August 22, 2009

Puerto Rico--Back to where it all began

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I still have vivid impressions of my first airplane ride...I was eight-years-old, and my family was headed to Puerto Rico.  Since then, I've always associated airports with that feeling of electric excitement--a gateway to destinations unknown.  I still store captured images of that magical trip to PR--the tiny frogs that sounded like birds, the strange air that felt stuck (my first experience with humidity), the coconut my dad tried to open by running over with the rental car, the fancy hotel, and the old streets of San Juan.  This trip was special because I'm pretty sure it's where I caught the travel bug that has since festered and grown greedy with need, causing me to feel restless every so often...  


So it only seems fitting that 16 years later, I'm back to where it all began...I can't believe how much things have changed, or maybe it's that I see things differently than from through my eight-year-old lens...

The beauty of Puerto Rico is still as I remember it, but of course much about the island has changed.  I feel a deeper connection with the culture now that I can appreciate the historic context and intermix with some of the local people in Spanish that I've acquired along the way.

This trip marks some new memories...trying to locate the house we rented in the middle of the barrio without street signs, having breakfast on the balcony overlooking the ocean and cemetery (weird mix), munching on fresh BBQ along the pork highway, living on Culebra Island, diving and snorkeling in the aqua colored reefs, jumping in the ocean on a full moon night with newfound friends, returning to the old streets of San Juan, and feeling at ease with island life.