Storm...Beach...Old San Juan

Alyssa & Me

View about 20 min. from me
Old San Juan
Obama Baby!
The Girls
Bacardi Factory


Fort in Old San Juan
street in Old San Juan

Where we got on the ferry to Guilligan's Island

View from the restuarant
Mandi, Me, and Barbara
Mandi & Barb

That's the island in the back
Cristinia, Evan, Me, Mandi

So I do not know if any of you heard or not, but PR had a Tropical Storm hit us last weekend on Sept. 20. It rained and rained for about three days. I believe the total amount of rain we got was close to 30 inches. Our house was fine, but many others around us were not so lucky. On Sunday night I was taking Andy back to his house down the street from us, and the road was closed to get to his house. He had to go home because another teacher had called saying that he needed to come home because the street in fron of their apartment was really flooded. Andy wanted to get home to his dog, so he had to get out of my car and walk or should I say swim. The water was up to his neck and he saw two cars get swept away. He said there was a three for wave and category four white water rapids going down his street. Scary because it is very easy to get swept away in those waters. Anyways he was fine, but it did a lot of damage to homes. I know I heard that a couple people on the island were killed in the storm. We also did not have school for two days because our school flooded. Thankfully my classroom is on the second floor and did not get any water. Now everything is back to normal. I just hope we do not get a hurricane because the storm was bad enough.

The day before the storm came was a beautiful day here. Barbara, Mandi, and I went to Guilligan's Island in Guanica. I had heard about it and so I decided we should check it out. To get to the small island you take a ferry boat from this restaurant in Guanica, and it is only about an eight minute boat ride. The water there was so clear and nice. Barbara loves hiking so we tried to hike through the island, but there were not really any trails. We kind of walked through the trees on the outside of the island and then we snorkelled around. It was an awesome day and it would be a great place to go back to,especially for any visitors who come and see me.

Now to this weekend...We (Me, Mandi, the Mudds, Barb, Tom) went to Old San Juan. Old San Juan is a really cute old little town next to San Juan. It is the oldest settlement withing the U.S. Territory. There are old forts and castles there that you can go in, but we did not do that this time. I will go back for sure. We went to the Bacardi Factory. Here you get a tour of the factory and the tour guides explain the whole process of making it. They also give you the history behind the company. The best part was the bar outside where you get two free Bacardi drinks of your choice. After we went there, we went back into Old San Juan to do some sightseeing. We walked around the town, ate at a Persian restuarant, and then went to out Guesthouse to get ready for the night. Mandi, the Mudd's, and I had decided to stay in Old San Juan so that we could go to the bars at night. The place where we stayed was this old building with a bunch of rooms. It was not very nice, probably like a hostel. It was super cheap though, so we did not care. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, which was okay but expensive. Then we went bar hopping. We started at this place, I wouldn't exactly call it a bar, and drank outside for a while. We ended up meeting some really nice people there. These two guys were both pilots. One was in the Air Force and the other flew for private jets for rich people. There was a girl too she was a nurse in the Air Force. We ended up hanging out with them all night. On the street right outside of out guesthouse were a ton of bars so that was basically were we hung out. We stayed out until 3 and had a great time. Again, another place I would definately go back to. In the morning we went to a beach in San Juan, Condado Beach. Nice place, but I have seen better:)

I am also excited that the Cubs are in the playoffs. Mandi, Tom, and I are all from Illinois so we will definately be watching the games. One of the teachers is from Milwaukee so we like talking trash to him. I hope we get all the games here though. We might be spening a lot of time at this sports bar down the street if not.