Shake it up!

What an adventure we had just last night: our first earthquake in Puerto Rico!

It wasn't anything life-threatening, but it did wake us up while we were sleeping. The tremor occurred just after midnight today approximately 35 miles north of Hatillo, Puerto Rico (this city is 58 miles west of San Juan). At this location, the Richter Scale measured 6.4, but at the center of San Juan, the reading was about 3.0.

Map with tectonic plates outlined and the epicenter location (star)

Closer image of epicenter location. San Juan is at the far right white dot.

 Ethan and I had just fallen asleep before it happened. Then, I felt the bed wiggling, as if Ethan was moving his legs around. I said, "Ethan, stop moving the bed so much!" to which he replied, "That wasn't me! I thought it was you!" The tremor last over 20 seconds, so we intensely began to wonder why the bed was moving by itself and how this could be happening.

Let me take a step back and tell you all about some recent goings-on at the Faryna household. Recently, we have had some feline visitors over at our house. There has been a friendly stray cat that we have named Ghost who visits our patio about every other day. Whenever I see him, I go outside, pet his head and say hello. He usually sticks around for a while, smelling all of our plants, lounging on the patio, and trying to get into our apartment. I sternly tell him "No" when he tries to enter. Well one day, while we were both in the back of the apartment, he snuck into the kitchen. I wandered into the kitchen and who knows how long he had been there, but I caught him darting back out the door. To my knowledge, he has not come back into the house.

This is the only picture I have of him on our patio. Ghost is so quick to run away, I couldn't get another shot!

Over the holidays, we were taking care of our neighbor's cat, Gigi. Over the course of ten days, I would visit him twice a day, feed him, clean his litter box, brush his hair, and play with him. It really made me want a pet! :) On Christmas day, we let him come into our living room to check the place out. He loved it! Lately, he has been welcoming himself to our house whenever our neighbor lets him out to get some fresh air. It is quite cute - he has been exploring more and more of our rooms as we keep forgetting to shut the doors so he doesn't sneak in there! But he is a good kitty, he hasn't chewed anything up or relieved himself anywhere, so I love it when he comes over to say hello.

Gigi

OK, back to the main story. Taking these two pieces of information about the cats into account, and understanding that I was half asleep when we felt the tremors, I immediately thought that one of the cats had found their way into our bedroom and were shaking the bed! I then exclaimed, "Ethan! Is it one of the cats?! Check under the bed!" Ethan jumped to his feet and turned on the light. He peeked under the bed. Nothing. As he was standing there, he stopped feeling the movement and thought maybe something was wrong with the bed. Haha! At this point, the tremors had stopped, and we finally came to our senses. Was it an earthquake? We quickly checked facebook to see if anyone had posted anything. Sure enough, several of our Puerto Rican friends had posts reading: "Temblor fuerte en San Juan," and "Se sintió el temblor acá en mi edificio," meaning, "Strong earthquake in San Juan," and "The earthquake was felt here in my building." Were we relieved! We weren't crazy after all! We continued checking for updates and some of our American friends here also felt the earthquake: "Just went through my first earthquake! Everything in house was wiggling! Very cool!" which we totally agree with. Another couple did the exact same thing we did: she thought her hubby was shaking the bed and he said it wasn't him! Haha!

We were very glad that we weren't injured and nothing was damaged and also relieved that there was no tsunami warning afterwards! That would have really freaked me out!

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? What happened? 

2014: New Year, New Beginnings

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a joyous celebration with friends and family to ring in the new year. Ethan and I went to a beach party with some friends:

Lots of people we met for the first time...

Bonfire on the beach!

Ethan enjoying the fire

It was a great party! Lots of good food & drink and great conversation. About 2 minutes before the countdown, it started to rain and we all darted underneath the trees for cover. Ethan hit his head on a branch. (ouch!) It only rained briefly, but we were all counting down the last seconds of 2013 under the trees with cups of sparkling wine in our hands. Then we headed back to the fire to warm up again!

It has definitely been an adventure living in Puerto Rico. We have had our ups and downs: seeing beautiful places; exploring the beaches, mountains, rainforests, and caves all over the island; finding delicious restaurants; meeting new friends; learning Spanish; trying to find a decent car; surviving the city traffic everyday; and saving up time and money to visit friends and family on the mainland. Reflecting on all our experiences of 2013 brings me to my resolutions for 2014:


Run more
I reviewed my mileage for the past few years and it has decreased drastically :-/ In 2012, I ran a total of 430.5 miles while only making 375.9 miles in 2013. I definitely want to get this number back up for 2014! So far, I have several races planned: Ethan and I are signed up to run all 6 Xterra Trail Races this year (5k or longer for each race). I am also signed up to run the Puerto Rico Half Marathon in March. Hopefully, I can get a new PR for that distance!

The heat and humidity are brutal in Puerto Rico!

Communicate better
I guess we always can work on this one. This is one of my goals for 2014, especially in my postdoc in the Quirk lab. It's a lot larger lab than what I am used to, but I am learning to communicate effectively more and more in the lab each day. And I am definitely improving my Spanish! 

Eat Better
Ethan and I have been struggling to come up with planned meals for the week. Sometimes it gets pretty bad because we come home late from the lab most nights of the week and are too tired to make an amazing meal. So one solution I have for this is to plan our meals for the week and make meals ahead of time so that we have healthy prepared meals for those days we come home late. I also want to try some new recipes!

Here's to another adventurous year on the Island of Enchantment! Cheers!

What are your new year's resolutions? What are you going to do to achieve them?

Regresamos / We return

Just finished submitting a research grant and wanted you all to know that's why this blog hasn't been updated in a while! Sorry I made you wait so long! Glad you are back reading about our adventures :)


We've returned from a few trips over the past couple of months and it was great to be back on the mainland. Believe it or not, I really enjoyed the cooler weather! And also hanging out with old friends and family of course.

My first trip was to San Diego for the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. This is the biggest neuroscience conference in the world that meets once a year in various cities around the US. I missed last year's meeting - which was in New Orleans - so I was ready to take on the conference this year. San Diego is one of my favorite cities that host the SfN conference, so I did lots of preparing to make sure I would try some new restaurants and do a little shopping, time permitting. Most of my time spent in SD was at the conference, but it was great to catch up with old friends and colleagues and see the latest neuroscience research going on! :-P

While I had an incredible time and wanted to stay longer in San Diego, I was also excited about coming home. Like I said before in my last post, San Juan is slowly starting to feel more like home everyday. I still find it hard to believe that I live three blocks from the beach and only an hour or so away from amazing beaches, caves, and the rainforest!

A couple weeks later, Ethan and I headed to Nashville to visit our family. His sister, brother-in-law, and 2 kids live there and some other family members traveled there as well. It was one big reunion! Although I spent a lot of time working on my grant application, I was able to get out a few times and enjoy Nashville.

On Thanksgiving morning, Ethan, Craig, and I raced in the Music City Thanksgiving Day 4-miler, which started in downtown Nashville at 8am. Brrrr! It was cold! 25 degrees Fahrenheit! That will definitely wake a person up :) Ethan and I ran together and finished in just under 33 minutes. Not bad for hardly training! I also came in 5th place in my age group!

Heading to the start line... it was so cold but at least the sun was shining!

I was ready to celebrate with some turkey and stuffing. Ethan's brother brought some ham that was farmed by Ethan's nephew. It was so delicious! I wish we could have brought some home. There was also some yummy butternut squash, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce and gravy, and roasted brussel sprouts. And of course, Ethan made his famous dinner rolls. They were the best batch I have had so far. My mom also brought some pies from the Fresh Market. Mmm!!!

My mom and I went to a Radio City Christmas Spectacular show with the Rockettes at the Grand Ole Opry - it was great! Finally, all of us went out on one of the last nights tp go bar hopping around Broadway, eat some BBQ and listen to live music. Country music ain't that bad after a couple of beers! haha :) Here are some photos:

Enjoying some beers n tunes at Legends Bar

Niece and nephew tower :)

I was sad to leave my family and wanted to stay longer on this trip... it was alot of fun playing with the kids, eating BBQ, and listening to live music. Can't wait to go back there soon!

For Christmas, we'll be staying here on the island. We might do a couple day trips to explore some new places we haven't been yet. I'll keep ya posted!

Feels like home / Se siente como hogar

After many months of settling in to our beachside abode, it's finally starting to feel like home. For me, it took a house sitting job before I realized how much I enjoy living and coming home to our cozy home in Condado!

Another reason why it's difficult for me to perceive this place as "home" is because of all the fun adventures we get to experience in our free time:

Kite surfing...

Ethan at his first kite-surfing lesson!

He made it way out in the ocean!

Exploring Caves...

Cueva del Indio

A lot bigger than you think!

Beautiful water and rock formations

Enjoying the water!

Near the caves

Hiking in the rainforest...

Hiking in El Yunque with the Adrenaline Junkies

Heading to the peak!

Gorgeous views once the clouds parted

View of the ocean from the rainforest

Wandering about a very old city...

The views from the balcony of the apartment in OSJ

A constant supply of delicious and eclectic restaurants... I don't have any photos of the food or anything, but we've discovered some amazing pizza and Mexican restaurants!

And of course, always seeing the tourists roaming around our neighborhood.

There's been plenty of things to keep us entertained... So anytime you want to come and visit, our door is open for you! :)

Happy Anniversary / Feliz Aniversario

I can't believe it has already been a year! Today we celebrated our first year together as husband and wife. What an adventure is has been thus far!

For our anniversary, we decided to do something fun and adventurous... we joined our adrenaline junkie friends for an outdoor excursion that involved exploring the rainforest on the south side of El Yunque in Naguabo, Puerto Rico. The itinerary included hiking, repelling, body rafting and cliff jumping! I was so excited (and a bit anxious) to go!

We met our friends bright and early at 6am and headed south to Caguas to meet our adventure guides from Puerto Rico Hiking Tours. We arrived at our base camp around 7am and had a quick breakfast. Then we piled on the safety gear (helmets, life jackets, and knee pads) and headed out into the wilderness.

Getting the low down on the hiking tour by our tour guides, Gabriel and Jose

I decided to wear my funky vibram five fingers shoes... I should have worn some sturdy waterproof hiking boots with super grip! We were slipping and sliding all over the mud and rocks. Despite a few scrapes and bruises, we made it through. Here is a pic of us near the top, enjoying the amazing view of all the waterfalls!

Most of the adventure was pretty intense... you really had to do what guides instructed or you could be in big trouble. One of the activities required us to jump from a tall smooth rock (think slippery)  into a pool of water with pretty decent current, and swim to the other side to grab onto a flat rock before wading across to go underneath a raging waterfall. I could barely see where I was going! After swimming for our lives under the waterfall, we climbed up some more slippery rocks (still under the waterfall, mind you) and came out on the other side to wave at our friends across the water. Then we slipped back underneath the waterfall to swim back to the other side. As Ethan and I were going back under the waterfall, his legs were dangling a little too far out into the current of the waterfall and he got sucked in unexpectedly! I said to the guide, "Where did he go???" Then he said, "He's gone. You're next!" I was thinking, "What?!?! Going under this waterfall was tough enough!" Not to worry, the guide explained everything to me so that I would not get sucked in unexpectedly. After he calmed me down, I took a deep breath - what I thought might be my last - and went under... slowly but surely, I came out on the other side and swam back to Ethan and my friends. What an exhilarating experience!

After jumping from the top of rock (at bottom of pic), we swam across to that rock wall, then swam underneath that waterfall...

...and came out the other end! Cheese! I can barely see anything...

We also did some repelling... my first time doing this. I was nervous at first, but by the second time, I was enjoying the view!

Overall, it was an incredible experience and we are so glad we did it! I learned a lot about myself and my limits. Life is all about no regrets and feeling alive! That's why I can't wait to go back again and test my limits again ;)

Check out these amazing views:

Island Adventures / Aventuras de la Isla

Greetings, friends! The past few weeks have been all about adventures! We've been trying to stay active outside, and we've been keeping busy with several things. The most exciting thing that I tried was paddleboarding for the first time ever in the Condado lagoon. It was so much fun! I can't wait to get my own paddleboard. Check me out paddling through the water:

Paddleboarding at the Condado Lagoon

We've also been going on a group biking trip about once a week with some other island transplants we met who also enjoy outdoor activities. Here we are after biking about 5 miles to El Morro in Old San Juan. It is very pretty at night:

We found this group on meetup.com - The Adrenaline Junkies. We've been attending several of the meetups each week and hosting some meetups of our own including a beach run on Sundays. It's been a great way for us to stay active as well as train for a 5k trail race we signed up for in mid-August. I can't wait to run on the trails! I haven't had much luck finding good places to trail run around here (except maybe El Yunque, but that requires an hour drive and the trails good for running there are quite intense).

I've also been going to a bootcamp class on the beach on Saturday mornings... as you can see, I've been finding different ways to get around having to get a gym membership! haha! Here are some action shots of the bootcamp class:

Working out on the beach is really fun! Even if you get all dirty and full of sand, it is so refreshing to run in the water to rinse off and cool down a bit!

Hope this post serves as inspiration to keep all you folks out there active! Stay tuned for the results of the trail race - I hope to beat Ethan again ;)

Rochester

Well, it's been a while since we wrote anything, so I'd better catch you up on our recent trip to Rochester.

We were in Rochester in June to celebrate the wedding of some good friends. It was a great wedding and while we were there we had the opportunity to catch up with our other friends and family.

We arrived at the airport on a typical rainy, dreary, and grey Friday afternoon in Rochester. We picked up our rental car and headed off to our first stop.

As soon as we hit 390 I couldn't help but feel a sense of openness and freedom. I was in awe of the lane choices I could make! You see in San Juan on a Friday afternoon, you'd be lucky if you could get the car up to 45 miles an hour let alone be able to change lanes when you want. It was highway bliss.

Anyway, we arrived shortly at John and Randy's home where they graciously hosted us for a few nights. We settled in and had just enough time to catch up before we headed off for our next engagements. Maria was helping to setup for a baby shower she had the next day, and by virtue of existing, I was helping out too. We did what we could quickly, because we then had to meet the Kumar's for dinner, and I had to get to bed early to be up at 5 am for a drive down to New York City for my friend's bachelor party.

It was craziness from the time we landed until the time we left.

It was a long drive down to NYC and back but it was a great party for a great friend and luckily, I was just a passenger in the car. When I got back to Rochester I was grateful to arrive at a party Randy had put together for Maria and I.

The next day we took some time to relax in the morning and catch our collective breath.

At this point I can't remember everything we did, which should be a lesson to all of you who plan to recount a story to write it down soon after it happens.

But here is what I do remember:

We got to catch up with great friends in Rochester, celebrate a birthday, Maria got sushi with Sarah while I ate a garbage plate with Andrew, but we didn't make it over to Dinosaur BBQ, Maria got her hair did while I fell asleep watching Big Fish, I spent an entire day with my nephew playing catch, shooting pigeons, and avoiding the police while he skipped school (typical boy stuff), we spent time with my family, ate some of my favorite hometown pizza, saw all three falls at Letchworth and had a picnic in the park, ran a 4 mile trail race, saw our friends get married, played cards against humanity until 5 am, had a late brunch and hopped back on a plane headed for San Juan.

Like I said, it was crazy. And it was great to see everyone that we could while we were there.

When we left Rochester to move to San Juan, I wasn't so keen on the idea, but Maria was ready. After having gone back, Maria didn't want to leave. We both miss all of you back home and hope to see you in San Juan and we'll try to see you whenever we can get to Rochester.

Until then, wish us luck with this tropical storm, although it shouldn't be too much trouble for us since it's passing to the south.

Lovely view of San Juan as we were taking off for Rochester

I love watching the chickens roaming around the yard at Ethan's house. And their eggs are delicious!

We forgot we saved the top of our wedding cake.  We decided to eat it while we were visiting since we wouldn't be back in August. It was better on the wedding day :)

Beautiful views of the falls at Letchworth

Drinks with friends in Rochester!

The Japanese gardens at Sonnenberg Gardens where our friends got married.

Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Wible!

Had to make a trip to Wegman's! Look at the excitement on Ethan's face