I really like it here, it's much more fun and interesting than most
of Puerto Rico. I feel like I finally left the US. More on that
later, but you should all consider spending some time here.
Also, yesterday was the first day I spent in Spanish since I left
home. What a rush. It made me tired and want to eat a lot. By the
end of the day I was exhausted in a way that couldn't be accounted
for just by the small amount of sleep I'd had. But at the same time
it was extremely exhilarating mentally and spiritually.
A few notes though, on the journey here:
There were two boats involved. The ferry to Culebra, and the ferry
from Mayaguez, PR to Santo Domingo, DR.
The first was a normal small ferry, the second was a party ferry.
Connecting the two were two bus connections. In the trip I realized
that Ramon's Worcester <-> NYC shuttle is modeled on what in Puerto
Rico is a full fledged and super efficient system of van transport
blanketing the island. Anyway, that's what I rode on.
Funny things about the party ferry: it was a party ferry in the sense
that it offered live entertainment, movies, restaurants, and
boozing. The only boozing I did before becoming intolerably sleepy
(thanks to that 5:30 wakeup) was an airline-sized wine bottle of
"Ponte Vecckio" semi fizzy red that I bought down the street from the
ferry dock. For entertainment, I watched a projected VHS of the Da
Vinci Code in Spanish with no subtitles. Or rather, there were
subtitles, but only when characters spoke in Latin. Also, I was
brutally tired and half asleep for most of it.
The funniest thing about the ferry was that they must have got a deal
on it in Denmark, and there were all kinds of traces of the
Scandinavian. Like decorative paintings of olde Danish tall ships
with syllables like "borg" in the captions. Or europeanish 220 volt
two-pronged power outlets everywhere. Or conference rooms with names
like "Stockholm" (now converted into the cheap seats for bedless
passengers like me). My favorite was the sign on the doors out to
the deck that warned of ice. I collected pictures of these specimens
like seashells, and that was my favorite.
On the 220 volt power. I actually *had* the adapter from that trip
to Italy last summer, and so I plugged my laptop in and it worked!
But then I as I had my hand on the laptop while it was closed and
charging I felt this strange vibration, unaccounted for by anything I
knew about my laptop or felt in the motion of the boat. I was
rubbing my hand across it trying to figure out what the hell was
going on when I realized it was a mild electric shock. Yooo.
Arriving by sea in Santo Domingo in the morning was beautiful, a way
I suspect arriving from some place on a several-stories-high boat in
the early misty morning always is.
