Viva Vieques!

I am back from a wonderful spring break trip to Vieques and San Juan, Puerto Rico. I suppose it wasn't technically spring break given that I'm not in school, but I took of the week of UGA's spring break because it tends to be slow (and, most importantly, I had not been on a vacation since summer 2006!). This was my first trip to the Carri bean....WOW. The water's unlike anything I've ever seen in my life.

We (my dear friend Kate and I) spent our first and last nights in San Juan with five nights in between on the island of Vieques. It's a minimally developed island off the east coast of the main island. It was formerly a Naval bombing range and now has large areas of the island designated as a wildlife refuge. There are no large high rise hotels, mostly guesthouses with a dozen or fewer rooms. We stayed in a great little guesthouse called Villa Coral. It was run by two kind and friendly Puerto Rican women who went out of their way to make us feel at home in their lovely place (complete with roof deck that has amazing views and a breezy porch where we spend many hours reading).

Vieques is a gorgeous island with many different beaches, all with their own unique personalities. Some of the more remote beaches have very few people on them, so it feels like a private paradise. During our day trip to Green Beach, we had the spot to ourselves for nearly an hour. Some beaches are protected coves with lazy waves that make for great leisurely swimming and snorkeling, while others have very little sand and a rugged coastline. We were able to visit four or five different beaches, snorkel, kayak, and explore the tiny town of Esperanza where we stayed. The only thing we missed out on was exploring the bioluminescent bay. We were there the week of a full moon, which makes it difficult to see the bioluminescence in the water.

Kate and I took a million pictures between us, so I will post some of them soon. For now, above is a picture I pulled from the internet of Red Beach/Caracas Beach. The beaches have multiple names because the Navy gave them their own names, and of course the locals have names for them.

If you want to hear more about Vieques, let me know! It's a great trip and I would love to share details with anyone considering it at some point in the future.

Man Vs Food

I'm conviced that The Travel Channel does food shows better than Food Network. Be ashamed, Food Network, be very ashamed. Oh, and get rid of that Guy Fieri guy and his 8th grade boy hairdo...I'd watch "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives" much more often if you got a new host.

On Wednesday nights at 10:00, following the drool including "Food Paradise" that I blogged about a while back, is a new show called "Man Vs. Food." The host, Adam Richman, is an energetic and funny everyman who has an impressive apetite. He comes off as slightly too eager verging on annoying in the commercials for the show, but when you watch the show he's hard not to like. Each show he visits a different city to try three restaurants, the third of which always has a daunting eating challenge. Richman is batting better than .500 on challenge completion by now, or at least from the shows that I've seen. Part of what makes the show so entertaining are the funny restaurant patrons who team with him or compete against him on the challenges to varying degrees of success. The most amusing part is when they inevitably start to get the meat sweats.

Puerto Riiiiiiiico!

Due to paying back school loans and the generally humble salary of an entry level student affairs professional, I have not been on a vacation since my wonderful trip to France back in 2006 (minus a short jaunt to Myrtle Beach). Buuuuuuut...I am finally escaping in March to Puerto Rico with the Kate!!! I have never been to the Caribbean and I cannot WAIT to get there. Pictured is the island of Vieques where we plan to spend most of our week. Start the countdown!!

Foamhenge

Thanks to Leslie W.'s facebook status for alerting me to the eighth wonder of the world: Foamhenge. I can't believe I went to college only an hour away from this and never knew of its existence! I'll have to visit on my trip up to Charlottesville in May.