Puerto Rican Paradise

Jarred's job as a Ph.D. student researcher has many perks. One of which is free trips to conferences all over the world where he can present a little of this work for an hour or so...and then enjoy the rest of his trip in the sun. It's quite the glorious set up, and we feel very blessed to have the opportunity to travel for such a discounted price. In the fall Jarred wound up in Cancun, Mexico for a week at a conference without me, as I stayed back in Boston to teach. He made sure to call me from the beach to let me know that the resort was,  "significantly nicer than our honeymoon." Well, NEVER again my friend, never again. When the opportunity for a similar trip to Puerto Rico came up, I made sure to ask off work and take advantage of the  cheap trip to Jarred's homeland. And I must say, it's a wonderful, wonderful place. It tropical, it's warm, they know English, and they take U.S. Dollars, who could ask for more? Here's a rundown of our trip:

First, the official scientist business...kind of like the elementary school science fair, only bigger words.

Now it's nothing but fun! Let me introduce you to Hector, the towel elephant, and my mini Puerto Rican flag that I waved continuously as we explored the island.

Our first stop of the journey was Old San Juan. Gorgeous!!!

The next day we splashed around the pool a bit and then rented a car to go Kayaking at a bioluminescent bay. Literally the water glows like a light saber when you move through it. Unfortunatly it was dark and quite wet, so I wasn't able to take my nice camera and get pics. Here some of the pool though!

My pool heels. The picture really doesn't do them justice. I was totally diva style!!

A few shots from the area where we went kayaking:

The next day was perhaps one of the most fun. As we were swimming in the pool the day before, we saw an advertisement on the tv at the pool's swim up bar for the Puerto Rico Open PGA Tour event being held about 30 mins from the hotel. We still had our car from the bio bay so we decided to go for it. We're both big golf fans and our hometown friend Ben Martin was in the field. In the morning we followed Stewart Cink, Angel Cabrera, and John Daly and in the afternoon we cheered up Ben. I'm not going to lie, hearing the announcer say "From Greenwood, South Carolina...BEN MARTIN!!!" was pretty awesome. We made sure to give him a big shout!! Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed during the tournament (which of course made me furious), but here's a few pics from driving in and out of the Trump International Golf Club.

That afternoon after our golf adventure, I caught the Clemson game from the pool. PERFECT!

Overall, we had an amazing trip, and feel so, so blessed to have had the opportunity. My vitamin D levels have been restored and now I'm ready to tackle a few more weeks of winter up in Boston. Well, until Masters week that is!! 3 1/2 weeks until my golf paradise! 

More pictures are to come on Facebook...