Saturday in San Juan

Friday, Dec. 7 we rolled out at 3:30 and hit the ground running. One of the delights of traveling on a weekday is that you are traveling mostly with accomplished business people who know the drill and don’t cause tie-ups at the screening stations. Another delight is that you are not clabbered with people dragging kids. Check in was flawless. Usually they have to wand me because the underwires in my bra trip the detectors, but this time, I breezed right through.

We are traveling with the E. family, all born in the Ukraine. The kids, A.babe and G.dude are the nicest teenagers I have ever, EVER known. Honest to God, if you put up a statue to these kids, they are so wonderful that pigeons wouldn’t crap on it. They are civil, interesting, gracious human beings! And they are really being tested right now. I.dad just returned from a grueling two weeks at his father’s deathbed, and is suffering serious back cramps from two twenty hour plane trips in ten days. Y.mom broke her foot a month ago and is severely hobbled. The kids are compassionate, helpful and gracious – self-sacrificing even. They take charge of the whole wheelchair and luggage thing without even being prompted. Thte teenage son is selfless enough to give his dad a backrub in a public airport. (That was funny. Gdude was working away on Idad and I came over to help. I got my hands on his back and started working my thumbs into the tight spots. Idad started rattling away in Russian with real urgency. I looked at Gdude and asked, “what’s he saying?” Idad jerked his head around in astonishment. He didn’t know it was me doing the work, and was telling his son, “Yes, yes, that’s the spot!”

One thing I like to do, when I see someone in uniform, is to go up to them and say, “Thank you for taking care of me.” I don’t think we should be in Iraq, but I admire and appreciate the folks who are laying their lives on the line at the orders of their country. So there was this young fellow in line for his tickets, and I went up and thanked him, and smiles broke out all over his face and he said the most heartfelt, “You’re welcome!” I have ever heard. It something we could all do. Just thank the troops for being there for us. I thank veterans, too.

So anyway, the flights were smooth, the connection in Dallas went off just the way they are supposed to, the movie on the plane was, “No Reservations” which is a charming bit of fluff. I don’t know who the male lead is, but he has a distinctly Robert Redfordish charm which he just radiates like a halogen light bulb.

I sat next to a polite mid-thirties Australian lad who crews on racing yachts, and was on his way from Puerto Vallerta to St. Martin to apply for a job. I wanted him to tell me stories, but he wanted to sleep, so I left him alone. Talk about your classic young Billy Budd, though. Strapping physique, massive forearms, blonde hair bleached quite white by the sun, skin already leathery, pale blue eyes set in a nest of weatherwise wrinkles. . . Sigh.

Our hotel: The Howard Johnson in Old San Juan is in an historic old hotel building, the Plaza del Armes. It’s a couple hundred years old, and a bit the worse for wear. The elevator is about the size of a closet – and not a walk-in closet, but a small coat closet. It will hold two people and some suitcases if the people are friendly and the suitcases are stacked. And it’s faster to walk up the stairs than it is to take the elevator.

Our room is eleven by eleven feet with a bed, tiny desk, armoir, no closet (they may have used it for the elevator) and a small, immaculately clean bathroom. And NO WINDOWS. Not one. A slatted grill above the door that lets air through, and that’s it. The old hotel was built around a little courtyard about twelve feet across, and all the rooms opened out onto galleries around it. The courtyard has been roofed, and air conditioning put in. I’m sitting in the atrium right now because the room is a teensy bit claustrophobic.

DH woke at 7 and was instantly bright eyed and bushy-tailed. “I’m on vacation and I don’t want to miss a thing!” is his motto. We were up and walking the steamy streets by 7:30. I got lots of pictures and will try to download soon, but DH is now champing at the bit again, so I’ll try to post while I can.

"Let's go! We might miss something!!"