Don't call it a girl-cation.

At the end of March, I went on a trip to Puerto Rico with Jessica & Sarah. We were there for 4 days and had a truly amazing time. Such an amazing time that I lost my camera. Actually, it’s not what you think – No drunken debauchery is to blame; I left Trevor's & my camera in the cab we took to the San Juan airport. So I have none of my own photos to share, and it took me awhile to gather them from the other ladies, but I’m now finally ready to give you the rundown on a long-awaited girl trip.

Where to start? The airport of course. Sarah is a wonderful wonderful woman. She is also always late. (No, like, alllllways. ). And yet, somehow, Jessica & I are the ones who almost missed our flight, due to the longest line ever seen at Logan security (this includes Thanksgiving & Christmas Eve). To kick off the trip of firsts, this marked the first time I've ever been paged over the loud speaker that my flight was about to depart without me. But, we made it. Sarah had gotten us coffee. We were on our way.

We stayed at a boutique hotel in Ocean Park, a strangely gated community, on the outskirts of San Juan (I say "strangely" because it took us two days to figure out that only some of the streets were blocked from through-traffic with locked gates).


We chose to stay outside of San Juan because we wanted to be on the beach. Little did we know how windy our beach would be!

Post-beach the afternoon of our arrival, we made our way into Old San Juan - just three gringas, trying to take the bus. Old San Juan is beautiful, with quiet streets, bright colors and warm architecture (a weird descriptor for architecture, for sure, but apt).

And thus began our bar crawl, in which Jessica demanded we visit at least 5 bars. We intended to take pictures of each to commemorate the occasion, but, well, here's what we've got:

Our first stop, Madre, specialized in margaritas. One lime, one coconut, one...remind me?

We couldn't get a table here without a reservation, but this snack we had at the bar
was one of the mostdelicious things any of us had ever
tasted - fried yuca with an almond mole sauce.Amazing. Yes, that is my hand -
I couldn't stop eating it long enough to stay out of the picture.

So we ate here instead, at a place owned by the brother of a big pop star,
where the menu describes each meal's deliciousness in terms of aphrodisiac-ness (As in: Really delicious is "Ay yay yay!!!")

Here we are in an ex-pat bar we stumbled upon. A ridiculous juke box,
graffiti all over the walls, and 10-oz cans of Medalla Light. We can be hipsters too?

The night ended at a salsa bar that we'd heard about from some folks at the graffiti hipster bar. While both Sarah & Jessica participated in the dancing festivities, I held the purses (have you met me?), and let it be said that I have enjoyed fewer things in life more than watching my best friends dance salsa in a tiny San Juan club. We made our way home, with ambitious intentions for Day 2.

Sunday was Dia Nacional de Salsa in Puerto Rico, and it was our destination for the afternoon. In the morning, we made our way to a more deserted (still windy) beach. It's a good thing we conserved our energy, because the trip to the stadium where the festivities were being held was a doozie. There was walking, there was a bus, there was a train from the bus, and then there was more walking. And then some more. And then there was an oasis that turned out to be an office park. And some more walking, and then a mall parking lot, where from far off, we finally heard the sounds of salsa. It took two hours, but we made it, and boy was it worth it. Good mojitos, great music and amazingly-bad-for-you-and-delicious food.

Here we are, Jessica with some meat on a stick, and me w
ith freshly fried potato chips covered in nacho cheese. That's right.
And then later we had donuts. So...yeah.

It took 2 months, but I've covered Days 1 and 2, and taken enough of your time for the day. Stay tuned for all the goods on Days 3-4, including a kayak trip that will live in infamy.