posted by Lindsay at
2:43 PM
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We had a little time in the morning to walk around before we had to head to the airport. Camilla and I explored the Miramar neighborhood of San Juan, where our hotel was, and then got some lunch at a local restaurant for one last fix of amarillos (sweet plantains) and rice and beans before leaving. We went up to the lookout deck on the top floor of the hotel and said goodbye to beautiful Puerto Rico, and then loaded our bags in the bus that would take us to the airport. I was very sad to leave Puerto Rico. Even though I came home with about fourteen mosquito bites, I would have liked to stay for a few more days (or weeks, or...). It really was a fantastic trip, and I hope to go back someday.
As I watched out the plane window as we took off, the coastline of Puerto Rico disappeared within a couple minutes. A few hours later we touched down in (comparatively) chilly Philadelphia. My first two doses of reverse culture shock came before I even left the airport. The first thing was the happy realization that we had hot water, soap, and paper towels in the bathroom. Most of the public bathrooms in Puerto Rico were lacking at least one of those elements, and sometimes all three.
The second bit of reverse culture shock was not so happy. I was standing about two feet away from the baggage carousel waiting for the bags to come out, and suddenly a bunch of eager Americans crowded into the space right in front of me, so that I couldn't even see the bags. Welcome back to the States. Oh well. I used my newfound sense of Puerto Rican laid-back style and waited for the crowd to thin out. It's time to get back to my regular life, but I learned a few things in Puerto Rico that have changed my way of thinking.
In just a few weeks, it will be time to go back to school. I'm looking forward to using everything I learned in Puerto Rico at school to improve my teaching, to better serve my ELL (English Language Learner) students, and to be able to relate to my Puerto Rican students in a way I never could before. I'm sure that as the school year progresses, I will understand more and more how this trip has changed my perspective.
posted by Lindsay at
11:38 PM
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It was a sad morning as we packed everything up to leave Mayaguez and carried our bags up the street to the bus. We must have been quite a spectacle, because a woman stopped us to ask if we were all leaving because there was a strike at the hotel. As our bus squeezed through the narrow street, a guy went ahead of us and folded in all the side mirrors on the parked cars so we could fit through. People stood on their porches and watched our slow procession, which was about as conspicuous as when we first entered the town two weeks ago. The only thing we could do was laugh and wave.
When we arrived in San Juan three hours later, we checked into our hotel and set out to explore the town. The group I was with took a ferry across the bay and 
had some typical Puerto Rican dishes for lunch outside under an umbrella. We returned to San Juan and explored the streets and plazas. We came across one plaza called Plaza de las Palomas (Pigeon Square) where over a hundred pigeons had gathered to be fed. They were so used to landing on people to be fed that we could hold out our arms without any food and the pigeons would come and land on us. I was able to get one on my arm and one on each shoulder. A little creepy, but fun.
While we were visiting the Catholic cathedral, we found out that El Morro fort was going to close soon, so we ran over to see what we could before it closed. We had a brief but impressive visit of the thick walls that surround the fort, with its many rooms and passages. 
We ran into some other people from our group while we were there, and we sat down together on a wall outside the fort and watched the ocean. As we sat there, a rainbow gradually appeared over the ocean, until it formed a full rainbow that had one end in the water and the other end in Old San Juan. The rain clouds moved closer and closer to us, and with them the end of the rainbow moved closer and closer over the water until it was almost at the shoreline. A faint second rainbow appeared above the first. It only sprinkled where we were, but we could see the heavy rain moving over the town and into the bay on the other side of the fort. As the rain moved away, the rainbows finally faded and disappeared. We agreed that seeing the rainbows together was especially cool since it was at the end of our two weeks together, during which we had gotten to know each other very well.
We headed back into Old San Juan and had supper together at some tables that were set up in the street. Later that night, some of us went out to a hotel to listen to some salsa music and celebrate our last night together. Julie was undoubtedly the most skilled of all of us at dancing salsa and merengue, and she even got to dance salsa with one of the locals. As we watched the dancers, an older gentleman came to our table to find a dance partner. He took my hand, and despite my protests that I didn't know how to dance, he led me out on the floor. I followed his lead as best as I could, and when I returned to our table at the end of the song I was informed that I had just danced bachata. We visited one more hotel with some impressive pools and fountains outside and then a few of us headed back to our hotel to get some rest at the end of a very full day.
posted by Lindsay at
11:35 PM
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Our day started early with a meeting with some teachers and curriculum supervisors from the town of
Then we had our very last Spanish class. I will definitely miss having Spanish classes. We learned so much about the language and the culture during these two short weeks.
After lunch we visited the brand new high school building in
In the afternoon we had a wrap-up meeting to share our project proposals for this course. I enjoyed hearing how each person is going to apply what they learned here to improve instruction and learning in their own schools in
posted by Lindsay at
11:46 PM
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We had two big surprises during Spanish class this morning. The first was that we each received color copies of the official proclamation by the mayor that named us distinguished guests of
posted by Lindsay at
10:56 PM
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We returned to La Parguera today (after getting rained out on Thursday) and finally were able to go out snorkeling at the coral reef. The clouds overhead were dark, but we went out anyway. This was the first time I had ever been snorkeling, and it was so neat to be able to see the different creatures under the water. Dr. Gonzalez showed us some starfish, sea cucumbers, and urchins, and let us hold them. Then we were able to go out on our own to check things out. It was pretty shallow where we were, so some people in the group went out further to deeper water. That's when Kelly got stung on her arms by a jellyfish. It looked pretty bad at first, but by the end of the day you could barely tell that it happened.
While we were snorkeling it started raining and the call came to get back in the boats and return to land. 
The rain stung our skin as we sped towards the island, and our towels were pretty useless by the time we got back. I had to wring the water out of my towel once we were back under the porch of the research center. Again we were told, "It never rains in La Parguera!" Maybe it's us?
We changed back into our dry clothes (Ahhhh!) and headed into the town of La Parguera to find a place to eat supper. By the time we finished eating, it was dark and time to go out to the bioluminescent bay. This bay has a high concentration of organisms that glow when the water mov es. We changed back into our cold, wet bathing suits and got back in the boats. It wasn't raining anymore, and in fact it was so clear we could see the Milky Way above us as we sped out into the dark night. Our first glimpse of the bioluminescence was a fish that jumped out of the water, leaving a glowing trail behind it. We arrived at our sp ot in the middle of the bay, turned the boats off, and jumped into the water. It was a little scary jumping into the water at night, but once I was in the water, I forgot about being nervous. Wherever I moved in the water, little blue sparkles appeared around me. When I lifted my hand out of the water, sometimes a glowing spot would stay on my hand and I could see it flashing like a lightning bug. It was amazing!
When we finally (reluctantly) got out of the water, Dr. Gonzalez used his laser pointer to show us the constellations among the bright stars above us. He actually has a star named after him by NASA, but we couldn't see it because it's in Orion, which wasn't visible at the time. It was an honor to learn from someone who is so well respected. Tonight was an experience I will never forget.
posted by Lindsay at
11:25 PM
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For the weekend we had some free time to travel wherever we wanted. We basically split up into two groups, which both stayed in hotels in Ponce but went separate ways from there. Since there's not much in the way of public transportation across the island, we had to rent cars to get to our destinations, which turned out to be half the adventure. We paid the same toll three times just trying to find our hotel. We finally stopped for directions at the toll plaza and got a very Puerto Rican response, which went something like, "Get off at the second exit, go through four stop lights, and turn where there's construction." Never mind the road names, just the landmarks.
We finally got settled in our hotel and it was time to head into downtown Ponce to find something to eat. After driving in circles all afternoon, we decided that it might be nicer to take a taxi to get there. We had supper at a restaurant called El Rincon Argentino, where we ate outside (with bugspray provided by the waitress) and listened to live music. It was a nice reward for our all our hard work just getting to Ponce. To get back to our hotel at the end of the night, we called the same taxi driver we had earlier that evening. Well, apparently since the last time we had seen him, he managed to put himself in a very good mood, and as he drove us to the hotel he decided to make a game out of how close he could get to the dogs and bicyclists in the narrow side streets. Needless to say, we were glad to get back safely to our hotel.
On Saturday we drove east to El Yunque, the only rainforest in the U.S. National Parks system. We had to make a few stops along the way (including the most crowded Wal-Mart I've ever seen in my life), so by the time we got there we only had a few hours left. Kelly and I were determined to see everything, so we ran ahead to try to find the lookout tower. Where the trail split there was a map, albeit not a very clear one, but we figured out which trail to take. Or so we thought. After about ten minutes of brisk walking, we started to question our direction. We seemed to be going down more than up, which didn't seem right for a trail leading to a lookout tower, and we had not seen anyone else on the trail the whole time. We turned around and started to walk back, and came across some guys who kindly informed us that we were, indeed, on the wrong trail. We returned to the spot where the trail split and took the other branch. Along the way we met the rest of our group on their way back from the lookout tower. They said there wasn't much to see, but we were only five minutes away so we went anyway. They were right. The fog was so thick you couldn't see more than a few feet out of the tower windows. It was a little disappointing, but we were glad we made it to our destination, and we got to see lots of interesting plants and flowers along the way. We didn't get to see any coquis (tree frogs) because they were all high up in the branches, but we certainly heard a lot of them.
The next trail we took led to a waterfall that Kelly and I swam in. It was a little cold at first, but it felt wonderful after hiking through the humid rainforest. The same guys who had helped us find the lookout tower helped us get under the waterfall since the rocks were very slippery. We agreed that it was one of the coolest things we’ve ever done.
We stopped at a restaurant for supper on the way back to Ponce and had a great time laughing and joking about our experiences on the trip. I tried to order in Spanish, but I wasn't quite sure how to say "refill" in Spanish, so I asked the waiter. His response? "Refill." OK, that one's not too hard to remember. That set us off laughing even more.
We spent Sunday morning being tourists in Ponce. First we drove to the huge letters along the highway that spell out "Ponce" and got some pictures of ourselves posing on the letters. Then we wandered around town and took more pictures, bought souvenirs, and ate ice cream (mine was passionfruit). I stopped in Burger King to pick up some lunch, and as I approached the counter the employee began to greet me with "Buenas tardes." Halfway through her greeting she looked up at me and hesitated, as if she wasn’t quite sure if I would understand her or not. I returned her greeting and she looked very relieved that we could continue in Spanish. That night we returned to the hotel in Mayaguez and had a fun evening sharing stories and pictures with the other group, which had gone to both a dry forest and a rainforest. I'm glad we had some time to travel around the island on our own. It gave us a chance to be a little more independent with our Spanish skills and to see some things we otherwise wouldn't have seen.
posted by Lindsay at
11:23 PM
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