Weekend Adventuring Catch Up!

So here I am again trying to stay up with my blog. I would’ve had a third post by now if my computer hadn’t crashed just a few days after writing it. So this one will be a lot of catch up, and honestly I’ve been avoiding it because I hate catching up on work! But I’m sitting here on the beach, we walked to work early because Mark had an early lesson in an Open Bic, so I have some free time to myself. It’s completely flat on the wind and wave front and it’s so strange for here because we always have at least one or the other. Today it is calm and beautiful. We walked to work along the beach listening to reggae, and taking in the view that we’ve become accustomed to morning and night. Mark commented that at that moment it was exactly how he imagines the Caribbean: little waves rippling on the shore, happy easy reggae music, and an unbeatable view of where the land meets the sea. It’s amazing how content I can be in a moment like that, because it’s true and he’s right. I love this life. Cheers.

In my catch up I’ll go back two weekends ago. Our weekends, by the way, are Monday and Tuesdays because Saturday and Sunday are our big money makers at work. In my opinion it works out for the better because we never have those evil Monday mornings. So two weekends ago, our bosses rented a place in Isabella; a town west of us on the north shore known for it’s surf and kite spots. After a busy day at work, we all packed up in two cars and headed west. Both cars were stuffed with kite gear, people, dogs, and babies. It was quite the excursion. We got there around 11 or so and settled into our digs for the weekend. The next morning, Mark and some of the other guys were up at 6 am to get some surfing in. Around 830 Karla woke me up to see if I wanted to check the spot out and I gladly obliged. We drove through the small town while Karla pointed out everything I needed to know about the place. As it turns out, Karla and Phil’s second baby girl is named after the town and now I know why. We finally got to the entrance of the spot and to start we had to drive through a golf course. An active golf course where our cars were just another target for golfers to hit! Pretty funny. Then we got into the real off-roading part of the trip, the roads were completely muddy and full of pot holes, good thing they had cars with 4-wheel drive. After a slow and bumpy trek, we emerged onto this little point where the parking lot was full of cars. Everyone was there that day. I mingled with some local Americans turned Puerto Ricans and watched the boys do some surfing. I was definitely out of my league in terms of the waves, not that I can even surf little waves, but I knew everyone out there had been doing this for a long time. I really liked to see that Mark was holding his own out there too, it’s pretty impressive to watch him do his thing. In the afternoon, we checked out Shacks, a kite spot well known in Puerto Rico. To me it seemed like a tricky place to kite because there are only few safe pathways to get in and out because coral, rocks, and sea urchins make up the whole wave break. I enjoyed myself there, even though I can’t kite, because luckily we had friends with a place literally on the beach. We could watch the action from their porch, swim in the pool, and otherwise enjoy their beautiful home. At one point when the conditions weren’t great 5 of us put on snorkel gear and swam down a channel clear of coral and got to admire it from both sides. We saw mainly urchins, but got a bunch of fun pictures and video of us fooling around. At night, we grilled out and had quite the tasty dinner that the whole fam desperately needed, we were pretty tired and toasted from all our fun in the sun. The weekend was a great few days off: friends, water, and fun. What else could we need?

Our next weekend adventure we headed to San Juan to stay at Matt, Katina, and Carlene’s place which they so graciously offer up each weekend. Sunday night we had a laid back little Superbowl viewing, nothing crazy pretty modest but good fun. The girls made their favorite bean dip, and we contributed with some meat for grilling and Medalla of course. Everyone was fat, happy, and tired by the end of the night. The next afternoon, we got a rental car and headed up to Old San Juan. It was awesome! The pictures almost don’t do it justice. First we checked out the fort. It was located on a huge expanse of lawn right on a point overlooking the ocean. We didn’t do a tour of the fort itself, but took plenty of pictures around the outside and acted just like the tourists straight off the cruise ships so we were satisfied. Later we wandered into the town where the buildings are actually all those amazing colors like you see in pictures. Orange, yellow, purple, green buildings all stacked on top of each other and to top it off the roads were all cobblestones. It’s quite the quaint little part of town, between the history and colors there was a lot to explore. It is a very touristy part of town, naturally it’s a high point for the tourists off the boats but all the stores filled with souvenirs reminded me of home. I always wonder how they stay in business when each store sells the same thing and it’s all so cheesy. Either way, every place has got spots like that. I’m glad we made it, now we can check it off the list!

Tuesday morning we woke up with plans to head east to Rio Grande, which has a flat water spot for kiting. Personally, I was really excited to get out there because it was a perfect spot for me to learn and get up on a board. This time, we swapped our little sedan for a minivan so we could fit everyone and everything in. We had 6 people, 2 dogs, and gear for all. Somehow it fit- go minivans! Unfortunately, when we got to the spot, it wasn’t windy at all and there was a lot of spotty rain so we went with plan b: head to the rainforest! Just down the road, we could get to the rainforest and choose a couple hikes to check out. We stopped at the one with the waterfall and began our hike. It was a windy little path through a legitimate rainforest. There were healthy green plants with huge leaves everywhere, vines hanging from the trees, but the only thing missing were the animals! For whatever reason we didn’t see a bit of wildlife on our whole walk. I suspect that they were all scared off by how many people were on the trail that day. We were told Tuesdays are the days the cruise ships get in, so the path was pretty busy, and too busy for the wildlife! Nonetheless, we made it down to the waterfall. It was small to medium in size, but we went off the beaten path just a bit and climbed down to the next pool where we could go for a swim. The water was FREEZING but we jumped in and swam under the tiny waterfall that was spill off from the bigger one. Even swimming under that tiny one, I was amazed at how powerful it was; it pushed me down with a lot more of a punch than I expected.  After a bit of fooling around and getting videos of our shenanigans, we got our stuff together for the walk home. It wasn’t a long hike, maybe 30 minutes, but a nice little workout with the hills. On our way out, we stopped at this little restaurant that looked over the whole valley. The food was pretty lame, Puerto Ricans really like cooking little meat and cheese pastries and leave them sitting in a box with a heat lamp. Luckily for us, they had fresh coconut water that the cashier opened with a machete right in front of us, so that was a redeeming factor in my eyes. Also, they had a small little shop next door, and Mark and I found hammocks for SO CHEAP. We got a monstrous one for only $40. What a steal since we’ve used it both as a hammock and beach blanket since. That pretty much concluded our last weekend’s adventure! I’ve been able to finish this in the van coming back from Shacks again this weekend and I do have a few more details to cover a bit later, mainly about our daily life and work. Until next time, and I’ll try to get this weekend’s adventure up sooner.

Again I apologize now and for the future for all the run on sentences and large blocks of paragraphs. Most of the time I'm just trying to get the words out of my brain and onto the paper. Sorry! 

Cheers!

<3 Em

P.s.  I’m gonna start trying to include some of the music we’ve been enjoying and even get pics up if I can figure it out. A few songs that have been running our brains: 

Mason Jennings- Keeping it Real   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPNjlho05rY

Manu Chao- Me Gustas Tu   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPNjlho05rY

Great playlist: http://8tracks.com/topomodesto/for-the-right-time

Enjoying our new hammock at the beach next to our house. Like the view?

Two Weeks Already!?

Haaaa.

So today I've been trying to sit down and write a post but for whatever reason I kept getting distracted. I also didn't have anything really serious that I wanted to talk about, but NOW something exciting has happened at work and I was inspired :)  It's 3:00 pm here and our bosses were out at an accounting meeting so it was just me and Mark hanging out. He was out for a sesh and I had some random computer stuff to get done. He came in and asked if I wanted to go for a ride, which meant get on his back while he rode out on his kite (super fun!) So I grabbed some stuff and we were about to head out when he looks up and goes, "Fuck!" He wasn't paying attention for all of one second and his kite ran straight into the top of a tree. OOPS! That's a big biggggg oops! After praying a couple times "Don't pop, don't pop" we heard a little pop and knew it was all over. So now it's time to get it out of the tree. Easier said than done. It's now 3:40 and not only has Mark been working on getting it down, but the chef, bar manager, bartender, security guard, and onlookers are working to get the kite down. Let's just say that so far no luck, but we have trimmed a few trees and provided entertainment for all of Barlevento's employees. Quite entertaining. It sort of reminds me of the scene in Thor, when all the rednecks are trying to pull the hammer out of the ground. But in this case, it's a bunch of resort employees taking their hand at throwing a weight up to the lines trying to wrap it and pull it down. At least they're getting some entertainment out of it right?! Mark's trying to look on the bright side but it's hard to when we have a weekend trip planned out to a great kite spot in PR just a few days away and his kite's in a tree.

Anywho. That was a good little event to get me excited to document a few things. Since I've last written, I started learning to kite myself! Last week was pretty slow at work so Mark took me out for two little lessons. The first one I was body dragging in the water with just a kite and no board which was so fun! Basically I was working on kite control and learning how to power up and depower. Mark was holding onto the back of my harness to weigh me down and also to coach me one on one. We only did two runs, but on the second one I asked that he let go of me because I wanted to go faster. So he did and swam back to shore while I tore downwind. It was so fast and at one point I even got pulled up out of the water and did a little walk on water. Later, Mark told me that was called the a jesus walk; I'm a huge fan. On our second lesson, it was a little bit lighter wind but we went out anyway. That day I had really wanted to get on a board because I felt comfortable with my kite control at that point, but I didn't get that far. The kite was in the water for most of the lesson, which was a little frustrating but I'm learning so I'll be patient ;) Regardless, I figured out how to relaunch the kite in light wind, and got pretty good at it so I'm ok with that. By the time we were ready to move to the board, I was beat from messing with the kite in the water so we just went in. All in all I've only had two lessons but Mark said I'm picking up on everything really quickly so I'm excited to get another couple lessons in (hopefully in the next couple days if things are slow at work). Unfortunately, I'm learning a little bit too late because our bosses planned a trip out to Shacks, a great kite spot, and are renting out a house and everything. Everyone going can kite no problem and I'm going to be the only one watching for the most part :( I'm mainly experiencing a little bit of FOMO, a term Steph Roble introduced me to, which means Fear Of Missing Out. Never have I been around a group of people where I had no idea what they were talking about with their sport. Mainly cuz I hang out with so many sailors, I've always been on the inside! But anyway, I'm just trying to be patient and learn slowly so when I do get up and riding, I'll have all the skills I need to do well for myself.

Let's see.... what else has been going on. We've been enjoying our little friend group that we have going on down here. Most of them we met in relation to work, but they are all super laid back and fun people to hang around with. We've been to their house for dinner and have also gone out to eat at Katrina's to enjoy some local cuisine! We had house guests and couldn't offer them any bedding besides one flat sheet and some towels, but they survived and it was nice having people stay at the house for a change. Did I mention we live in a 3-bedroom house with no roommates!? It's pretty ridiculous, we need to start importing roomies down here! Which, by the way, reminds me if any sailors or kiters are looking for a job in paradise hit me up! Our bosses are looking for people now :)

Yesterday was our day off after a crazy busy weekend. We slept in, made pancakes in the morning, and then for the afternoon headed down to work to take out a Hobie getaway. It was a perfect day for a cruise and we've been talking about taking that boat out with just the two of us since we got here. So we packed up our little lunches and made the treck to work. It was super windy but it was warm and sunny too so we just went for it. It was so exciting when we got out on the water!! We were cruising on HUGE swell and were able to fly the hull a bunch of times. We were floating over the water 7 feet in the air and all was quiet, exciting, and peaceful. We got some really great video because we attached the GoPro to one of the pontoons and that will get posted soon! After we had some fun in the waves, we headed in towards the little bay where we watch sunsets all the time. It was cool being in our favorite spot but seeing it from the water changes the whole feel of the place. We anchored right next to a rasta colored buoy tucked away from the wind and whipped out our PB&J's to nom on while we enjoyed the warm sun. With the reggae music playing and a few beers, the afternoon couldn't have been more perfect. What's more is our good friend Karlene came from San Juan to pick us up for a BBQ back at our bosses' place. Amazing homemade bacon cheddar cheeseburgers, beer, good music, and good friends. A perfect end to a perfect day off :)

That's where I'm at now. Work was slow today but we enjoyed our time in the sun and at this point Mark is still trying to get his kite out of the tree :(  I definitely have more details and funny stories but I'm all written out at this point. Hasta la proxima!

<3 Em

First post! Puerto Rico welcomes us! :)

Good Morning Puerto Rico!

Today is the day I will FINALLY be starting my blog, travel and otherwise. I recently left a job in Chicago to pursue a lifestyle and adventure I’ve been dreaming of since I was little “Get lost in the Carribean.” But this adventure is a little more than that, I want to get lost period (My time frame is 5 years but who knows what will happen.) So here I am on the first leg of my so-called migration. The outline of my migration is to go somewhere in New England in the summers and then travel somewhere warm for the other 9 months of the year when we’re all questioning where we live each year. Getting lost, migration, endless summer. Call it what you want but I’m doing it.

So I will start with my first leg of the great migration. After a terrible process that people call “long distance relationships” Mark and I decided to find each other again but this time in paradise. So here we are in Puerto Rico. Why Puerto Rico? He had originally been thinking St. Croix because he had friends with an extra room and we could both find jobs doing our respective sports (sailing and kiting). So I started asking around if my sailing friends knew of any jobs in St. Criox that I could hop on. As it turns out a mentor and friend of mine, Jeanne Walker Sinclair, had friends in Puerto Rico who were looking for sailing and kiting instructors at a new resort that was opening in December. This was perfect! Long story short, we worked out the details with the couple who were our soon to be bosses and the countdown began.

Where do I start? Well I left the vineyard on January 5^th to head to Boston for the night. With my flight being so early on the 6^th I had asked my dad for a hotel room the night before so I could grab the shuttle and go early in the am. This worked out perfectly and I had a night of quiet and solitude before I began the biggest adventure of my life. I got on my first flight with only minimal delays and after my flight long nap I woke up knowing I got to see Mark in a short while and we would be boarding a plane to Puerto Rico together! We both were at the gate waiting and looking around for each other when finally I spotted a slightly hungover and confused looking Mark from across the room. I grabbed my stuff and ran over there as fast as I could. The meeting was sort of unreal because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and even though it always feels so right when I’m with him, it takes a few days to ease back into being around him. Anyway, we boarded and were seated next to a businessman headed to a convention in PR. It was exciting telling him our story because even as it was happening it still didn’t feel real that we were actually shipping off to Puerto Rico together to live and work and play together.

The next leg was to get from the airport to our bosses’ apartment in San Juan. This sounds like it should be easy, but with the amount of luggage and a taxi driver that didn’t speak much English it was a sweaty and expensive process. We were dropped off at the entrance of the apartment complex they live in and at this point were severely out of our element. People were driving by looking at us like who the hell are these two idiots hanging out on the side of the road, stupid gringos… We finally got the gate code to get in and headed up to their apartment. Now we’ve found ourselves in an apartment whose owners we have never met before and we casually took showers like we owned the place. They offered it right? We all know how a day of traveling makes us feel. After the showers in the foreign apartment, which by the way was humble. Small but it did the trick and what we fell in love with instantly was the strong warm breeze that ran through the entire apartment from the outside. It was the most refreshing thing I’ve ever felt. Our bosses weren’t going to be home for another hour so we went downstairs to check out the place. The apartment complex was located right on the beach but the only thing that stopped us from getting to the beach was a tall locked gate. So we watched the ocean from afar with our hands on the rails like we were prisoners. Let us touch the water! With palm trees swaying in the wind and the sound of the ocean crashing just a couple hundred feet away from us, is this real life?! We’ve found paradise! While we waited, we chose to be productive by retracing some steps to the gas station down the street for the essentials: rum and coke! Or as we quickly found out, rum is called ron in PR and we would need to pick up a lot more Spanish while we’re at it. Needless to say, it was certainly fun trying to describe to an old Puerto Rico man what you do with rum!

Still in shock of where we were, we got the call that Karla and Phil had returned and there was going to be a barbeque out back that night. We went up to meet them and they were as hospitable and friendly as any newcomer could hope for. We quickly learned that they live in world of constant chaos, mainly because of their two young daughters. Stella and Ryder. Stella, who is a handful, is 2 years and Ryder, the angel, is 2 months. It was so very nice getting to a new place and having this lovely family take us in for the night and take care of us. The barbeque that night was a blast. We met some of their friends, employees, and our future roommates and I couldn’t say a bad thing about anyone. They were all talkative, helpful, and just plain cool people! We both felt right at home and we survived our first day in PR!

On just our second day, we woke up to the smell of coffee and Karla and Phil already planning out the day. After some official business we were ready for an adventure to Walmart and Costco! Both places were absolutely packed, and even in the familiar isles of walmart, I still knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. All the signs were in Spanish and most employees couldn’t speak English either. We grabbed the bare essentials and headed out. On to Dorado! By the way, you hate the way people drive in your town? Come to Puerto Rico. The locals don’t use blinkers, they cut each other off like it’s their job, and everyone speeds. Defensive driving is a must.

We finally made it to Dorado, a smaller town west of San Juan that is much more secluded and made it through our neighborhood, Dorado del Mar, to our new home. It is beautiful. We can see the ocean from our front door, one story, completely furnished, and it feels like a cape home but with a Puerto Rican twist. It’s been lived in, but a comfortable “lived in” feeling. We picked out our room, modest but with great closet space and began exploring the area. With a boat launch and beach right across the street we knew where we would be spending many sunsets!

So far, we’ve spent a week and a half here and it feels like we’ve been here for much longer. To shorten things up a bit, the next week there was a kids camp where we taught sailing. It was blowing 20+ every day so it made things difficult to teach beginners, but we dealt with the weather and the kids had a blast. Also within that week and a half, we went from 3 roommates to 0 and went without water for around 4 days. We quickly learned that if we had no expectations down here, things would go very well for us; learn to go with the flow. To continue to expand on the week, we already found our favorite bar and bartender which is a short walk from the house right on the beach. Our bartender’s name is Mara and she is such a sweet heart! Our first night out in Dorado she went all out in showing us the local cuisine including a delicious rice and bean dish, tostones, and mofongo. Tostones and mofongo are found at most restaurants and I’d describe them as Puerto Rico’s version of French fries and mashed potatoes but they’re made from plantains. Delicious though! My favorites are the tostones J She also showed us some Puerto Rican shots, and gave us some Spanish lessons. We’ve been back since and made plans to bring her sailing on one of our days off which I’m really looking forward to. Oh, and another reason why that restaurant is awesome? It has a talking bird named Onix who says hola and whistles at us too! Between the Spanish lessons, food, people, and the talking bird Katrina’s is our favorite local restaurant hands down.

Hmm… let’s see… coconut has been part of our daily diet now that we know how to crack them open, we did a nature walk through the woods on the resort, drove golf carts all around the resort shuttling kids back and forth for the camp, and we’ve been eating very fresh and healthy foods which my stomach appreciates fully. I’m starting to know my way around Dorado, and currently we’re searching for a scooter to get around in our little bubble. Never had I had the problem of having the money for something but not being able to find the object! Yesterday, we borrowed our bosses’ car and headed west to check out a scooter, which was an adventure for sure! We met up with the guy and followed him home and en route we saw a bunch of stray dogs, chickens, broken down cars and wondered if we’d make it home ourselves. Luckily we did, but without the scooter. He wouldn’t budge on the price and so our afternoon trip was a bit of a waste. Kind of a bummer but we got over it with a few Medallas (the local beer yum!) So that’s where we are now: searching for a scooter and then we will be all set! 

Sorry this was such a long one; I had a lot to catch up on and I’m sure I left out plenty of details but they will come! Also, for visual sake we’ve taken lots and lots of pictures and video. As soon as Mark has some time, he’s going to put together a video of the first couple weeks here, which should be pretty exciting. Anyway, more next time and I hope you didn’t mind the typos too much!!

<3 Em