Puerto Rico, round two!

 Saturday we docked again in San Juan, and debarked the ship.  Great time! 

 

 But we still had another day in San Juan to look forward to:)  We headed to our hotel, the DoubleTree at San Juan, and they took our bags for us until our room was ready later that day.  Until then though we headed to Old San Juan, in search of a seed ring.

 Old San Juan was awesome, so much culture.  First we headed to all the shops looking.  We went through a crowd of pigeons; watched old men in panama straw hats playing chess; had to buy mallorca's, Puerto Rican sweet bread with ham and cheese, through broken Spanish (I really want to learn a second language, and this experience pushed me to start).  It was touristy, but more culture than catering to tourists. 

 And then we found them.  Seed rings!  I remember when I started dating Nathan he had a seed ring that he had gotten in Puerto Rico.  I guess before we were married it had broken, but I remember that ring.  He wanted to get another, and we had looked all over to no avail until here.  They are made from corozo nuts.  Here's a look at the process:

 Anyway, mission a success!  And they weren't too expensive, another plus.  Then we walked some more around Old San Juan.  I couldn't get enough of the place.

 It also got hot, and I'm a sucker for real, fresh limonada!  

 These spire things used to be sticking out of the wall around Old San Juan protecting the city.

 The wall around the city, with the lookout towers every so often.

 On the far end is a lookout tower, and a very iconic shot of Old San Juan.

And these cobblestones!  Everywhere in the city, and they are original from the 1600's!

It was a great day in the city.  Seriously Puerto Rico has become a place where I'll want to go back again and again. That night we had really good burritos from a food truck near the hotel.  We walked there, and I had just showered and straightened my hair.  It started to POUR rain while at the food truck.  It hadn't rained in Puerto Rico in 3 weeks!  My hair was no longer straight after that.  Ironic and funny.  Nathan and I sat under a little canopy to eat, and the rain kept coming.  When it seemed to have stopped we started walking back, and had to wait for a stoplight to cross a busy street.  Down came the rain again.  Great experience and we were laughing the whole way back.  Then the koki frogs started singing.  I never saw one, but boy did we hear them. 

The next day we found a little cafe near the hotel, and again in broken Spanish had to order breakfast before having to leave for the airport to head home.  I can read Spanish and get the gist of what it is, but speaking is my down point.  Cinnamon oatmeal and another mallorta (served with fries, kinda weird).  Thank you Puerto Rico, we will be back!