25th birthday

Me and my friend Juan

Our PR pumpkins
Flowers from my birthday

Fruit from my birthday

At school in the cafeteria where the students brought me cakes

Teacher's lounge sharing my cake and fruit

Barbara and I in my class

Me

I am now a quarter of a century old! I would have to say that this was one of the best birthdays I have ever had. Birthdays are a big thing here, especially for the students. All day long they were singing to me, hugging me, giving me things, and they were just so sweet to me. One class brought me two birthday cakes. They had Mandi bring me out to the cafeteria at lunch, and the whole cafeteria sang “Happy Birthday” to me. It was so cool. My homeroom class sang about ten different songs in Spanish for me. It was hilarious. I had a couple students even bring me gifts. My teacher friends did stuff for me too. One PR teacher had her daughter, who makes cakes, bake me a carrot cake. It was sooo good. After school my friend Andy took me to Rex cream, the best ice cream in PR. I had pina (pineapple). The parcha (passion fruit) is also really good. Later that night I went to dinner with my American friends. By the time I got home, I was so tired from school and everything else I just wanted to go to sleep. It was only 9. I thought to myself, “I cannot go to bed at 9 when it is my birthday!” I ended up going over to my friend Andy’s house and played dominoes with some friends. I also got beautiful flowers from Pat, my friend from home, and an awesome fruit bouquet from an admirer here in PR. Such a great day!

On Wednesday we hear about a man who was selling pumpkins. We were so excited because we have not seen any pumpkins in Puerto Rico. The man actually has a small fruit stand in our downtown area. The pumpkins are actually green. I think they might actually be squash, but the inside is just like a pumpkin. When Mandi asked him if he had pumpkin, he got one and chopped it in half before we could say anything. We were like, "No! We want the whole thing!" He laughed and said, "Oh! For Halloween. You are going to carve them." Of course this was all in Spanish. He thought we were buying it to eat it like most people here would do. Not us crazy Americans!

San Juan and other places

Beach in Manaubo

Lighthouse in Manaubo

Me

Me & Mariela

Mariela, Mandi, Me

This weekend my roommate and I decided to go to San Juan to find a nice beach. San Juan is the capitol and has all of the big hotels and resorts. On our way their we wanted to stop at Party City to find items for our Halloween costumes. We are both going to be Puerto Rican boxers. We went there, then a mall, then headed toward San Juan. When we got to San Juan we were really hungry so we went to this Mexican restaurant that I had been to before and really liked. The food was great! Then we still needed a few more things for our costume so we decided to stop at Plaza Las Americas, the biggest mall in the Caribbean. It is a great mall with so many stores, including Old Navy, which I was happy to see. After we finally did all of this, it was almost five. Our whole reason for driving to San Juan was to find a beach. We decided we would just go ahead and find a beach so that next time we would know where to go. We went to Isle Verde, a popular beach that is really nice. We relaxed on the beach until the sun went down, then drove back to Guayama. It was a long day, but fun. It was nice just hanging out with Mandi, instead of having a big group of people like we usually do. It is so much easier to do a bunch of stuff with just one person rather than a large group. San Juan is also a fun place with a lot to do.

Field trip to Arceibo

Radio Telescope in Arceibo

One of the poles that holds the telescope

On the bus

I went on my first field trip as a teacher this week. I cannot believe how well behaved these kids at my school are. There was not one problem behavior on the trip. They had a lot of fun and so did I. The field trip was taken with the three sixth grade classes. About forty students went. Our trip was taken to the Arceibo Radio Telescope. It is up in the mountains in the town of Arceibo. The telescope is the world’s largest radio telescope. The place had a museum that we went through after watching a video about the telescope. The museum had a lot of interesting things about science and the planets, moon, and sun. Once we saw all of that we went outside to see the telescope. It was really huge. The telescope is used to record information about the moon, sun, and planets. Scientists from all over the world come here to do research and study things about science. I think the students enjoyed it; however, I believe they enjoyed hanging out with their friends more. The bus ride was pretty interesting too. Most of the girls on the bus sat near the back. The students are allowed to bring cd’s and the bus driver plays them. Most of the music was reggaeton. The girl’s were having a dance party on the back of the bus, which I felt was totally unsafe but the other PR teachers did not say anything. It must be normal. I kept telling Mandi, my roommate that if we got into an accident someone would really get hurt. A mother who was following us to Arceibo actually mentioned something about the students standing. I was glad she did because then the other teachers realized how much trouble we could get into if someone did get hurt and we allowed them to be standing. On the way home we made them sit. It is funny they way things work here. You would think that a bus driver would make the students sit. But if you came to PR you would totally understand this if you spend any time driving around this island. Driving is crazy and the police do not seem to enforce the driving laws very often. Can be pretty scary, especially at first. It was a fun time though, but also a tiring day.

Columbus Day Weekend and more

Gardenia Plant in the rainforest (smelled so good)

Entering the rainforest
Iguana I saw in Luguillo
Hybiscus plant
My favorite tree in Old San Juan
Old San Juan
PR cemetery
Trying to swing from my tree

Waterfall in El Yunque

View from lookout tower in El Yunque
rainforest
Las Minas in El Yunque
Me and Mandi

Columbus Day weekend was a busy couple of days. My roommate Mandi's mother came to visit so we did a bunch of stuff with her and her friend. Let's see Friday we went to Ponce to watch some live music outside in this park. The music is called Bomba. It is pretty much like African dancing. Saturday we went to the rainforest El Yunque. It is the only rainforest owned by the United States. It was awesome. Although it was a rainy day, we still got to do everything we wanted. We took a trail that led to Las Minas waterfall. The waterfall was so cool. I have never seen anything like it before. Because it was raining the water was really powerful so we had to be careful, but we still got to get in the water. The water was pretty cool but it felt good after hiking up hill. After we left there we went to Fajardo to the bioluminescent bay. This is the place where tiny micro-organisms glow in the bay. It was so amazing. To be continued...