Happy Lazy Saturday!

Hope you get to do all the things you like this weekend and maybe enjoy this video as well over a coffee break.

I absolutely love going to Old San Juan even though I have gone countless times. It’s always a great place to take a walk, take pictures and enjoy great restaurants. This time we just walked around for an afternoon and visited the famous park Parque de las Palomas, a small area overlooking San Juan where pigeons live and get fed by tourists and locals. 

This doesn’t even begin to cover all the things and places you can visit in the Spaniard influenced part of town, but it’s a nice glimpse of its architecture and its vibe.

Have a great weekend!

M xox

Fighting the British Jet Lag | EUROPE TRIP

Day 2- London

The first day after any international flight is always a strange one. Your body is telling you it’s time to sleep but the city is indicating the day has just begun. The cool morning breeze, the bustling traffic and men in crisp suits are all signs of an awakening London.

 

It’s always a blur, that first day, a combination of an out of body experience and your senses tingling with every new smell, touch and site. A Costa coffee, an introduction to our guides, a bus ride from Heathrow and one Adele album later, we arrived at Wembley to leave all our luggage, power through the jetlag and head on into the city.

London, the metropolis I grew to love without realizing. The first time I visited was at the age of sixteen and I was homesick and hanging on to a crush back home that soon fizzled out. Maybe it was due to my first taste of jetlag, hitting me with full force or maybe it was immaturity, but I disliked London quickly.

Years later, I met Mark and soon came the time to travel alone overseas for the first time in order to spend time with him. And then, without a killer dose of jetlag and hand in hand with a local, it was like I had met city for the first time.

Since then every time I visit it feels familiar and clear. When I step into her, touch her, I recognize her and she recognizes me back. England is so different from where I grew up, possibly the complete opposite, yet I can call her my home, a place I miss and its memories are alive inside me even as time passes.

London is the city where I learned my independence and let my freak flag fly, where I feel capable. London embodies late nights and long walks that are never tiring. It is my seasonal affair and comforting cups of tea. I know the city, the underground maps and I never feel lost or alone in it.

Now, after more than a year, I was back and I was with Mark once again. I hugged him hard and relished the deep sound of his voice as he kissed my cheek, the way he had eight months ago. Even though we hadn’t been face to face for the better part of the year, it always felt familiar and comforting to see him.

But our reunion was cut short when the guides scurried us to the tube, like lost little baby chicks, and we headed to Central London for our first quintessential English experience. Fish and Chips. If you’ve ever had the signature dish before, you know it can go incredibly great –flaky moist fish with a crunchy beer batter exterior fried to perfection- or horribly wrong – soggy, pale looking piece of fish next to frozen, out of  the box chips.

Our fish and chips were the latter; a testament to English cuisine the way Taco Bell represents authentic Mexican food. It just wasn’t. But rule number two to beat the jetlag is to eat, preferably clean food, but nonetheless eat. First rule is to hydrate. So we ate as much as we could of the overly oily fish and left the pub.

Luckily we were nearby one of my favorite areas of London, just a few blocks away from the beautiful St. Paul’s Cathedral and for the next hour, we were allowed to just be, walk and let realization kick in. Feeling somewhat self confident of understanding my surroundings (classic British Wanna Be syndrome), I urged my people –Mother, Aunt and Mark- to head down to one of my favorite walks in the city.

After passing St. Paul’s, we took a right and followed the signs that led us to cross the Thames via the the Millennium Bridge and down to the South Bank. I’ve walked over this bridge several times with Mark holding hands and the view of the city and Tower Bridge still surprises me. I can’t help but walk slower, even as the steel bridge shakes and trembles with every step people take.

Even though we are immediately greeted by The Globe Theatre, the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s theatre of centuries ago, I never forget to turn around after crossing the bridge and admire how it peeks out through the buildings and the river. 

The view of the sleek metal bridge leading your eye to the majestic form of the cathedral reminds me I’m in a city that has blended perfectly the old with the new. And I think that is my favorite part of London.

The key to curing jetlag is to not trust that shot of dopamine ensued by finally arriving at your destination. That dopamine will turn on you in a few hours and it will be replaced by grogginess, slow motion movement and your brain being invaded with the phrase ‘where the hell am I?”

So we settled for one more stroll through Leicester Square and witnessed a crowd shrieking and waiting in line by the Empire Cinema. Turns out, Katy Perry’s Part of Me was premiering and I managed to get a glimpse of Katy’s bright pink hair as she entered the theater surrounded by five body guards. Bonus, but I’m more of a Lady Gaga kind of person.

After a quick dinner, we decided to quit while we were ahead and we made our way back to the hotel. It had been the first time I’d managed a successful jetlag free day after a long trip. I slept soundly for a good four hours and at around three o’clock in the morning, I opened my eyes long enough to assess my unfamiliar surroundings and mumble ‘where the hell am I?’

LAZY SATURDAY | Caves in Puerto Rico

Here’s another video of a cave in Puerto Rico for a no-words Lazy Saturday. La Cueva del Indio, the Indian’s Cave is right on the shore of Arecibo, a rocky barrier of limestone where you can see native’s petroglyphs at the bottom of the cave. The crashing waves make this a bit of a dangerous hike, depending on the weather and the wind, but an incomparable view.

Enjoy!

M xox

Delayed | Beginning of Europe Days

Day 1- Puerto Rico

The plane still hadn’t arrived and they told us it would be a three hour wait. I sat in a row of isolated seats facing gate 7 while the rest of the people began to fill the larger group of seats to my far left. They sat down, one by one, with their overstuffed backpacks and comfortable clothing fit for a nine hour flight to London. I watched them every now and then, noticing when a new group of friends arrived until the gate was packed with college students anxious to start their 30 day adventure in Europe.

A part of me, the impulsive fun side that rarely makes an appearance, thought of getting up and integrating myself into the group I observed, the group that would be my roommates, bus companions and friends for the month of July. Just say hello, I thought. Or at the very least, sit nearby and listen to their comments about the trip. 

But I couldn’t bring myself to join them, already so afraid of rejection or appearing like the girl who had already finished college and was at least three years older than the rest of the group. So I stayed in the awkwardly situated row of seats, facing the busy flight attendants, with my arms wrapped around my midriff and my headphones blasting.

Even with the music muffling all the sounds of the airport, I could still hear the cacophony from the group growing louder and louder until at least sixty people were exchanging stories and anecdotes of all their efforts to make it to this place, to this day. It was impossible to conquer them now, I was outnumbered.

This trip, a month long expedition to Europe, was the biggest decision I had made in my life. It took a year and a half to sign up, come up with the money and reserve our seats for this delayed plane.  By then, I had already graduated college for about a year and most of the people here were just finishing their sophomore year. 

My chosen companions: my Mother, who took me on my first trip to Europe when I turned 16 instead of planning me a party, and whom I knew would keep me on my toes for 30 days. My aunt, the other woman I always traveled with, who would fly in to London from Washington DC and meet us there, and my British Boyfriend, who was waiting for me in England. 

The mission: to see over 11 cities of the continent, starting from London all the way down to the Greek Islands by the end of the month. To not waste a second with napping or eating at McDonalds but still find a way to get up at 6 am every day with enough energy for endless walking. To try every food, every type of pasta, every unfamiliar dish but still find a way to fit into the three pair of pants I had packed for the whole month. But most importantly, to not restrict the experience to the illusions formed before the trip or to following the imagined path we had thought deemed following since we started daydreaming about it more than a year ago. To simply let it happen, let it affect us, in the way the countries and the people and the food decide to do so.

Our purpose: Some would have said fun, others the first taste of wanderlust. But the truth was we were never entirely sure until the very last day. But I can remember that my original purpose was just to be present. To see, for myself and not through books or college professors, what Europe was like and what it would mean to me. There were other purposes like, crossing off my Bucket List visit to Mykonos or staying up all night in Amsterdam. To spend time with Mom in a different context than the mother-daughter scenario we were used to. To travel with my Boyfriend to all the places we had talked about for years. To think what I would do for the next few months if I didn’t get into Grad School. To get away from the familiar and find out whom I was when no one was watching. 

I’ve always felt like a late bloomer. I take forever to make decisions and my emotions come bursting in a few hours after the moment has passed. I like to think of myself as impulsive but the truth is, after a certain time in my life, I became afraid of jumping.

Now, sitting and waiting for our three-hour delayed plane to arrive, it dawned on me I had already jumped, and not just from a ledge but from the highest bridge and I hadn’t even noticed. I was forcing myself away from everything I found comfortable, my small group of friends, my 9 to 5 job, any access to social media and instead I was diving head first into languages I couldn’t speak, four hour night sleeps and spending a good portion of every day in a bus. 

I had made it. I had already jumped and if this is what free falling felt like, creeping fear sewn to the abundance of possibilities, I had a feeling I could handle it.

The flight attendant announced the 9 pm flight to London, Heathrow was ready to board and apologized quickly for the delay. Even though we had a long night flight ahead of us and a killer jetlag to follow, we all got up immediately and could barely stand still as we handed out our flight tickets and boarded the plane.