We've arrived!

Latino Language, Pedagogy and Culture Immersion Institute in Puerto Rico

The weather for our flight to Puerto Rico was perfect, allowing us to have a gorgeous view of the ocean below. Overall the flight was uneventful, aside from the mother next to me changing her two-year-old's diaper as I tried to eat my breakfast. Not exactly appetizing.
After we picked up our bags, we stopped for lunch at a nearby Wendy's, where I managed to order in Spanish without the employee responding in English. Score! Well, I guess I should say I ordered partly in Spanish, as in "una papa con queso y unos chicken nuggets", but only because "chicken nuggets" was in English on the menu. As we ate, we pondered how they decide which menu items to put in English and which to put in Spanish.
After lunch we boarded a frigid bus for the three-hour ride from San Juan to Mayaguez, our home for the next two weeks. We were told before we came that Puerto Ricans blast the air conditioning inside to compensate for the heat outside, and so far we have found this to be quite true. When we arrived in Mayaguez we attracted the attention of the locals as our poor bus driver attempted to squeeze our coach bus around the tight corners of the town square. A couple of police and some taxi drivers helped direct us, and a number of other bystanders stuck around to watch. Finally we got settled in our hotel rooms and were free to explore the town on our own.
For supper my group decided to try to find some local Puerto Rican cuisine, but since most of the shops and restaurants were closed for the holiday weekend, we settled for Quizno's for supper and then got our taste of the local flavor for dessert at a little ice cream shop. Another customer helped us with the words for cone and dish so we could order in Spanish. As we ate our ice cream on the square, we watched some elderly gentlemen playing dominos and saw a crowd coming out of the cathedral. We found out that another service was starting soon, so we decided to go in. Listening to the mass definitely stretched my Spanish comprehension abilities as the voices came through the fuzzy sound system and echoed off the high walls and ceiling. I was able to at least catch the main idea of most of it. Towards the end some of us were starting to nod off since we had been up since before dawn and traveling all day, so we slipped out the back and returned to the hotel, discussing along the way what we had each managed to get out of the sermon.
Once back at the hotel, I unpacked my bags and explored the room a bit. It's not exactly a five-star hotel, but with air conditioning, a pool, and free continental breakfast, it still has more amenities than my house. Not bad. The best part, though, was falling asleep. At the end of a long day of traveling, a full night of rest felt heavenly.

posted by Jerika at 5:58 PM