La Isla de Encanto
In Puerto Rico with little sister, staying with my aunt's family. (:
It's lovely.
There are those impossibly elegant palm trees, the kind that can't be much wider around than a woman's neck but have that huge burst of shimmery fronds at the top. Coconut palms, real, live coconut palms. They look like the arborial world's high-fashion models (only much more stately and alive than the human version). And then there's those little brilliant green parrots, and the coquis at night, and all these huge humped hills with immense walls of forest, greener than the little parrots, just cresting out of nowhere beside the road, right outside San Juan. It seems like the island was compressed from a whole continent- the beaches, the mountains, the rivers, like someone crumpled up the template for the place and decided to keep it that way. According to my uncle, there's four climates, and Puerto Rico is about 100 miles wide.
I got here yesterday, and today we went into Old San Juan. It's a strange city- very beautiful, very cramped, with those tight shadowed streets found in old cities, and, in places, cobbled in blue ballast bricks, with many houses 9those of people who can't afford AC) barricaded by twisting iron grating instead of glass, to let in the wind and keep out thieves. There's graffiti everywhere, some intricate and inarguably art, but mostly twining, illegible signatures, and grimy band posters pasted in rows of a hundred along the highway, soft-core billboards of luscious women, mouths agape, and dozens of stalls selling maybe-bootleg-maybe-high-fashion-does-it-really-matter? purses ($25-60 dollars, automatic $5 discount if you look unsure). But there's also an abundance of eery old statues and fountains, commemorating a serene, beatific Isabella, la Reina Catolica, and the spirit of Puerto Rico (which includes lots of nudity, guitar serenades, dolphins, agricultural fertility, and possibly anorexia), and, the strangest, a group of estactic-eyed, spindly-limbed women, a bishop, and a young boy, all in righteous posture and iron gowns yanked back by brutal wind, advancing blindly forward. The apparently urgent purpose that burns in those metallic eyes will probably be lost to me forever; the Spanish on the explanatory sign was too advanced for me.
San Juan is one of those old, old cities, I think, that seems to have its own life, a city woken by the passing and passions of so many human lives, building and rebuilding, death and birth and restoration, with its centuries-old barricades looming out of postcard perfect-sea, its graffiti and pollution haze and puddled sprawl, apparently ageless, decaying, and growing all at once. It's not at all like Orlando, which sometimes seems so amorphous, gelatinous, like a monstrous, mindless amoeba expanding over the land without evolving into anything more advanced than what it emerged as. San Juan is an entirely different beast.
Tommorrow we're going to the beach! X3 I'm having a really great time, though in the idle parts I've been a little lonely (little sister hangs out with our cousin around her age; I'm a bit too shy around aunt&uncle still, so I mostly read) especially since I'm restricted, thanks to roaming charges, only 1 call every other day to Marco. I want to tell him everything, and for him to do the same. (It's strange to me how I can miss him without being miserable or anxious. Strange, new, and wonderful.)
But tommorrow's that every other day, and I have lots to say. <3
Anyway, if you want to talk to me this week, I can always correspond through LJ/Gaia Mail/Myspace, so leave me a note here if you want to talk. I'd be very happy if you did!
It's lovely.
There are those impossibly elegant palm trees, the kind that can't be much wider around than a woman's neck but have that huge burst of shimmery fronds at the top. Coconut palms, real, live coconut palms. They look like the arborial world's high-fashion models (only much more stately and alive than the human version). And then there's those little brilliant green parrots, and the coquis at night, and all these huge humped hills with immense walls of forest, greener than the little parrots, just cresting out of nowhere beside the road, right outside San Juan. It seems like the island was compressed from a whole continent- the beaches, the mountains, the rivers, like someone crumpled up the template for the place and decided to keep it that way. According to my uncle, there's four climates, and Puerto Rico is about 100 miles wide.
I got here yesterday, and today we went into Old San Juan. It's a strange city- very beautiful, very cramped, with those tight shadowed streets found in old cities, and, in places, cobbled in blue ballast bricks, with many houses 9those of people who can't afford AC) barricaded by twisting iron grating instead of glass, to let in the wind and keep out thieves. There's graffiti everywhere, some intricate and inarguably art, but mostly twining, illegible signatures, and grimy band posters pasted in rows of a hundred along the highway, soft-core billboards of luscious women, mouths agape, and dozens of stalls selling maybe-bootleg-maybe-high-fashion-does-it-really-matter? purses ($25-60 dollars, automatic $5 discount if you look unsure). But there's also an abundance of eery old statues and fountains, commemorating a serene, beatific Isabella, la Reina Catolica, and the spirit of Puerto Rico (which includes lots of nudity, guitar serenades, dolphins, agricultural fertility, and possibly anorexia), and, the strangest, a group of estactic-eyed, spindly-limbed women, a bishop, and a young boy, all in righteous posture and iron gowns yanked back by brutal wind, advancing blindly forward. The apparently urgent purpose that burns in those metallic eyes will probably be lost to me forever; the Spanish on the explanatory sign was too advanced for me.
San Juan is one of those old, old cities, I think, that seems to have its own life, a city woken by the passing and passions of so many human lives, building and rebuilding, death and birth and restoration, with its centuries-old barricades looming out of postcard perfect-sea, its graffiti and pollution haze and puddled sprawl, apparently ageless, decaying, and growing all at once. It's not at all like Orlando, which sometimes seems so amorphous, gelatinous, like a monstrous, mindless amoeba expanding over the land without evolving into anything more advanced than what it emerged as. San Juan is an entirely different beast.
Tommorrow we're going to the beach! X3 I'm having a really great time, though in the idle parts I've been a little lonely (little sister hangs out with our cousin around her age; I'm a bit too shy around aunt&uncle still, so I mostly read) especially since I'm restricted, thanks to roaming charges, only 1 call every other day to Marco. I want to tell him everything, and for him to do the same. (It's strange to me how I can miss him without being miserable or anxious. Strange, new, and wonderful.)
But tommorrow's that every other day, and I have lots to say. <3
Anyway, if you want to talk to me this week, I can always correspond through LJ/Gaia Mail/Myspace, so leave me a note here if you want to talk. I'd be very happy if you did!