I just arrived from the sunny Isla del Encanto (enchanting island) last night, and I'm still transitioning from the relaxing tropical to stress-inducing city life. Where do I begin? There's so much that went down, and so much that will go forgotten if I don't write out everything now!
First off, I had been living in New York for roughly a year now, and I slowly felt myself becoming hardened and jaded by the hustle life here. I had a lot of good experiences, but I had a lot of challenges placed in front of me too. From bad roommates, to horrible bosses, to worse MTA subway commutes, New York taught me to trust no one, but my own instincts--that life here is fast, expensive, and a lot of people are willing to take advantage of your naivety, so you need to put up a serious face, and act the part. I don't really like this style, and it really took time for me to realize this, but I now see the efficiency and necessity of this. Because New York will eat you alive if you don't toughen up!! Sharpen your tongues, and minds accordingly.
Anyways, I felt beaten up by this city, and a vacation was long passed due. I've been meaning to go on vacation, but I had a lot of concerns in my mind. I was still on this job hunt, and I didn't feel too good about spending money on it, but heck, that's life isn't it? When you have the time, you don't have the money, and when you have the money, you don't have the time huh? The time was pressing, so I somewhat impulsively bought the roundtrip airplane tickets from New York City to Puerto Rico, and planned step by step there afterwards.
Boarding Passes: Tickets to Paradise
Before heading off to Puerto Rico, and after purchasing the plane tickets online, we made a little Puerto Rico box, where we placed things we would bring to the enchanted island. The first thing we bought was sunblock and an old-fashioned waterproof camera. Gradually, we filled our box with other things such as clothes, goggles, and other random things we thought would be appropriately fun for the trip.
I guess buying the plane ticket is the hardest part, because everything after that organically gets planned. So the first vacation advice to give anyone would be: Buy the plane ticket. We then made hotel reservations, planned to rent a car, and brainstormed ideas for activities.
We planned out a short trip from the eighth to the eleventh of the month, and marched onwards. We found a Groupon deal to stay at the Wyndham Hotel in Palmas del Mar. Funny story. We had clicked to purchase the Groupon deal to book the hotel room, but it had unfortunately the deal ran out right under our fingertips, seconds after we clicked the SUBMIT button. Yeni didn't give up there, and proactively directly called Palmas del Mar to get a room. Long story short, Yeni got a better deal talking to the front desk on the phone. Interesting, no? After we bought the plane ticket and reserved the hotel room, we were just counting down the days until take off.
We patiently waited, and March 8th finally arrived. Here are some photos of us San Juan bound.
Kissing cold, ugly NY bye--for now
Sunset (AirTram - Howard Beach to JFK Terminal 5)
Deeper Sunset
Happy to get away!
Muy emocionante por Puerto Rico!
Adios!
I will continue blogging about my Isla del Encanto trip in the following posts, so stay tuned! By the way, if you have any questions about our trip, including what services we used, and what places we recommend, I'd love to share my two cents with you!
Xo,
Haerina
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