Shoos
Continuing the tale of my trip:
Tuesday So I wake up Tuesday morning and I'm thinking, "Who the hell kept crawling in and out of my bed?". I don't know if I was imagining it, but it felt as if someone was being very indecisive the night before about which of the two hotel beds to sleep in. After a belgian waffle breakfast at the four table diner across the street, we headed out to Old San Juan, because according to everything we heard, there was TONS to do there. We stopped at the Plaza de las Americas, the main shopping mall in the area (or the island) and it was the biggest, awesomest mall I've ever seen. The stores were great, the place was great, it was HUGE. The food court took up the whole third floor. And my dad being my dad, he wanted to go in like, every store and spent over $100 in the first 5 minutes.
The downtown area by the port was exactly what I had seen before when I went on the cruise. There were a couple of cruise ships on the port, which explains why the streets were FILLED with people. Ends up, there wasn't much to do around there at all, except walk around and get sunburned (not me, I was drenched in SPF 50 'cause I'm such a big fat dork). So we got back in the car and headed to the other side of the island to Fajardo to look for another hotel.
We found this beautiful golf resort where the rooms cost like $500 a night. Of course, we couldn't afford that for three more days, and anyways, all the rooms were occupied. My dad left us in the car, went inside and kept us waiting for about 20 minutes. When he came back, he was holding out two packages with kiddie cups and invitations to "Camp Coqui" for Chifai and me, and with a broad mischievous grin on his face ordered us to casually walk into the hotel about 5 minutes after him and Ruth and head to room 4047. Perplexed, we did as we were told, and when we got to this fabulous mini suite is when we learned that my dad had told the man at the front desk that he was a representative of Nike, that he had two 5 five year old kids with him, and that he REALLY needed a room, so he'd give the man a free pair of Nikes if he would get him one. The suite was awesome, and it was only $99 a night. Why? Because we're VIPs. Not really, but my dad convinced the man of it. He did get his free sneakers, though. Dad works in a sporting goods store, see, so he often has a bunch of merchandise lying around the house, and took a few things on the trip just in case ;).
That night we ate in Don Pepe's, a tiny restaurant nearby. It had only three four person tables and a small two seat bar. Upstairs is the owner's apartment, and it was a very nice family setting. The waiter even sat down to talk to us while we ate, though I found that kind of annoying because I like my peace and quiet while I eat.
And that was Tuesday. Stay tuned for more..
-Michelle
Tuesday So I wake up Tuesday morning and I'm thinking, "Who the hell kept crawling in and out of my bed?". I don't know if I was imagining it, but it felt as if someone was being very indecisive the night before about which of the two hotel beds to sleep in. After a belgian waffle breakfast at the four table diner across the street, we headed out to Old San Juan, because according to everything we heard, there was TONS to do there. We stopped at the Plaza de las Americas, the main shopping mall in the area (or the island) and it was the biggest, awesomest mall I've ever seen. The stores were great, the place was great, it was HUGE. The food court took up the whole third floor. And my dad being my dad, he wanted to go in like, every store and spent over $100 in the first 5 minutes.
The downtown area by the port was exactly what I had seen before when I went on the cruise. There were a couple of cruise ships on the port, which explains why the streets were FILLED with people. Ends up, there wasn't much to do around there at all, except walk around and get sunburned (not me, I was drenched in SPF 50 'cause I'm such a big fat dork). So we got back in the car and headed to the other side of the island to Fajardo to look for another hotel.
We found this beautiful golf resort where the rooms cost like $500 a night. Of course, we couldn't afford that for three more days, and anyways, all the rooms were occupied. My dad left us in the car, went inside and kept us waiting for about 20 minutes. When he came back, he was holding out two packages with kiddie cups and invitations to "Camp Coqui" for Chifai and me, and with a broad mischievous grin on his face ordered us to casually walk into the hotel about 5 minutes after him and Ruth and head to room 4047. Perplexed, we did as we were told, and when we got to this fabulous mini suite is when we learned that my dad had told the man at the front desk that he was a representative of Nike, that he had two 5 five year old kids with him, and that he REALLY needed a room, so he'd give the man a free pair of Nikes if he would get him one. The suite was awesome, and it was only $99 a night. Why? Because we're VIPs. Not really, but my dad convinced the man of it. He did get his free sneakers, though. Dad works in a sporting goods store, see, so he often has a bunch of merchandise lying around the house, and took a few things on the trip just in case ;).
That night we ate in Don Pepe's, a tiny restaurant nearby. It had only three four person tables and a small two seat bar. Upstairs is the owner's apartment, and it was a very nice family setting. The waiter even sat down to talk to us while we ate, though I found that kind of annoying because I like my peace and quiet while I eat.
And that was Tuesday. Stay tuned for more..
-Michelle