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!

Well, my 27th birthday could have been more enjoyable. I had a great time relaxing in the hotel room, but I felt vaguely sick part of the time - oh well. Dinner at Inn of the Seventh Ray was fabulous, though I am making a late New Year’s Resolution to never visit such a pretentious restaurant again. If I’m paying $25 for my entree, I expect more than four ravioli squares. (I had wanted the butternut squash risotto but it wasn’t even on the menu.) I don’t mind paying high prices for a big plate of fancy food, but paying high prices for a TINY plate of food is ridiculous to me. I enjoyed everything I had - Oregonzola Blue Cheese Tart, Cauliflower and Red Pepper Soup, Vegan Mascarpone Ravioli, and Mascarpone Cheesecake - but the prices were just appalling. Dinner for two, including four courses, one glass of wine each, tax, and tip came to $175. Ouch.

The waiter who brought our receipt was not our usual waiter, and he said “happy birthday” to me. I wondered how he knew it was my birthday, and I figured it must have been on the bill. How tacky, I thought, to charge for a single birthday candle on my cheesecake! But when I checked the paper, I was tickled to see that we were actually charged $0.00 for “1 fire soup” - I guess that’s just how they noted the candle! How funny. There was a new age shop on the premises, and I had A buy me an $8 pendant with a little glass vial of pink fairy dust and a silver fairy wrapped around the vial. I think it’s adorable!

Tomorrow is our grand tour where we do all the cliché stuff - the Hollywood sign, the Chinese theater, etc. I am NOT looking forward to going home and having it be all cold and yucky. I know some cool stuff will have arrived in the mail though, so I am at least looking forward to that - and to grabbing and squeezing the first kitty I see!

I just sent this via the IHOP.com “contact us” form:

Today was the first time I have visited IHOP in several weeks, and I noticed that you have a new menu. I was pleased to see you have added Chocolate Chip Pancakes to the menu, but I was quite dismayed to find that the Potato Pancakes are no longer available. I have not found these at any other major breakfast chain (Denny’s, Bob Evans, etc) and they were a major reason I chose IHOP over other chains. I still enjoy the rest of IHOP’s menu but I am very sorry to see the potato pancakes gone.

I guess I will have to start making latkes at home…IHOP’s potato pancakes were never anything like homemade latkes, but they were certainly easier!

On Thursday I really started to feel like time was running out. I had seen some shops mentioned in a tourist brochure, so I’d been wanting to visit their respective shopping centers. A agreed to go with me, and we got up around 9:45 to head to breakfast. To our dismay, the International Restaurant was already closed, but they told us to go over to Spicer’s instead. I’d seen on the daily activity list that Spicer’s was open from 10am on, so I figured this would be fine, and we went back across the resort and up the long stairs. What did we find when we got there? No food! Apparently they wouldn’t actually open until noon. A and I were amazed that a resort that purports to be all-inclusive there’s a two-hour period when you can’t get any food. (The employees at Spicer’s suggested room service, which we of course couldn’t afford.) While we were trying to figure out what to do next, C showed up - he never eats breakfast anyway. A and I hadn’t put on sunblock for the day, so the three of us went back and chit-chatted while slathering ourselves with SPF-50. By the time we were done it was almost 11:30, so we hung out for another half-hour before going back to Spicer’s. I ran into astonishing ignorance from the staff there, who had apparently never met a vegetarian before. The cashier didn’t know anything, and when we asked the manager about a vegetarian sandwich he said he’d have to ask the cook. There was a long pause before A finally said “well then can you ask the cook?!” He went into the back for a while, and finally said they could make a cheese salad sandwich for me. I’ve never heard of “cheese salad” before, so I asked for just a plain cheese sandwich. No, they could give me cheese salad - okay, fine, I missed breakfast, I’m hungry, gimme the damn cheese salad sandwich! When it was finally brought to the table, it turned out to be a very nice sandwich: a couple of different types of cheese, plus some lettuce, a tomato slice, and dressing I couldn’t identify (probably just mayo) between two innocent pieces of white bread. It was rather tasty. While we were eating, A and I told C about our plan to go shopping. He didn’t have any other plans, but I could tell he didn’t want to come along. He was nice, though, and sucked it up because I admitted I would enjoy his company. The three of us headed to the lobby and a cab came quickly. (They always do - I think they must be somewhere on the resort grounds or something.) We went to Spiceland Mall first, and I picked up some trinkety souvenirs because I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to get them. There was a supermarket in the mall, so we got snacks there, and C stopped in at a fabric store to buy a blanket for the picnic we were planning that night. We next walked across the street to the Le Marquis Complex, which was utterly boring; we could have walked a little up the road to the Grand Anse Shopping Centre but it was hot and we were all sweaty, so we found a cab and went back to the resort. A little later on I was browsing through the pictures already in my camera, and suddenly I noticed some that were very dark, as if the flash hadn’t been on in a dimly lit room. After that were pictures of people I didn’t know - the cab driver’s family had taken pictures of each other with my camera! It was amusing, but at the same time I felt vaguely violated. Then again, I know I’m lucky to have the camera back at all. C and I tried to go snorkeling, but his mask broke and I had a terrible time trying to swim with my eyes squinched shut, one hand pinching my nose, and another holding the snorkel - I gave up and just frolicked while C swam around with his goggles on. He decided it was too dark to see anything, so we went back inside. Our picnic went nicely; we set up our blanket on the beach after dark and lit citronella incense to stick in the sand around us. We had pizza delivered (I had to go to the lobby to get it, which I did barefoot despite the “dress code” that claimed I should wear shoes in public areas; if you carry yourself properly nobody notices your feet), and we ate some of the snacks we’d picked up at the grocery store earlier. The snacks, incidentally, included some British food - Cadbury candy bars and little cookies called Go Ahead, of which I’d picked the forest-fruit variety. The mosquito population left us alone while we drank the rum/eggnog :R: had bought at the distillery the day before; I didn’t like it and handed my glass off to C.