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