Fun in the dark

This weekend marked the final weekend of "vacation" time (for me anyway) before officially starting my new job. Nothing too exciting has been happening lately, hence the lack of blog posts. That isn't to say San Juan has been without any goings on...

Earlier last week, there was a power outage. And I don't just mean the power flickered on and off or was just out for a minute or two - because that's already happened up here at our house on the hill a few times before. This time, our power was out for over two hours... and it happened as we were coming home after a sweaty run on the beach and hungry for dinner! As we were driving back from Ocean Park and making our way through the long and windy road to our house, traffic came to a complete halt. Not so unusual on the major highways but quite unusual for the road leading to our house. At first, we thought there was an accident - sometimes we encounter crazy drivers whipping around the curves and always cutting into the oncoming lane. We waited behind traffic for awhile and noticed a truck from the electric company driving up the hill past where traffic had been stopped. Then we realized that some power lines must be down and they were going to remove some branches and debris that had taken them down. We often noticed that the bamboo trees covering the hillside next to the road often become overgrown and sag over the power lines... in an unsafe way. Finally the power lines gave way, causing the power to go out.

Looking up from the car, these bamboo trees are just laying on top of the power lines... waiting for an accident to happen! :-/

First, we had to find an alternate route home - which was nearly impossible because we live far up in the hills. 10-15 minutes later, we finally arrived home to find that we had no power. Second, we had to figure out how we were going to cook dinner... because we were starving! And it was getting dark. Luckily, I decided to pack our headlamps in our luggage (who would have thought we would need them?) instead of packing it up with the movers, so we were able to cook some rice on our gas stove and Ethan grilled some chicken outside on the gas grill, and we had a nice meal. In the dark. It was quite delicious actually!

Cooking some rice on the stove

Grilled chicken, brown rice with pigeon peas, and fresh tomatoes... ¡Bon Prevecho!

Then, as we began cleaning up, the lights came on. Whew! We were worried that we would be without power overnight, and we had just bought fresh milk and yogurt the day before! Thankfully, this night was the worst of it. The following day when we came home just before dinner time, the power was out AGAIN! But this time only for about 30 minutes. Geez! Now we are wishing we had brought our camping gear with us - flashlights, gas stove, and gas lamps! Hopefully, this won't happen as often in our new place in Condado.

Last night, we decided to go out for some Mexican, and we found a nice place called Bartola's in Miramar. What a great place! A cozy and friendly atmosphere with great service and delicious food. We started with some house made guacamole, which we devoured immediately. It was so good, we forgot to take a photo! Our entrees arrived shortly after: I ordered the ceviche tostadas and Ethan got the enchiladas. The black beans were soooo good!!!

My meal

Ethan's meal

After our delicious dinner, we wanted to stroll around a bit and noticed a fine arts theatre just down the street. We decided to check it out and bought two tickets for Lincoln. Only $7.50 each! What a steal! They also had an amazing snack bar! Beer, wine, espresso, charcuterie platters, and gourmet desserts in addition to the usual popcorn and soda. Wow, check out these prices!

What, you can't read the menu? :-) Large popcorn AND soda $5.50  Glass of wine $6 Espresso $1.95 Cookies 2 for $3... not bad compared the prices you see at the movie theatres in the states!

The movie was pretty good (personally, I thought Life of Pi was better... even though Lincoln has more Academy Award nominations) and the theatre was excellent! Large comfortable seats that rocked back and forth and wide arm rests for your food and drink! We are definitely going back.

So that was the last of my "vacation". I actually am very excited to be starting my new job on Tuesday! Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far!