Our Cruise: Day 3 – Puerto Rico!!!
Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our day in Puerto Rico at pictures.neilnatic.com or here
Puerto Rico!!!
On the third day on the cruise, we were docking in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico! This was different from what we were used to as instead of pulling into port at like 7 in the morning, we were docking at 5 in the afternoon and leaving at like 11:00 or so. This made the stay in PR much better as we got to hang out for the evening instead of rushing back to the boat for dinner. Before the boat docked we killed time eating and playing an intense game of volleyball on the top deck of the ship.
Geni had shirts made for everyone going on the cruise to celebrate Dan’s graduation. The guys had white polos and the girls had white tee shirts. They had a bulldog on the front that said “the Natic clan celebrates Dan” and on the back had a big UGA with all of our names around it. It was a great way to celebrate Dan’s graduation from college with our family and friends although the GA Tech fans of our group (many of them unfortunately 
) did not like this quite as much as we did lol
When we got off of the boat we walked around to try to find the restaurant that we went to with my dad the last time we were in Puerto Rico. We knew it was by a fort, but unfortunately we confused it with the other fort that was in the area which led us on a scenic tour 
. When we got to the fort we thought we were supposed to head to, we got a phone call from my grandfather who lives on the complete other side of the island (2.5 hour drive) saying that he was also at the fort and had some goodies for us!!! We met up with him about 1 minute from where we were. It was so great to see him but sucked that it was on such short time. He had my grandmother cook our favorite dessert (tembleque – a coconut pudding type dessert), bring several loaves of fresh bread from a local bakery, and this insane coconut ice cream from a local ice cream shop on my grandfathers side of town. It was the best meal ever!! We had such a great time!
Scarfing down my coconut ice cream
Because time was short, we had to leave my grandfather and continue with the rest of our planned day in Puerto Rico. We stopped by a bar so that the boys could try a drink called “la nota” (which translates to high) that Geni was telling them about. Dan is old enough to drink in the states but the rest are not, so this was a treat for them. In Puerto Rico and many of the other islands the drinking age is 18, but it is normal to be served alcohol as long as you can see over the bar… literally.
Old Harbor Brewery in Old San Juan Puerto Rico
After a few drinks we went on to find the restaurant that I had been to last time called Cafe Puerto Rico. Once we found it, they had about an hour wait and they had us go to another restaurant to have some drinks while we waited. There we met this guy who was actually born in PR, went to school in Cobb county (Georgia), moved to Pittsburgh PA to go to culinary school (and knows one of the chefs at Church Brew Works), and now back in PR and owns a restaurant out there. His was closed for renovations but he told me about a brewery that was right where the ship was docked that I had to try out. You know me, I don’t ever turn down a great beer so we added that to our list of things to do while in PR. After grabbing our drink there, we headed back to Cafe Puerto Rico for an authentic dinner. It was delicious!! After dinner we headed to Old Harbor Brewery to try out the beers they had there. I got the sampler and loved their stout so of course I had to grab another pint of it before we headed on.
On the way from the brewery we heard a coqui making noise. These are little brown frogs that make the cutest sound. Listen to the video to hear it. There is no picture to it… just sound.
After the brewery we headed over to Senor Frogs to let the boys get some drinks. Unfortunately they were doing a cover charge and it was too late to get our money’s worth out of the cover charge and beer / liquor specials so we went to the Sheraton Hotel across the street. After the boys ordered their drinks we were chilling outside when this drunk dude stumbles out of the casino of the hotel and onto the patio we were sitting on. He comes up and asks us for a lighter and when we said we didn’t have one he murmured “fucking Americans” jokingly LOL. Since I am curious about life outside of the states I continued to talk to him and we found out that he was with the Dutch Navy who was also docked in Old San Juan and that the Coast Guard was on his ship taking over possession of the $20 million Euro street value of cocaine they seized on international waters!! He was really funny to talk to and really had us cracking up. I wish we had more time to bullshit around with him because he was really cool.
Unfortunately that was all the time we had in PR, but we had a freaking blast!!
