First Days in PR

We woke up at 5:30 AM. Nick gave us a ride to the airport. Mirah did great! Oddly, she woke up at 5:30 before my alarm went off. Happy Halloween, by the way.
Mirah, sporting witches sox, to celebrate.
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The flight attendants were in the spirit too. It was weird flying on halloween. 😛
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I think Mirah really liked it though. I breast fead during take off and she seemed to enjoy the view from the window.

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I thought that the close quarters would make it tough to feed her but it was really great.
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She slept a bunch too. She did so well.

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My baby.
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So we arrived in PR (I am going to refer to Puerto Rico this way from now on, because I am tired of typing the whole word) around 7 PM local time, we lost a couple of hours, and it was totally dark.

Getting off the plane, and stepping out into the evening, we were overwhelmed with hot humid air! Within moments, my back, underarms, upper lip and brow were all glistening with sweat. We took a shuttle from the airport to the rental car place, Charile’s Rental. It was a van, and they didn’t have a car seat…ugh. I held Mirah tight on my lap, marking her first time in a car with out a car seat. 🙁 We were able to rent one from the car rental place, but even so, it left us S-out of luck a couple of other times too.

Once we had our car, we struggled to navigate this new city in the dark. There were tons of narrow, poorly mark, ill lit one way roads all through that part of the city. After what seemed like forever, and an argument, where we got lost several times, we finally were able to fint out hotel.

 It was a Raddison near the beach in San Juan. We picked it because it was a notable name, and you never know what you are going to get at unknowns. Karl made a pretty good choice, but it had all kinds of hidden fees like an extra charge for parking, and a weird $10 hotel surcharge that made us a little annoyed with the place. They did give us coupons for free drinks at the hotel resturant with a 10% discount to boot. So, we went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We were tired from the trip, and Mirah was getting cracky.  We ordered Cuban’s and virgin ice drinks. Here is Karl with his Pina Colada. I had a strawberry daiquiri.  The Cuban was a type of sandwich neither one of us had tried before. It was warm roast-beef  ham, and I think salami on a french roll with swiss cheese. It was REALLY good.

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Mirah was starting to loose it by the end of dinner, so we wrapped it up and took a bunch of it to go.
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Our room was on the 4th floor, and it was quite nice. We had a little balcony and just beyond that high rise, is the beach! We had planned to have Mirah sleep in the bed with us. Man it was a ROUGH night for all of us. Between our collective snoring, and Mirah’s night-time movement, I don’t think any of us got much of our needed sleep.

Our tiredness was mostly forgotten when we walked the two blocks to this view:
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The air was THICK. I don’t think we were totally prepared for how TOTALLY humid it was going to be. But being near the beach, with the cool ocean air in our faces somehow made it much more bearable. 
We walked down onto the sand.
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That part of the sand was not super beachy, but we did find a coconut…
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One of the challenges of traveling while nursing  is that all the walking around you do, burns precious calories you need to produce mild. So we had to be aware and carful about frequent snacks and meals. Our first breakfast was at this little Italian restaurant we saw as we walked around town.
Mirah has just started teething, in full force.
She is loving the hard cool glass on her gums.
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Breakfast. 
Yum. Karl basically got a breakfast Cuban. Instead of frech bread, it was PR sweet bread, with and egg and bacon instead of roast beef. Mine was stuffed french toast with caramel topping…SO good.
Fed, and ready to go, we check out of the hotel, fed and changed the baby, and were off!
Our first big stop was the Old Fort of San Juan.
Mirah and Karl, ready to see some…stuff.
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We paid the ranger at the desk, then just kind of wandered. It was a really neat place. It was an active fort through out such a huge part of the countries history and was able to fight of many armies.
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It is on a high point of the island. So the views are spectacular.
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Cannon Balls.
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I was just having so much fun. You will note, that this day I am not wearing a hat. I will say that we all had on sun screen, but this was my LAST say without a hat.
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The pictures just don’t so it justice. It was so wonderfully beautiful.
Family shot!
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Coming up to the top of the fort. We had to walk up what seemed like a never ending spiral staircase. 
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There are these cool turrets all around the fort, and all around the wall that surrounds this part of the Island.
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Karl and Mirah exploring…ahhh…. He I was turned away and Karl called. “Allison, look at what I am doing!” I took a picture, then got after him for taking these risks, while holding a baby.
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We looked down at a lawn and saw what we called an iguana.
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Karl was anxious to make a new friend, so we ran down to see him. He of course ran away as Karl tried to get a closer look. This is where he ended up. 
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There were some great dungeons  with these murals of what are said to be done by a captain that was held there.
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More turrets. 
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Beautiful Mirah.

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Karl, getting upset at the prices in the gift shop.
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We follow the coastal road…
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Up to the Old San Juan cemetery. 
We especially wanted to visit here, because it was Dia De Los Muertos! What better way to celebrate our kindered dead, than to visit a cemetery?
The monuments here were incredible.
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It was like being in a museum. 
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There are actually LOTS of cemeteries like this one in PR. I think that our last count before we left was seven cemeteries that seemed up to this caliber. We did pass, what we call “normal” looking cemeteries as well, with flat headstones in the grass, but they seemed to be the exception and not the rule.
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Karl took some panocmamics with his phone.
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We left the cemetary and I had had just about all of the sun I could take for one day.
Into the car we went, and drove around Old San Juan. 
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Then out of the city, to stay for the majority of our trip.
It was beautiful!
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We got to our hotel in Fajardo. “The Metropolis of the East” it is called. But it was much smaller, and quieter than the city.
We had a little friend waiting to greet us at our hotel. 
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It was called the Fajardo Inn. It has two pools, two restaurants, a gym, gift shop, miniature golf, and tropical bird cage all free for the guests.
After the heat of the day, we were anxious to get into the pool. So we suited Mirah up!
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The water was really warm, and it was a great first swimming experience for her. She loved the water!
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Our room had a kitchen, so we ventured out and found a Walmart, that had some familiar brands:
We went to bed again totally beat. This time however, we got a crib from the hotel. It was a much better night of sleep. 

One thought on “First Days in PR

  1. these pictures are wonderful! I can tell that you had a fantastic time. I'm so glad that you were able to go on this trip and take Mirah with you. Turns out that is was a good thing that Karl couldn't get his passport on time.:)

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