’t figure out until a police officer going the other way stopped to ask if we were having any problems. We said we were lost, which I’m sure he had already figured out, and he told us how to get back to the expressway so we could return to our hotel in Isla Verde. When we got back I immediately jumped in the shower to wash off the horrible grease of the continuous spray sunblock, and although I had found out last night that we did have hot water after all, I learned that now the bathroom light was out. What fun! No matter, I showered with the door open and I could see well enough…well enough, that is, to figure out that the maid had removed our dirty washcloth but not given us a fresh one. Sigh…this hotel may be really cute to look at, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of maintenance and service.

I’m not sure what we’re doing tomorrow; we have the rental car for tomorrow too so we might go to El Yunque (the rain forest at the center of the island) or maybe we’ll pick somewhere else. I already found one geocache here - the reflector is a virtual cache - so I don’t need to find more, but maybe I’ll convince A to try it with me anyway!

Hello from San Juan! I’m writing from a Notepad window actually, because the wifi connection here is SO flaky. Once I’m done writing I’ll try to connect again and again until I upload it.

Our flight down here was just fine. I had a chatty person next to me on the way to Fort Lauderdale. She was sitting on the aisle, and chatting with a guy across the aisle who had the whole row to himself - I have no idea why he didn’t just move over and take the window seat and let her have the aisle on that side. I managed to sleep for a great portion of the flight, fortunately, but toward the end I woke up and she chattered at me a lot.

The Fort Lauderdale airport is absolutely dismal. We were in Terminal H and the only thing I was able to find to eat that was timely, inexpensive, and not really bad for me was a granola bar. The flight to San Juan was fine, I slept about half the trip; this time I had the window so when I woke up I was comfortable and not next to some chatterbox. We landed uneventfully but had a hard time getting our luggage because the carousels weren’t properly marked. Once our flight’s luggage finally started to appear, ours came up fast and we got a cab to the Coqui Inn. The cab driver was a complete ass, though. We had spotted the hotel from a ways away, and we were surprised when he blew right past it, so we said something. He said “oh, well, you obviously know better than me” and then dropped us off in front of something else that was also labeled with our hotel name, but was actually a BACK entrance. We had to drag our suitcases back down the block to the door we had gone past in the first place…the cabbie was an asshole and didn’t deserve a tip.

Our hotel is really cute and charming, there are murals everywhere that I will have to take pictures of! Our first room had a slow leak in the toilet, though (I discovered this before using it, fortunately), so we had to switch. We ended up in a slightly nicer room, and unpacked all our stuff. I did some school work (despite the crappy wifi) and we ordered pizza and watched X-Files. Then we decided it was too late to catch the A-5 bus to Old San Juan - it was 6pm when we were thinking of leaving, and the bus only runs till 9pm; after that you have to take a $20 cab back. So we decided we’d just walk to a nearby grocery store instead. It rained part of the trip but we found safety in a bus shelter and chatted about things. We continued on, and bought a bunch of stuff. I had to get a new bottle of continous spray sunscreen - we’d accidentally left it in the carry-on, and it was more than 3oz, so they threw it out in DC. We also got some diet champagne cola soda, which is impossible to find back home - you can get the regular kind, but never diet! We also got a $7 bottle of vodka and some juice to mix it with, plus some snacks, and then we came back to the hotel.

We were hot from walking, and A beat me into the shower to cool off. Unfortunately, while in there, she discovered…there was no hot water in the shower. So she went to the front desk and they offered us a couple of other rooms, one of which had better wifi than this one, but the rooms overall weren’t better. So we’re still in the room with no hot water in the shower, but it’s a nice room and very Caribbean-feeling. (One of the others we were offered felt like a dorm room.)

I think tomorrow we are going to the Arecibo radio telescope, assuming we can get a rental car. I was surprised that there was no public transportation out there, but I guess it’s too far. I am going to have to take stock of my schoolwork tomorrow too; today was long and hectic but tomorrow I want to make sure I can keep up with everything. It’s essential that I keep up.

I have a connection at the moment, so I’m going to upload this. I’m pretty tired anyway! Tomorrow I will be taking pictures even though I didn’t today. Oh my god, A just went to get up from the bed and said “Oh, a nasty roach!” This hotel may be charming but it’s a little scary! So now we are making sure all food goes in the fridge!