Our original plan for today was to hike in the rainforest, but the forecast was calling for thunderstorms and we just didn’t want to be stuck on the mountain in a thunderstorm, so we decided to change our plan.
So, we went back to Old San Juan. We really like it there. If I can figure out a way to drive there without having to actually drive there, the kids and I will do some hanging out there while John’s working. It’s just that problem of getting there. One of the things I like are the blue cobblestone streets. This is a really bad picture of one:
We took the trolley we thought went where we were going, but it turned out that there are two routes that the trolleys take, but there’s nothing anywhere that says that, so we didn’t know. So, when it came back to where we started without getting to where we were going, we just stayed on it until we got close, then hopped off and walked to where we were going. Old San Juan isn’t that big.
We got off at the Plaza de Colón, which has the Christopher Columbus Monument. The plaza used to be called the Plaza Sandiego (St. James Place), but it was changed in 1893 to honor Columbus on the 400th anniversary of his discovery of Puerto Rico (on his second voyage).
The kids and I sat in the shade while John grabbed some lunch for us. Ruby had a ball chasing the pigeons, and then some old man came up and gave her a chunk of bread. Then the pigeons were her best friends.
We then had to fend off pigeons while we ate our empanadas (beef, chicken and hot dog!). Then we just walked over to the San Juan Museum instead of trying to figure out the trolley thing.
On the way to the museum (the orange building on the right is the back of the museum) we saw this cute yellow house with the blue doors and the girls and I just loved it. Just as we walked by, that lady there knocked on one of the blue doors and we heard an example of the Puerto Rican way of clipping off the ends of words when she said, "Buena tarde!" through the window. We've also heard lots of people say, "Gracia!" instead of "Gracias".
We visited the San Juan Museum, which has archeological artifacts from the history of Puerto Rico up through the Taíno, the native population which was here when Columbus arrived. It’s not very big and half of it was closed because the air conditioning was broken, but it was interesting. The Taíno culture had a purification ritual that involved shoving an ornate spatula down their throats to induce vomiting, after which they would inhale some hallucinogenic drug. They had some of the spatulas on display. Ew.
We missed out on the farmer's market earlier in the day because we didn't know about it. The museum is located in a building that was the city's main marketplace in the 18th century, so it's pretty cool that they'd hold a farmer's market there.
Then we walked down the block to the Galeria Nacional, which has art from Puerto Rican artists from the colonial era through more recent times.
Neither the museum nor the gallery allowed photos inside, but Google came through for me. This one was mine and John’s favorite. It’s called El Pan Nuestro by Ramón Frade. The colors are better in the original, but you get the general idea.
While we were in the Galeria, it started raining again. We were prepared and brought our ponchos and umbrellas. We caught the trolley, which turned out to be the open-sided one, and we ended up pretty wet. New rule: no open-sided trolley on rainy days.
We took the trolley back to the parking garage, got in the car, and turned on the heat. Sort of. We just turned the air conditioning on less cold.
We had fun singing Wicked on the way home, until the iPod battery died.
No comments:
Post a Comment