tobia, eo nomine

Sunday morning, after a nice buffet breakfast at our hotel, we took a taxi in to Old San Juan. We had the taxi drop us off at the Catherdral there as we were going to try and catch mass. It was only around 12:10 and the midday heat was starting to get unbearable. We walked in to the church and it was absolutely gorgeous. They had all the front doors and several of the side doors open so as to get a bit of a breeze in there and to reduce the heat even further, they had the lights off and were reading the scriptures by candlelight. It seemed like a very pretty service, the only problem was that the entire service was in Spanish. In case you didn’t know, everyone in Puerto Rico speaks Spanish. Most of them speak English as well, but pretty much everyone knows Spanish. It is crazy. Since the last time that I have really looked at Spanish was about ten or twelve years ago, I really dont recall much.

After we sat through all of the readings, we decided that it made sense to just leave since we weren’t getting anything out of mass. After mass we walked through the streets of Old San Juan. The style of the buildings are in the typical Carribean style and colors. I absolutely love the bright colors and the stucco exterior of the buildings that you see around here. They remind me so much of Bermuda and St. Thomas and they make me happy because I remember the times we spent there.

While we were walking through the streets of Old San Juan, we decided to do a little shopping. There were a few stores that we found at least a little interesting, stopping in to Coach and Dooney & Bourke among others, but for me, the highlight of the shopping was the Puma store. I found some nice new kicks for about $17 and they look pretty sharp.

We took a little break out of our day to have some lunch at the Hard Rock in San Juan. I don’t know about you guys, but we love going to the Hard Rock for lunch or dinner when we are traveling. We always know that we are going to get a good meal at the Hard Rock, and the prospect of getting a new pilsner, hurricane or shot glass from a city we haven’t been to before is fun as well. I like to take a look through the different memorabilia that they have, and this one had some nice pieces including a shirt worn by Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and several items from Jon Bon Jovi. I took a picture of his guitar to send to Sanchelli. I know he would appreciate it. After we had lunch and walked around a little more we came to a square in the city. You know how in Central Park, and in other large cities, there will be spots for people to play Chess in the parks? Well, here in this square they had it set up so that people could play Dominos. It was fascinating.

After we walked around a little longer, we decided to call it quits for the day and went back to our hotel to sit by the pool. The weather wasn’t that great and we didn’t spend much time down there before heading back to our room to figure out where we wanted to go for dinner. We decided to go across the street from our hotel to a restaurant called Miro which served Catalan style seafood. I’m not a very big seafood eater, but I decided to branch out a little bit and I ordered the Baked Halibut in a Creamy Cheese sauce. It was absolutely delicious. I think I may have to go for more of the seafood if I get an opportunity when we are here since I am sure that a lot of it has to be fresh.