So getting here was an adventure in itself. My last class on Friday, (Feb 11th) ended at 4pm. Then I drove the hour and a half to get home to Beaverton, which actually took a little over two hours because traffic was INSANE! At home it was eat a piece of pizza, transfer some things to my backpack, and head out. I actually forgot my poster, which I am presenting, in the kitchen, so we had to turn around and go back. Luckily we were only about a mile from the house when I remembered. 
Once at the airport I checked in and just zipped through security. I have never seen the airport so dead. Yeah, it was evening but it was only 7:30 and I saw about 10 people total. My first flight was to Seattle. We left from a weird little terminal that was actually under the main floor, and the plane was teeny tiny. I think it had room for 30 people. And it didn’t have jet engines, it had big propellers. After a nauseating hour ride we got to Seattle, where I left that plane and got right onto another. That was a 3-4 hour flight to DC. I managed to sleep a bit but it wasn’t very good sleep. We got to DC early, making my hour layover there into 1 hour and 40 minutes. Then I boarded my final flight, thankfully, and headed off to San Juan.
After a relatively uneventful flight we arrived in San Juan at 1pm, local time. We are four hours ahead of you folks back home on the West Coast. Happily on my way down to baggage claim I ran into the girl I’m rooming with, who also did an internship at the same place I did this past summer. We got our bags, met two more people who were going to the conference (it’s easy to tell someone is going to a conference when they are walking around the airport with a poster tube), and took a taxi to the hotel.
Although I felt rather gross after the long flights, since we had time, we decided to go explore Old San Juan. So a quick change and then a 40 minute wait for the bus and we were there. We basically spent the next few hours exploring the city. Lots of street vendors were selling various forms of food, and I was hungry. It was the coolest thing when we found someone selling baked potatoes and you could put a bunch of stuff on them. I had broccoli and other mixed veggies, butter, and ground beef on mine. It was quite delicious.
Here are some of the pictures from the city:
There were flowers on the beach, we think for Valentine's Day
So, there are cats EVERYWHERE in Old San Juan. I mean, everywhere.
I don't know what this is, but it's awesome
El Morro castle
The HMS Bounty sitting in the harbor
The national frog, peering over a building
After our wanderings we came back, finally showered (woot woot!), registered and had dinner with the other ASLOMP students. ASLOMP is the ASLO Multicultural Program, and they are the ones who paid for me to come here. By the way, the conference I am attending is the ASLO conference, and ASLO stands for the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.
Peace!
