Sunday, March 21, 2010

San Juan, PR

(View from our Ocean Front room at La Concha)
Well, its about time huh? I mean we have only been back for a few weeks already...where does the time go? That reminds me, I need to mail in our "Free Cruise" voucher this week...more on that later.

We arrived in sunny San Juan around 12 noon on Wednesday March 3rd...we had a very early flight out of RIC to Dulles, and then from Dulles to San Juan, we both slept almost the entire way which (SNOB ALERT) was a great thing, because I am not used to flying like a sardine, after trips to Manila in Business Class, this whole sitting in Coach thing for longer than an hour was a rude adjustment.

(The pool, but notice the city in the background)
If you recall Brad and I were just getting over the stomach bug, or so I thought...when we left. As we were landing in San Juan, we both commented on how Urban and US like it was, I mean I am not sure what we were expecting, it really is the US, but I think our benchmark was Aruba and Punta Cana, so we weren't prepared for another Miami, but in San Juan. So needless to say, we were a little disappointed with how city it was, it wasn't the relaxing beach vacation we had hoped for, but thats okay. 

(Brad laying by the pool, just before we ordered our $16 Chips and Guac)

We went straight to the pool for a few hours and then ventured out for a walk to the local Walgreens for some Diet Coke and Pringles, you know, the vacation essentials. And another reason for the trip to Walgreens has to do with my photo comment, everything at the hotel and turns out in San Juan in general is HIGHWAY ROBBERY. Granted, we were staying at a gorgeous hotel, but seriously, it was a fortune...everything was, good thing we stayed for $25/night, which was the upgrade fee for Ocean Front.


(This was on our way to Walgreens...strange right?)

We were both exhausted after getting up at 3:45am (a big THANKS to my Dad for taking us to the airport), and our stomachs were starting to act up again, so we ended up ordering room service around 9pm after I took a few hour nap...romantic huh? Our first night in San Juan and we get a burger and club sandwich and eat in our bed...good grief.

                                      
My stomach bothered me until Saturday Morning, so I spent most of Thursday in bed sleeping, outside of an hour by the pool. Friday it rained on and off, we tried to spend more time at the pool, but it kept raining on us, so we ended up giving up.  We had a couples massage, Brad's was amazing and mine was the worst massage I had ever had, Olivia has more hand/arm muscles than this dude did, it felt like he was just softly patting me, horrible and of course it too was HIGHWAY ROBBERY.


Friday Night we tried to go out for dinner, we headed to the neighboring Marriott, ran into a guy I work with, very small world-ish huh? We had dinner and hit the Casino for a few hours...and when we got back home there was a wonderful small black box on my pillow...could it be? My birthday surprise? Sure enough, a beautiful new David Yurman Diamond Ring, it was just perfect, I was thrilled and couldn't love it anymore. Great Job to Brad on that one!!!

Saturday it poured all day, but since we were both finally feeling close to 100% we weren't going to let the rain get us down, we were going to venture into Old San Juan for a day of sightseeing and despite getting soaked, I am glad we did. Old San Juan is beautiful, but the rain really killed our ability to see the cool Forts, etc. We ended up taking the free trolley around the city a few times just to take everything in, but we were still getting soaked. We ate at Senor Frogs, how very spring breaky of us, but we both wanted something bland and easy on our stomachs so Chicken Tenders it was...

                                        
We dressed up and headed back to Old San Juan for dinner on Saturday Night, Brad had been given several recommendations for this wonderful Italian restaurant, and it was delicious, but my stomach was still a bit iffy, so I just had Gnocchi, and he had a Filet, no wine or anything...I had ONE, count them ONE Pina Colada the ENTIRE trip...which for our wallets was a good thing, but seriously I had such high hopes.


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