So it's been a while since the last post and that's mainly because things have started to pick up for me in the lab! I finally finished all the training requirements for laboratory work at the University of Puerto Rico and have started getting my feet wet with some behavioral experiments. The Quirk lab studies fear learning and memory. What does that mean, you ask? We study how the brain remembers something aversive or fearful and how the brain "un-learns" these fearful memories. Actually, most scientists believe that a new memory is formed which competes with the previous fearful memory - which is why sometimes previous memories can "resurface" and cause experiences to become fearful again.
Aside from the nerdy work that we do, everyone in the Quirk lab is very friendly and fun. It is a lot bigger than my previous lab in Rochester with 6 grad students, 6 undergrads, and 2 postdocs (including me). Needless to say, there is never a dull moment in the Quirk lab! Currently, we are getting ready for our lab retreat. Every year, the Quirk lab plans a weekend away to partake in some workshops and discussions that help to strengthen the relationships between members of the lab. It is a very good way for everyone to reconnect and learn how to work better as a team. I am really looking forward to it!
Last Friday we moved into our new
permanent apartment in San Juan, three blocks from the beach and
within walking distance to the grocery store, bank, hardware store,
drug store, and the best places to eat in Condado. That's the part of
San Juan where we are now, Condado.
It's much different here than where we
were staying in Cupey Alto. Up in the hills it is quite comfortable
at night, around the mid to low-70s, and the traffic and city noise is far
off in the distance, but not the occasional stray dog fight. In
Condado, however, it stays quite warm most of the time. We never once used the
A/C in our Cupey Alto apartment, but here we have had to keep it on
every night for fear of melting.
While the beach is very close, we took a nice jog
there Thursday morning, it comes with traffic and city noise. I'm not a
big fan of that but I'm getting used to it.
Maria's work is also closer now. It
takes about half the time to get there as it did from Cupey Alto, depending on
the time of day. We are getting very used to the traffic patterns and I'm even starting to drive like they do here. Watch out when I'm on the road in the states.
We have quite a bit of room in our new
place but we have quickly filled it with things.
Friday wasn't only the day we moved
into our new place, it was also the day we got all of the things we
had shipped from Rochester. They were actually ready to be delivered
on January 4th but we knew we were moving and had them
hold our stuff until we moved.
It's hard not having the things that
you are used to having around, although the experience did make us realize how many things we don't really need. As the movers
brought in box after box I started questioning the decision to bring
it all and if we actually had places to put it. I was secretly, or not so secretly, hoping that all of our things would be lost at sea and we would get the insurance money instead, but it sure is nice to have some of our stuff back.
Since last Friday, we've found
places for most everything and the apartment is starting to take
shape. So far we've only found two broken items, an Ommegang beer chalice and a stemless Riedel red wine glass. Unfortunately, those are two of our more expensive glasses, i.e. they weren't free, and we didn't list them separate from the other glassware on the insurance so we likely will not be getting enough in damages to replace them.
We also had to box up many of the items that were already in
the apartment, since most people move in with nothing, the landlord
has it ready for living in. We are grateful for the furniture though,
it's actually pretty comfortable and fits the apartment nicely.
We have some more cleaning and
organizing to do; It will be a little while before the "hotel" portion
of our apartment is open to the public, but we have three queen sized
"beds" available for guests when it does (a bed, a futon, and an air mattress). We're looking forward to visitors because we get to explore more of the island while we show you around.
I took some photos just before the
movers came and some just after they left. Have at 'em. We'll have some more photos of how we've made the place once we get a little more organized.
The Living Room
The Kitchen
Our Bedroom
The Bathroom
Guest Bedroom
The Office Nook, and through the door--the "garage" as Maria likes to call it.
The Dinning Room (Don't worry, that wall was painted that day.)
In Puerto Rico they know how to stretch the holiday season. This past weekend marked the end of the that season in Puerto Rico with the celebration of the San Sebastián street festival. This is the biggest festival in Puerto Rico, so we decided to have a look.
As expected the streets were packed and it took much longer than usually to find parking. We eventually found a garage where we could park but we had to wait about a half an hour for someone to leave before we could get a spot. But this is to be expected in Old San Juan.
With the car safely parked we were free to roam the streets. There were
booths with free stuff, food vendors, street performances, parades,
artists. You name it, they had it. It was one of the most diverse
festivals that I had been to. After a few hours of wandering and wondering
we headed back to the car and out of the city. We thought about the
concerts and night activities that we were going to miss but the miles
long line of cars attempting to get into the district made us glad to be
heading to our quiet, uncrowded, home. There's always next year.
Here are just a few of the things we saw at this years San Sebastián festival. Adiós.
The sign says "1,136 Murders in PR in 2012." And on an island with extremely low legal gun ownership.
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!
Just because Christmas and New Year's have passed does not mean that the holiday celebrations are over here in Puerto Rico. They celebrate another holiday, Tres Reyes or Three Kings on January 6th. This is actually quite a common holiday in Latin and Spanish cultures that celebrate the arrival of the three kings that came to visit Jesus after he was born and brought him gifts. For Puertorriqueños, it means getting more presents and candy - a much-loved holiday, especially for the kids. The night before, children put grass in shoe boxes and place them under their beds and the following morning, they find candy and small gifts in their shoe boxes. Kind of reminds me a bit of getting an Easter basket! :)
In Cupey, where we currently live, they have something extra special for the neighborhood kids: Los Reyes Magos where three men dress up like the Three Kings and ride horses down the street and hand out candy for the kids! This was also accompanied by a float full of people singing and playing typical Puerto Rican instruments including the Güiro, the Cuatro, and Palitos. It was quite fun to see this happening on our street! It was especially nice to see the kids (and Ethan) getting all excited to get candy from the Three Kings!
Happy New Year everyone! We hope you all had a fun time ringing in the new year. Our friend Mercedes came to visit us for a few days and we had a great time on New Year's Eve. We started off the day touring the Bacardí distillery in Cataño... how can you beat a free tour with free drinks?!? After the tour, we headed to Old San Juan for a Puerto Rican dinner at Mojito's Restaurant. We shared a large pitcher of Sangria, and I ordered the cod stew with tostones while Ethan and Mercedes each ordered the mofongo. It was all delicious! We were a little put off that they did not have any mint to make mojitos... Seriously? A restaurant named Mojito's that runs out of ingredients to make their most famous drink!? In any case, we enjoyed our food. After our meal, we wandered around Old San Juan in the hopes of enjoying children playing in the square and seeing some fireworks. Instead, it seemed like everything was closing early and very few people were out and about. We noticed that Calle Fortaleza was being closed off to traffic, so we asked a local police officer what was going on - this also gave me a chance to practicar mi Español! :-D He told us that the governor's inauguration was the following morning, and the new governor rides down the street around Old San Juan and up to the Capitol building where the inauguration takes place. Turns out, the only new year's festivities taking place in San Juan were in Condado at the fancy hotels which required a fancy cover charge to get into the parties. Era demasiado caro para nosotros. So we then decided to head back to our house on the hill to watch the show of fireworks that would be set off all over San Juan. We were so glad we ended up back at the house to see that!
The video doesn't come close to witnessing the real thing, but it will certainly give you an idea of the quantity of fireworks that went off that night. It was like Gangbusters! (you can hear me saying this in the video, haha!)
We explored quite a bit of the island on several day trips while Mercedes was here. Here are some of the highlights:
The Dry Forest and The Southern Coastline
Passing by Bahina de Bellana or Bellana Bay on
our way to the dry forest in Guánica
Rocky Cliffs off the Meseta trail in
Bosque Estetal de Guánica aka the dry forest
Coves created from the waves washing away the limestone rock
Walking around the cliffs
Interesting limestone rock formations just past
Bellena Bay
Mercedes on the cliff
Some of the cliffs had tons of little crabs living on the limstone near
the ocean. Hard to see in this picture and when you approached them,
they ran away fast!
Dinner in Ponce, PR
After the coast we head to Ponce for some dinner. On the left is the Typical Puerto Rican Christmas dinner at Casa de Las Tias in Ponce that Ethan had and on the right is the dish that Mercedes and I shared.
pork chop, rice with pigeon peas, and a pastele
(pasteles are similar to tamales except they use plantain instead of corn)
Red snapper stuffed with shrimp
in a spicy tomato basil sauce...mmm!
Exploring Camuy Caves
Mouth of Camuy Caves near Arecibo, PR
Inside the Camuy Caves near Arecibo, PR
Hiking El Yunque National Park
Juan Diego Falls in El Yunque Rainforest
Reaching Picachos Peak along the El Yunque Trail
(This was the best view from the top as we were engulfed in clouds)
Bumming on the Beach
Our favorite beach of all: La Playa Mar Chiquita in Manatí, PR. A small
cove created by limestone rocks that enclose the beach. It was gorgeous!
La Playa Mar Chiquita in Manatí, PR.
Overall, we had a great visit with Mercedes and got to see more of the island. We can't wait for our next visitors!
Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
This year for Christmas, Maria and I decided to get away from it all and take a tropical vacation to the Isla Culebra, "Snake Island." Culebra is a small island 17 miles off the eastern coast of the Island of Puerto Rico and 12 miles west of St. Thomas, and is part of the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico or Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (wiki/Culebra).
Isla Culebra
Puerto Rico and Culebra
We decided to go at the last minute although we had been researching the nearby islands for things to do. It took a few emails and phone calls but Maria finally found a nice little place on the Island for us to stay, Casa Ensenada. So at 6 am we left the house and headed for Fajardo, about an hour away, to meet the ferry. They say to get to the ferry terminal early because there is no guarantee you'll be able to get a ticket. We made it in plenty of time, got our tickets, and then waited until around 9 am for the boat to leave.
We arrived at Culebra around 10 am Christmas Eve, before our room was ready, but we were able to stash our luggage and head to the beach, the main reason Maria wanted to go. There are numerous beaches on the island, but the best is Flamenco
Beach. This beach is ranked in the top beaches in the world for it's
beauty and I'd have to say it certainly was a beautiful beach, and not
too crowded either. It was actually quite comfortable for a holiday
weekend. The beach is a couple miles from the port so to get there you can either walk, rent a bike, rent a golf cart, rent a car, or take the local guagua "bus" taxis. They're not really buses they're just passenger vans, but they like to refer to vans and station wagons in Puerto Rico as guaguas or guaguitas, little buses. It's 3 dollars per passenger but worth it when you are lugging a cooler full of food that your wife was so gracious to prepare.
Maria and I at Flamenco Beach
Maria likes to go to the beach to soak up the sun while I like to go for the water
and swimming. I have limited sun-soaking ability. Flamenco beach is on the north side, Atlantic side, of the
island, and on Christmas Eve the ocean waves were pretty choppy. That
didn't stop me from enjoying the water, and although Maria did get in for
a little bit, I couldn't get her to go very far because she had just
read about undertow and was extremely scared of being sucked out to sea.
Ignorance is bliss I guess, because I had lots of fun playing in the
waves and couldn't have cared less.
Here's a video of the beach shot by Maria. I'm the pale guy if you couldn't tell.
Once we exhausted ourselves at the beach we hopped into a guagua and headed to Casa Ensenada. We had a nice little room located on Ensenada Honda, the protected harbor in the center of Culebra. They also had a two person kayak that we used Christmas morning to paddle out to the middle of the harbor to get a close up view at some of the many sailboats anchored in the harbor. We were able to wish a Merry Christmas to some Canadians, Australians, and Americans. The idea of sailing around the Caribbean and anchoring in exotic ports fascinates me.
Ensenada Honda
Besides the harbor, Culebra contains a nice little town called Dewey. Dewey is mostly made up of restaurants, bars, and gifts shops to cater to the tourists, but they also have a real community with churches, a school, municipal buildings, gas stations, and grocery stores. On Christmas Eve night we were having a drink when we heard what sounded like a lively party. We decided to check it out and we were surprised to find out that this party had a super special guest... Santa Claus! There were kids all over the place getting gifts and sitting on Santa's lap. They had music playing and a DJ and the kids looked like they were having a blast. I'm just not sure how Santa handles the heat in all of that red fur he wears.
The Bushwacker
We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Mamacita's with a few drinks, one of which is a local Culebra drink (or so we were told) called the "Bushwacker." Man does that thing pack a punch. I could only handle one before I had to go to bed.
After our Christmas morning kayak adventure, we packed our things, enjoyed sitting by the harbor for a bit, and then headed to the ferry terminal to get our tickets home. While waiting for the ferry, we stopped into a bar and discovered the traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink, coquito. It's like egg-nog but much better.
Although Culebra is a small Island, there is so much more to do there that we didn't have a chance to see. There is a National Wildlife Reserve, a beach for turtle nesting, snorkeling, sailing, and the list goes on. We will definitely be back especially since the ferry from Fajardo to Culebra is only $2.25 a person and it's only an hour drive to Fajardo from San Juan.
Once we made it home, we cleaned ourselves up and decided to head to Old San Juan for Christmas Dinner. We scoured the net for restaurant ideas and found a couple that seemed promising. Once we made it through traffic and finally into Old San Juan, we somehow found a parking spot on the street, a small Christmas miracle. We walked a couple blocks to the restaurant only to find it closed. We searched for another, walked there, closed, another, closed. The only place we could find open, besides Wendy's and Burger King, was a little Italian place called, Il Bacaro di Venezia. We were not expecting much but were pleasantly surprised by their delicious food and just happy to be eating at the same time.
After our meal, we wandered the streets of Old San Juan which were full of locals enjoying the fair-like atmosphere. We saw a group of young people playing drums and singing, and I had my first taste of Mavi, a fermented drink made from the bark of the Mavi tree. I'd describe it like a ginger brew but without the spiciness and much sweeter. It smells terrible but tastes great.
We had a great Christmas in Puerto Rico but we really missed being with our friends and family and hope you all had a very merry Christmas. ¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año!
