Bienvenidos a San Juan

Our voyage to San Juan was uneventful. Unlike many trips Ethan and I have made together in the past, everything went as planned. We were lucky and had no problems with our flights or luggage, and our new landlords were kind enough to pick us up at the airport to show us to our new home. The ride to our new house was quite entertaining … very long, narrow, and winding roads. I’ve been on these types of crazy roads before in Colombia, Spain, and Italy, but glad that I wasn’t the one driving! Once we got to the house, we unloaded all our baggage and started to get settled in. Since we were a bit tired from the flight, we just wanted to grab a quick bite at Bebo’s Café, a local chain restaurant that specializes in Puerto Rican food or better known as comida Criolla. 

I had arroz con pollo y platanos (chicken with rice and plantains) and Ethan had ossobucco (in the back of the photo). This was our first chance to start practicing nuestra Español. It’s actually pretty amazing what you can understand about what a person is saying to you with only a few words. I would only catch the last couple of words and would get the jist of what the waitress was saying. Nevertheless… we still have lots of practicing to do! Over the next few days, we ventured out into San Juan. We just wanted to explore the area, figure out how far it would be from the house we rented to the place where I will be working, and to find some good grocery stores. Unfortunately, there is NOTHING that comes even close to Wegman’s… but there is a lively market (El Mercado in Santurce) from what we have heard and read. We tried going on Sunday, but that is the only day that it was actually closed! :-/ Next time we go, I will be sure to post photos and tell you all about it!

View from our front porch... the city and the ocean in the distance...