Yesterday as I pulled into my new home an iguana the size of a small dog wiggled its way across the driveway. Today a gecko enjoyed the view with me as I ate breakfast on the balcony. The two sweat shirts and four pairs of jeans I packed have not even made it out of their bags and I've gained a new appreciation for tank tops or shirts with cut off sleeves. The weather is warmer, my room is bigger, the food is tastier, and Costco is just around the corner. Other than the occasional 6 inch spider or the 25 [View Full Entry]

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12.8.2009 Kuuba ja Puerto Rico muistuttavat toisiaan siinä, että molemmissa aseistettujen poliisien läsnäolo on silmiinpistävä. Heitä on miltei joka kadun kulmassa. Puerto Ricossa on kaiken lisäksi harmaita, ruskeita, sinisiä ja mustia poliiseja. Viittaan heidän vaatetuksensa väriin. Tehtäviensä jaosta en tiedä. Tänään menin Lonely Planetin suosituksesta Pier2:ssa sijaitsevaan Café Cala´oon, koska sieltä saa kuulemma juuri sisämaasta tuoduista kahvipavuista tehtyä kahvia. Paikka oli pieni ja ahdas, ja asiakkaina oli itseni lisäksi viisi lihaksikasta poliisia - ruskeita ja harmaita mutta [View Full Entry]

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9.8.2009 San Juan on rakentunut sillä tavalla, että sen keskustassa on Ocean Parkiksi kutsuttu alue, jossa Hosteria del Markin sijaitsee. Kivenheiton päässä on muukin kaupunki, muun muassa Puerto Ricon taidemuseo. San Juanin historialliseen vanhaan kaupunkiin pääsee pyörällä puolessa tunnissa. (Kävelyreissu katkesi siihen, että ensin tuli vastaan pelikaani, joka ei pelännyt minua yhtään ja sitten joko skorpioni, jumalattoman iso hämähäkki tai tarantella. Se oli ison miehen kämmenen kokoinen, karvainen, oranssinvihreä ja liikkui iljettävän hitaasti sivuttain.) Kuulostaa vaaralliselta, ett [View Full Entry]

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19 April 2009. This is the first full day at sea. The Celebrity Summit is a curious boat; it shimmies and shakes, somewhat like a train on a rough track. Connie says it’s rather like sleeping on a block of Jell-O and having someone move the plate. Yes, the boat was there. Slipped in during the night or evening before along with another from a different company. From the Condado area to the Pan American pier was a $15 taxi ride. On one side of a spit of land is a commercial airport, probably and old military field, still used by [View Full Entry]

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17 April 17, 2009 You may take all the precautions you wish. The more you protect yourself, the less convenient it becomes for you to pass through airport security. The wonderfully wired and thick PacSafe 200 DayPack makes the gear inside difficult to view on the scanner. So, all you have carefully packed in a certain order and layered for maximum protection of fragile items, including lenses, will be taken out one-by-one and given a thorough swipe test—a special swab that picks up chemicals such as those used in making bombs or bullets, I suppose, which are then put in a [View Full Entry]

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On tuesday evening the 3rd it started raining. The next day we wanted to rent a car, but when we looked out of the window it was still raining. So change of plan then. The main reason for this trip is to go to the Word baseball classic games. We allready made a reservation for the tickets, but they need to be picked up at the baseball stadion (Hiram Bithorn). Since it's a bad day for making photos or siteseeing, we can do that today. First stop is the busstop. We expected the bus to come several times in an hour, [View Full Entry]

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Monday the second was a nice day, the sun was shining and it was warm. After the Starbucks discovery, we just walked in the neighbourhood of our hotel. The beach is only 30 meters from the hotel, it's not big, but looks nice. You only can't swim there, it's too dangerous. The part of San Juan we're in is called Condado. It's an old part of the town (but not so old as Old San Juan). They do a lot of reconstruction and we see quite a lot of new, expensive hotels around our hotel. The first 9 days of the [View Full Entry]

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After more then 24 hours travelling, we finally arrived at Puerto Rico in the middle of the night. We started hour holiday in Brussels. It's a long time ago that we took a flight from Brussel airport, but since july 2008 Holland has a an extra flight tax of 45 euro per person and Schiphol raised several taxes at the same time, it saves us almost 200 euro's to leave from Brussel. Brussel is as far from our place as Schiphol airport, so no differences in time. We are used to have the luggage go in transit straight to our destination, [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at Philly International in plenty of time to catch our "on-time", no weather delays, flight. We did get a de-icing before we left, felt like a cool morning shower...............as we took off for our 3 1/2 hour flight. We resisted the temptation to buy the 5-star food and instead brought our own. Our landing was 10 minutes early and that meant we had 1 hour before the EAGLES kickoff. We are on Atlantic Time so we are one hour ahead of East Coast time.............oh, did we mention that it was sunny and 84 when we landed. Took the bus [View Full Entry]

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This has to be the friendliest country I have even been to. People here are open, and curious about other people and cultures. The people are genuine, honest, kind, generous, funny, and charming. People here are passionate about every aspect of life it seems. I have never felt so welcome in my life anywhere before. People here are intelligent, and all seem to have higher degrees. People here find any excuse for a party or get together; they really enjoy their dance and music  This is the county of cars! Every family has 2-3 cars parked in their parkway. It [View Full Entry]

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