Closing time

This is getting over, it was a great experience and I'll remember it forever with a smile in my face. I leave you some pictures of the last days with my parents.

November

November has been a great month, I spent the first week in Spain and after that I came back to Puerto Rico and made a visit to my friend Alvaro who is currently living in Boston.
Boston is a nice city, it does not look like the typical city of the States, for me it looks more than a European city. To be more accurate I'd say it has some neigbourhoods which could be in London and nobody there would notice anything.
My friend lives in Cambridge which is the part of the city where the university campus are, we visited Harvard and MIT which are the most important ones.
The sightseeing part was nice, even though the weather was so cold for a Bostonian(you can imagine how cold it was for a puertorican like me), surprisingly we went every day to walk and discover different parts of the city, I said surprisingly cause we party very hard every day, specially on friday when we had some adventures we'll probably remember for a long time.
And here it comes, the last week of november has been legend...wait for it...dary!
My friend Alvaro and Tonety from Spain came to my kingdom and as a host I tried to make them feel like if they were at home. Monday and tuesday were days to rest and charge the batteries for the upcoming events. On wednesday we went out just because I did not have to work the day after, thursday was the classic Thanksgiving and we celebrate it pretty well having the classical turkey.
On friday, saturday and sunday we went out and wake up pretty early every day to take the car and discover something new of this small island.
During their time here it was black friday so we went to do shopping, huge sales and disscounts in almost everything!

By the way I was told this weekend about the inception of several puertorican words, pretty funny:

Zafacón=papelera in spanish comes from the english expression "save a can".
Pana=amigo in spanish comes from the english word "partner".
Parisear= irse de fiesta in spanish comes from the english word "party"

News

It's been a while since the last post. I've been in Spain after more than 8 months abroad and it was great. I guess the lazyness it's the guilty of the delay in the updates. But now it's gonna change, next weeks promise a lot of fun. First of all I am going to Boston tomorrow for the weekend, friday it's holiday in Puerto Rico because they celebrate the conmemoration of the date the island was discovered 517 years ago by Cristobal Columbus.
So I'm gonna stay in Boston from thursday to sunday and when I am back again in Puerto Rico I'll have a new visit waiting for me.
Next thursday two more friends are coming to celebrate thanksgiving under the sun and avoiding the cold weather which is already happening in the whole north hemisphere.
I promise to update you with some pictures.
Btw this is getting over I already have my tickets to go back to Spain.

No water...

Puerto Rico is a developed country, if I'd have to tell you I'd say it belongs to the first world, it is almost a state of the United States of America, it is unofficially called the 51 state. Their streets are full of places that remind you the presence of big companies from the states, the roads crowded with big cars which use a lot of gas. Everybody has a cellphone, most of them an iPod and most of times are using it, even while they drive.
If you are a male young and cool puertorican you would probably wear a pair of air Jordan sneakers, if you are female you have probably spent the afternoon at the Plaza de las Americas Mall shopping.
This mall is the biggest in the Caribbean zone and if you can not see anyone in the streets is because they are there, 40 restaurants, loads of shops, cinemas, everything you could need. It is like our Parque Principado mall but 10 or 15 times bigger.
Well, I am gonna focus now after this, what I was going to say is that this looks like a regular first world country BUT behind all that modern and cool front the country has some caracteristics which I would say are more common in a second or third world country.
For instance right now I do not have tape water at home, I don't and anybody in 3 big areas of San Juan have either.
So right now and it's been like 10 hours so far, there are like 1 million people without running water at home.
In my way home this afternoon I stop by the supermarket to buy some stuff and people were talking about the water problem, some of them said last time it happened they had not had water for 2 days!!!
Besides this water problems, last Tuesday Esther the other intern in the Spanish Trade Office left San Juan and flew to Spain, her year at the caribbean is over and the office is so quiet right now, we said bye her on Monday, Batey was open again after almost 2 months and Casa de España arranged a party to welcome the new Spanish consul so we took advantage of those things and say Esther bye while drinking some wines, cubalibres and chichaitos in both places.((If you read this I want the pictures!!))
Tomorrow her "replacement" will arrive, I hope he takes a good shower at home before he leaves Spain.........

My new home

Hello everybody, I have been suffering some problems with the sink of the kitchen last few months, something caused by my upstairs neighbours who have been rebuilding their flat.
To solve those problems it is necessary to open up my kitchen wall and remove an old pipe to replace it for a new one and there is where the problem comes cause this is gonna last at least three days, and three days in Puerto Rico and talking about fixing a kitchen could mean a week or so.
My landlord offered me to move to my neighbours flat upstairs(they agree to lend me their flat this week, since it is their fault), but it was all up to me.
So last thursday I came to take a look to that flat and I could not believe what I saw, the flat has been rebuilt one year ago and nobody has lived here since that.
It is brand new, 2 floor flat plus an extra big terrace in the third with an amazing views of San Juan's bay.
AC included running all the time(it is even cold), modern bathroom and kitchen(with one of this huge modern fridge which does make ice and filters water), it does even have a little lift to carry stuff from the kitchen to the terrace...
After that I didn't hesitate to make the "effort" and move my stuff here to spend the week in this palace! It is like be living in a hotel.
Of course I am telling my landlord how taugh it is for me to move my old appartment but I am doing the "effort" just for her to repair it :)


And now I am sitting in the terrace with the computer hearing music and feeling more bohemian!
And now I am thinking about to drop in my old place this week and try to screw the rebuilding work so I can stay here!!

The longer I stay the better it's gonna be so lets see how long does the building work downstairs last...

Cat life

If I were a cat I'd love to live in Old San Juan.
There are cats living in most of the streets all over the world. Ok, if there is a chinese restaurant close, there is a rumour around saying cats disappear....dunno why. I think I never tried cat food and chinese sweet and sour pork tastes like pork and not anything else for me and so far there isn't a chinese restaurant here so they don't have to be scared.
They are used to live in the streets pretty well, it doesn't matter if the weather is hot or cold they manage to spend their lives so great, if it's cold they always find a warm car engine to sleep close to and if it's hot there's always a windy dark spot to lie down on. Besides food stuff is easy for them cause they are used to eat almost everything. Since I have had cats I can tell you they can be so fancy and decide not to eat one cat food brand but, in the other hand they enjoy hunting and eating flies... here I've seen them hunting lizards, frogs (coquís) and since I've never seen a rat around I guess they have something to do with that.
But I have noticed that here in OSJ they do live much better, they are the kings. There is a NGO which takes care of them when they are sick, feed them, vaccinate them and watch out for them to be safe.
This organization sterilizes some of the cats to keep the population under control as well. I don't know if they are being succeed cause there are hundreds of them.
All these cats look so happy here, you can find them sleeping on or under a car, in the sidewalk, over the grass and they don't bother to run if you walk close to them.....
I'll upload some pictures to try to show how the neighbourhood is but u'd be here to feel it cause they are much more than what the picture shows, now and since 3 weeks ago or so there is a cat which spends its time in my building (it handle to come in jumping the front door). At the beginning it was so shy and try to hide every time I went out my place, it could be linked with the fact that Marta was here with me and she scared cats, hehe, now it does not move when I go out, it keeps there, staring at me, asking for food and sometimes it tries to sneak into my place too!
Sizes: there are all kind of cat sizes, from the puertorican size (so so fat, probably a cat which eats at McDonalds or Wendy's very often) to the skinny cats which seem Victoria Beckam fans...

Oh my god!

Good morning to everyone!
As I used to do in my old blog I'm gonna try to write the posts for so on in english.
I said I'm gonna try cause, as you'll be able to realize, I am pretty bad using Shakespeare's language so I hope I can improve it using it more often.
Today I was thinking to write a post about religion in Puerto Rico. I discovered during last few weeks that religious believes here, are very different than what you can find in Spain, at least it is very different than what I think you can find there.
In the island and because of those 400 years they shared under the spanish corona, Roman Catholic Church is the most popular belief and, as we can see in most of countries, here you can find churches of the following religions as well: United Brethren, Presbyterian, Methodist

, Disciples of Christ, Congregational, Christian, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostal, Church of Jesus, Lutheran, and Christian, Missionary Alliance......
Because of the arrival of african slaves and their mix with the Taino indians which were the original inhabitants of Borinquen(Puerto Rico). There is a presence of traditional african religion in here. Puerto Rico is located very close to la española and religions which use Vudu (specially in haiti) are somehow present here as well.
Besides those I've seen a lot of small churches everywhere, all of them with different names and owners.... You read it correctly, owners. This churches and its believes belong to someone, usually a company owned by a person who is the "pastor".
It was weird to see that usually these "pastores" make a lot of money with its religion business.
During the weekends the churchs and its parking lots are crowded of people who are afraid of something they did or did not and want to clean their mind of bad feelings praying and paying.
There is a story about a guy who founded a church, got rich and now lives like a king in Florida, his children are now taking care of the business(church) he built.
It is a place to pray and to have fun. In the building there is plenty of staff to spend an afternoon; museum, play room, restaurant, cinema,....

"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours. "
Aldous Huxley