We stayed in the Isla Verde area of San Juan, an area known for its excellent beaches, and they didn’t disappoint.  Not surprisingly, it is also home to many of the resorts in San Juan and we slummed it in one of the cheaper rooms of one of the nicest hotels, the El San Juan.  Situated on prime beach real-estate, the views in and around the hotel were beautiful.

After flying in, we quickly made our way to the hotel and found it very similar to the Casino-Hotels in Las Vegas.  Regretfully, that included a lack of affordable dining.  Each meal we consumed in the hotel cost between $40-100 — ouch!  The Palms steakhouse, La Piccola Fontana, and even the so-called casual dining Galleria Pizza & Trattoria were all bank-busters.  Other than the cost, the biggest challenge we had was finding decent, at least somewhat authentic, Puerto-Rican food.  Christina tried several dishes but almost all were a huge disappointment.  Luckily, on our trip to Old San Juan, we found the El Patio de Sam which exceeded her expectations.

Though my life doesn’t revolve around my next meal as it does my somehow-ridiculously-petite wife, Old San Juan was also one of my favorite parts of the trip.  We visited there on our first full day by taking a $0.75 bus which also let us see much of downtown San Juan.  Afterwards, we wandered the streets of Old San Juan, walked along the beachfront walls, and visited El Morro, each of which were great and worth a visit by themselves.  The views from the fort of El Morro were even more stunning than the views from the hotel.

The rest of the vacation, we simply lounged around our hotel, relaxed on the beach, hung out around the awesome pools at the hotel and pretty much had an awesome time.  The people of Puerto Rico must be trying to challenge Bhutan for happiest place on earth as the people there were universally, without exception, some of the nicest people Christina or I had ever come across.

No trip could be without a few mishaps and this was no exception.  Almost immediately upon arrival, I received numerous emails & texts notifying me that “hey, one of those things we rushed out the door before I left didn’t quite deploy correctly” — nothing like tech support to kick off a vacation!  At least I found out quickly if my cell got service there.   Also, we had booked this flight on US Airways just like our previous flight to St Louis.  If we hadn’t booked it earlier, we would definitely have chosen a different airline — it wasn’t quite as bad as our previous trip but it certainly wasn’t good either.  I almost feel sorry for the people who work for US Airways.  Lastly, though the hotel impressed in most ways, the room decor was a bit disappointing.  The photos of the rooms on the website were certainly taken from the updated rooms… and ours wasn’t one of them.  This was more of an issue for Christina but it would have been nice to have a modern look & feel instead of the out-of-place furniture we had in our room.

All in all, Puerto Rico was awesome.  We barely scratched the surface of San Juan, much less the rest of the island.  e.g. Who knew there was a rainforest in Puerto Rico?  That’s one of the places we have planned for our next visit…  which can’t come soon enough.

All of the photos of our trip can be found here.

You would have no idea the economy was in the dumps by the amount of construction out in Vegas. CityCenter, in particular, was ridiculous. The Venetian is still my favorite casino — I’m sure the excellent poker room there has nothing to do with it. They expanded the Venetian to add the Palazzo and the Wynn had added the Encore since I had visited last. I guess there are always people willing to go out and gamble though I don’t know how people can afford to stay at some of these casinos.

The last time Christina and I were in Vegas, we did a television screening where we rated tv shows using a little dial. You don’t know what show(s) you’re going to see until you’re in there but we ended up watching clips from 3 primetime comedy shows. The only one I remember was “How I Met Your Mother” with Doogie Howser but overall, it was actually kind of fun and interesting. Anyway, as we walked through MGM on Saturday, we talked it up a bit and so the 5 of us decided to do it again. As luck would have it, we ended up screening “Wellington” — some reality show Animal Planet is developing. I thought for sure it was another reality show MTV was creating and was a bit stunned that Animal Planet was the channel behind it. Imagine The Hills or Laguna Beach merged with horse shows… if you can imagine such an abomination. I dialed up “0″ from the get-go and rode it until the very end of the 40 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Our overnight flight back was fairly uneventful and we got in about 5am on Sunday morning. After a nap, the rest of the day was spent doing yard work and watching football. Early to bed last night and now I’m back to the daily grind.

The plane trip itself was highlighted by the mom and son sitting behind us.  The son was in his mid-40s and his mom was unfortunately suffering from some sort of mental illness or disease.  She became very fidgety as the flight went on and the son was obviously past his breaking point.  He was berating his mom verbally and many of the passengers became concerned for her.  She was pretty much incoherent but determined to get up and “leave” and his explanations for why she couldn’t leave would devolve into “Shut up”, “sit down”, and worse.  Eventually, after some coaxing from some of the passengers and a flight attendant, she wandered to the back of the plane for about an hour.  Luckily, nothing further came of it but Christina was disgusted by the son’s handling of the situation.

The highlight of our return was seeing Argo sitting in the entryway looking sleepy but much healthier than when we left.  Beta came down and we had a bit of a reunion for a few minutes.  Argo seemed less interested in the reunion than Christina was but I’m sure she was just holding herself back.

Nothing else was really accomplished as it became very apparent that we were still on German time when our eyes started closing involuntarily about 7:30.  I didn’t really experience jet lag on the way over so I’m hoping to be up and ready to go tomorrow around my normal time.

Even more of an issue, at least for Christina and I, was the inability to use credit cards at many places. I remember reading something years ago that Europeans didn’t use checks as much as Americans. Perhaps I assumed therefore that they used credit cards. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Almost no smaller store or cafe took credit cards and many larger restaurants did not either. Each night, each of us was going to take the others out to dinner. The first night, Christina and I were going to pay but they didn’t take credit cards so that became Christina’s parents night. The second night, we chose a larger restaurant, a pizzeria, that definitely had to take credit cards — Nope! We then had to borrow Korunas from her parents and brother to pay for it. This became a funny and rather annoying pattern: Any time Christina and I attempted to treat her family, the restaurant didn’t accept credit cards so we would have to borrow money to pay. If they were treating, they accepted credit cards without issue. We didn’t have any issue in Austria or Switzerland but Czech definitely threw a wrench in our spending plans.

As if to emphasize the point, during the city tour we took, the recording mocked the Americans for thinking they had invented credit cards. Supposedly, the Czech people used an early form of credit card hundred(s) of years ago. I guess they felt that inventing it was enough; There was no need to actually use them!

The second morning in Prague, Christina’s parents had a lot to live up to if they wanted to cause as much trouble as they did the previous morning. As they walked around after breakfast, a car whizzing by threw a milkshake out of the car window and hit them. That morning they didn’t even have to cause a commotion to attract the ire of the Czechs! That’s more or less how Prague was in general, however. It was pretty hit or miss how friendly the Czech people would be toward us. Most were friendly but there seemed to be more “angry” people in Prague as compared to the other countries. The people were still friendlier than you might find in New York so perhaps it was just more noticeable after traveling from Austria and Switzerland where the people were almost universally extremely friendly and helpful.

Another point in Prague’s favor were the “water closets”. In general, almost all of the bathrooms in Europe have been pretty nice but the ones in Prague were exceptionally so. As a result, we tried to avoid using our own sewer toilet and tended to all try and use the water closets around the city while we were out.

Saturday, the first morning, Christina’s parents managed to upset a few Czechs before Christina, Will, and I had even woken up.  The ATM doles out Czech koruna (they’re not on the Euro yet) and asking for 2000 koruna, the ATM promptly provided a 2000 bill (just over $100 USD).  As we have come to find out, the Czechs prefer to pay in coins and do not readily agree to break larger bills.  Most places have tried to accommodate us but only grudgingly.  Anyway, they went to a cafe and the lady reluctantly and rudely broke the 2000 bill for their coffee and breakfast.  Not wanting to upset her further, they took their dishes outside where Christina’s mom managed to break one of their cups.  Needless to say, we have avoided that cafe since then.

Later, all five of us took a bus tour around the city which was a pretty nice way to get a feel for the city.  The headphones at each seat could be listened to in 20-30 different languages so there were all kinds of tourists on the bus with us.  The headphones at my seat were missing the ear pads and late in the trip, I found one of the pads on the floor.  As I was trying to affix it, the bus driver must have noticed what I was doing (I was in the very back seat but in the middle, directly in his rearview).  He stopped the bus completely and came back to fix the ear piece for me.  However, he didn’t speak English so he just pointed at me and it seemed like I had gotten in trouble.   It was a bit embarrassing sitting there w/ all these tourists from around the world staring at me, probably not understanding what I had done (or not done) to cause the bus driver to stop the bus during the tour.

We walked around later and saw much of Prague.  All of my pictures are now online.  That evening, Christina and I went out with Will to Coyote Ugly.  The ladies were all dressed as characters from movies and Will was shunned by Miss Congeniality.  It was actually pretty fun though and Will and I even took (double) shots of absinthe.  At one point, they were even tossing flaming bottles and creating fireballs at the bar — most likely activities that would be prohibited back in the states.

Today is our last day in Prague — we leave tomorrow morning for Wiesbaden, relax for a day, and then fly back.  As nice as the trip has been, I think it will be nice to get back.  Christina talks about the cats everyday — how far she’s come from when she was so jealous of them.  Well, I’m sure she’s still jealous but at least now she likes them as well.

Afterwards, we wandered down Karntner Strasse to Stephansplatz where we sat in an outdoor cafe and had a latte, tea, and an apple strudel before we walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we leave for Prague, fairly early by our standards. There were so many things to take in here in Vienna; I wish we had the opportunity to spend a few more days here.