One of my favorite parts of our Puerto Rico trip was our day in Old San Juan. It’s like visiting a small Spanish city with tropical flair. The old town reminds me a bit of Charleston with the brightly colored and shuttered facades of the homes and businesses.
I loved the paint colors on the buildings. I need to do some interior repainting and was inspired by Old San Juan. I’m thinking of this burnt peach color for my living room. Looks great with the white trim, doesn’t it?
Our friend, Chris Columbus “discovered” Puerto Rico in either 1492 or 93 (plaques in the city give both dates). The aboriginals, the Taino Indians, were all killed off by the Spanish, who established the city of San Juan in 1508. So, today’s islanders are of Spanish/European and/or African ancestry. Like the Piratas, the Taino are romanticized (the place we rented snorkeling gear in Rincon is called Taino Divers).
I’m standing in front of el Morro, the giant fort at the Northwest headland of San Juan. It’s magnificent–a long sweep of cropped green grass culminating in the turreted stone fort and backed by blue sky and spray-tossed dark ocean. The fort was stormed by the Brits and the Dutch unsuccessfully, then “taken” by the U.S. in 1898 during the Spanish-American war (why P.R. is a “colony” of sorts).
Are you getting tired of P.R. tales and photos yet? Soon I’ll upload the majority of my photos to Flickr and just stop nattering on about my vaca.
In other news, I’m tired from spending a couple of hours crawling pubs in Ashvegas with some of the Blogashevillians and Drinking Liberally libs. Photos on BA. We’re such a cute bunch of nerds, aren’t we?
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Not tired at all.
And I am in Fort Worth for 3 days for a tedious meeting when I would rather be home baking and singing Christmas songs - so checking the blog is one way to get through this! Keep posting!
I am enjoying your stories of the pirates and wars and paint colors. Now there is a nice combination. I love your new digital camera. The shots are great. Is it back under the tree or are you allowed to keep it and use it!!
who’s a babe? Edgy Mama is! lovin’ the tales of SJ - keep ‘em comin’!
your biggest fan
The Peach
I wrangled not having to put the camera back under the tree until Xmas eve.
They are nice shots, aren’t they?
Damn, Rio, sorry you’re biz tripping.
Peachy, e-mail me, kay?
Who’s that hot little blonde chick you keep taking pictures of?
Puerto Rico is on our list.
Of course, so are many, many other places. Next year’s fabulous getaway: Croatia.
Croatia, SC? How cool! Why there?
Nice photo. Grrr baby. Grrrr!
Croatia is extremely affordable and has a beautiful coastline. The babes are hawt there, too.
A friend of my wife’s (who, coincidentally, has a trophy proclaiming her “Paducah’s Fastest Woman”) is living in Zagreb for a year working on her PhD thesis. Something about the effects of a capitalist economy and its effects on a formerly communistic country, or some other such smart stuff.
Anyhow, we heard she was going to be studying and we, naturally, thought, “Road Trip!”