Today we woke up to a broken air conditioner. That plus the broken bathroom light and lack of hot water made us happy to get out of the hotel. We took a cab over to the pier in Isla Grande, which is where Celebrity docks. We got there pretty early, and as a result we were one of the first few dozen people in line, so we breezed through registration and got right onboard!

Of course we had a really long walk to get to our cabin, #7010. We wanted to book a couple of shore excursions but the in-room system wasn’t working yet, so we dropped off our carry-on bags and went down to the shore excursions desk to sign up for kayaking in Bonaire and tubing in Dominica. We got some food at the buffet - the only place that was open - and then I went to the internet cafe to sign up for a wifi account. Once that was done, I toted my laptop to the nearest comfortable hotspot - I had thought the whole ship was wireless, but apparently not; just as well because otherwise I would burn through my 250 minutes in a flash. (That cost $100, if you’re wondering.) I got the wifi working, uploaded some homework, and came back to the room for a nap! (I hadn’t slept well because of the broken air conditioner; I woke up at 4am but at the time I didn’t know that was the reason.)

We found the quietest bar on the ship, or what seemed to be, and made friends with the bartending team. (One does this by tipping well, of course.) It turned out that the opening Pied Piper party - with its one-hour open bar - was in the same place, so we just stayed put! A bunch of people recognized me from Cruise Critic, and we made friends. Dinner was awfully late, 8:30 is much later than I am used to! Plus, by the time dessert arrived, they were minutes away from the lifeboat drill. On our way back to our cabin to get our vests, a cabin steward stopped us and said “you look like some guests I had before” - sure enough, it was Luzviminda, our steward from the Zenith in 2006! It was quite amusing to see her again. The lifeboat drill was a bore, of course, but now we are underway so I’m going to TRY to send this on my Sidekick before we go out of range!

This morning I had to do that test for linguistics, but I couldn’t get the wireless working at all. I eventually gave up and used one of the computers in the lobby - thank goodness there was one available. I discovered that once you logged in, you couldn’t stop the test, or you would be locked out. Fortunately it didn’t take me very long, although it was long enough for one or two people to mill around hoping for a computer. I wasn’t about to give mine up, though! Luckily the other users moved out and the people waiting got to move in. I finished the test relatively quickly at least. While I was working on it, A negotiated a 25$ reduction in our total hotel bill. The hot water in the shower has quit working again, and the bathroom light and outlet still don’t work either.

We went to get breakfast but that turned into a fiasco. A wasn’t really listening to me at the Burger King drive-through, so I missed the opportunity to say “I can’t read anything but Pancakes and Hash Browns, can you tell me what else they have, since it’s all in Spanish?” I ended up with a packet of hash browns. We pulled over to eat, and I went in to see if I could figure out my order. No good - the desayuno menu wasn’t even inside, and all the lunch/dinner food was meaty. I was pretty discouraged, but I had seen a 7-11 down the street, so I said I’d walk down there. No dice: it was boarded up and closed. By this point I was really annoyed but I was also ready to give up. A was going to drive down the street looking for a shop she wanted to go to, but I saw a Subway so I asked her to pull over there. It turned out there was a bagel shop next door, so I went there, and waited about a million years for a bagel with cream cheese. Next we had to return the car, which meant I had to drive; when I was done with my bagel we pulled over and switched drivers. And I promptly got lost. We could have had the GPS do it but we didn’t have the actual address of the place, so we had to call them up and they talked us in.

After all the rental stuff was taken care of, their guy drove us to Calle Fortaleza in Old San Juan, which is a big shopping area. We wandered around shopping for hours. I was wearing my very old Lesbian Avengers shirt, and I got a couple of comments on that today. We stopped for lunch and I had a mojito and some weird Greek-inspired tofu dish that was kind of odd. We walked and shopped some more, and I kept having to sit down on the floor and then get up again as A moved from shop to shop. Eventually I asked if we could take a break, and we stopped at Barrachina to get drinks at the bar. We each had a Bacardi cocktail and a piña colada, though A had me help her with her piña colada. We shopped some more after that, and I happened to turn on my GPSr just 500 feet from a geocache, so I went and found it - a very nice one! After we finally finished shopping, we waited for the trolley to take us to the bus station. We waited, and waited…to no avail. We ended up walking to the bus station, which wasn’t as far away as I had feared. And then we waited, and waited…to no avail! There must have been 20 people waiting with us for the A-5 bus, and finally another driver took pity on us and told his boss that he was going to switch to the A-5 route. We all piled on his bus and got on the road. It was a little difficult to see out around all the people, and we worried we would miss our stop, but we managed to spot it in time and we got out. I got another comment on my shirt on the way off the bus, from a couple I’d pegged as lesbians right away, but who obviously didn’t notice that we were, since we’re both femmes. *snorts*

Anyway, we walked up the stairs of the pedestrian bridge, crossed the highway, and went down the other side. We came to the room, I got ice, and A started laundry in the machines that are available for guests. Right now I am drinking an old 20-oz soda bottle full of vodka, Diet Welch’s Grape Soda, and Tropicana Light Fruit Punch. Yes, it sounds vile, but it tastes okay. The reason I am drinking it is because we’re not allowed to bring alcohol on the ship (at least, not supposed to) so I have to drink it tonight! That’s why this entry might sound a little funny…as I’ve been writing it, I’ve been getting tipsier. Tomorrow we get on the boat. Checkout here is 12 noon and check-in on the boat begins around 1pm I think. We won’t be able to go anywhere after we’re on board, because Celebrity docks at the far pier rather than the one that’s at the base of Old San Juan. So once we’re on, I will relax, and try to figure out my powerpoint presentation thing for Sex and Gender class. Good night!

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!

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!