Month: January 2016

Colorado to San Juan

~ Wanderlets ~ 10 Comments

San Juan, Puerto that is.  At first I wasn’t too keen to fly to San Juan in order to take this cruise but now I’m quite pleased. As far as Caribbean destinations, you don’t hear much about San Juan but it was an extremely pleasant surprise. Old San Juan reminds me a lot of the colonial part of Mazatlan with the same style of architecture and colorfully painted buildings. However Old San Juan is cleaner, with more shops, and even narrower streets that are cobblestoned. It is breezy and comfortable everywhere as this part of town is surrounded on three sides by water.

Hotels are expensive though! Old San Juan has mostly small, old hotels and from a conversation I overheard, not a one has an elevator. We were on the 5th floor. The front desk clerk carried our luggage up but I carried mine down yesterday. My arms needed the strength training. Daughter Lauren who is 32, doesn’t feel sorry for me and refuses to help which is to my benefit. And she has even forbidden me to take the elevators on this 12 deck ship.

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Goodbye snow

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Lauren and some interesting chairs in San Juan
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A view from the rooftop of our hotel
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Many building have wrought iron balconies
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Parked next to a Holland ship, we had the quickest and easiest boarding ever. Next port is St. Thomas.

Never Say Never

~ Wanderlets ~ 2 Comments

Between September and December of 2014 Steve and I took three cruises: One from Los Angeles to Australia, another from Australia to New Zealand, and the final one from Los Angeles to Hawaii and back. By the time the Hawaii cruise ended we had been on a ship for 53 days total and I told Steve that I never wanted to take another cruise again.  He said “Oh yes we will.”  Never say never or else you will be proven wrong!

But three things finally changed my mind for me: 1) Carnival Cruises made an offer I could not resist 2) My daughter Lauren has not had a real vacation in about 8 years and desperately needs to just relax a while 3) Although not particularly interested in going to the Caribbean, I spent the last three winters in a row south of the US and am craving some heat and humidity.

Steve and I have been on seven cruises, however our reason was to have an inexpensive way to visit the various destinations and not for the sake of cruising.  This trip will be more for relaxing and the cruise experience. Lauren and I have not booked any shore excursions and will play it by ear as to what we will do, if anything, on each island.

As I mentioned in my post Waiting, this cruise is costing less than 1/2 the normal price. When you look at the bottom of this page at the Categories list of all the places we have been in the past six years you might think we are well off. Not so and far from it. I think anyone can do what we have done with planning, thriftiness, a strong desire, and sometimes a little luck.  Where there is a will, there IS a way.

36 hours to departure!

 

 

 

Today’s Assignment

~ Wanderlets ~ 1 Comment
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Grazing land?

In yesterday’s Blogging 101 assignment we were to leave a comment on at least four other blogs that we had never commented on before.  Now if I had known in advance that today’s assignment would be to write a blog post relating to one of those comments I might have set myself up for something fun to write about.  On the other hand, the subject matter of the blog post I linked to below is very dear to me mainly because of the animals that suffer, our health, and the damage to the environment.

A 19 year old Austrian student named Fabien has a blog called “Things To Think About” and wrote a post called Memoires of a Cow. I urge you to read this because it is so well written and so moving, but also with a word of caution; you might cry and you might never eat meat again.

I left a comment, the only comment this particular post has had.  Perhaps you can add your own to his blog as it is fairly new and I doubt that it is widely read at this point.

My husband and I eat a plant based diet at least 95% of the time. On Christmas Eve we fell off the wagon and had a bit of ham but after reading Fabien’s post we won’t fall off the wagon again.

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These cows in Bavaria want to live like this forever