Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A wedding, a 250 foot plunge, a concert, a visa....

The past few weeks have been exciting for Valerie and I, which has been why our blog has been pretty quiet. But here's a quick recap:

7/14: Kim's wedding!

My lovely co-clerk Kim got married on the beach in Pinones on July 14, also known as Bastille Day. Our Boston-based clerk Tom came down for the event, which was a ton of fun.



[Tom, Kell, Kim, Monica, Adam]

The after-reception was held at the Soleil Beach Club, which is a delightful little place right on the beach in Pinones.


[Tom, Kim, Adam, Monica]

7/15: The next day, my law school roommate Dave came in at 1:00 AM. We returned to my apartment for three hours of sleep, and at 5:00 AM, Tom, Dave and I joined Monica, James, and JP for an amazing trip. We went with Aventuras PR to the Cuevas de Camuy (Camuy Caves). But instead of taking the little tram down into the dry cave for a 15 minute explanation by a tour guide, as most people do, we hooked ourselves into a zip-line and careened across the sinkhole. Then we strapped on harnesses and rappelled down a 250 foot cliff -- pretty cool! Dave, Tom nd I captured a few pictures of this:

[Tom]


[Dave]

[Adam]

But the fun hadn't even started at this point. Our guides then led us into the mouth of the wet cave - a cave which has the river Camuy running through it. We spent the next five hours swimming, jumping, climbing, and sliding through the cave. Unfortunately, my camera could not take pictures (although some may be forthcoming soon from JP), so I'll try to do it justice:

Much of the way, you're crawling up and down rocks in near darkness, the only light being provided by your miners lamp. Above your head, bats are flying all around, and as you look around on the cave walls, you notice spiders about the size of my foot (which is pretty big). At one point, we came to a cliff with a 10-15 foot drop into the water; at this point, we checked that our life vests were securely on, and jumped in, and floated on down the river. In some places, the passages were so narrow that only a few inches separated your nose from the cave roof. At various points, the guides would point out giant stalactites (those things hanging from the roof) and stalagmites (those things coming up from the ground). These are humongous - in some of the bigger rooms, they could be measured in building stories! Anyways, the hike took about 5-6 hours (we think - you lose all sense of time inside) and we traversed about 2 miles, reaching points about 400 feet underground (or so our guides told us). If you are in PR for a few days and have some extra time, I would definitely try this out. It's a bit pricey, but it's worth every penny of it - it is really an unforgettable experience.

My friend Dave stayed with me for a few more days, which was a lot of fun - we had some time to catch up and watch Arrested Development, a fantastic show which was just too funny for TV (and thus was cancelled only after three seasons).

7/19: Valerie and I met in Philadelphia (our fair city) to see the Police reunion tour. We visited alot of our old haunts - Capogiro (purveyors of the best gelato around), the Miran Korean restaurant (a fantastic Korean place on Chestnut between 20th & 21st), DiBruno Brothers (excellent for cheese), and finally, Capriccio - the place where Valerie and I had our first date nearly four years ago:



The Police were amazing in concert. I had suspected that Sting had mellowed out over the years, but he can play a mean guitar! Unfortunately, we decided not to bring a camera to the concert, so no pictures.

7/20: The next morning, after a quick waffle and coffee at Bonte, we hopped the train to New York and went and got Chinese visas, spending our lunch hour at Lombardi's pizza - in our opinion, the best pizza in Manhattan (although certainly not in New York). It really hit our pizza craving - unfortunately, neither the Caribbean nor Ohio are well known for their pizza cultures. We picked up our visas and then went to Northface to get Valerie a backpack for China.

7/21: We picked up our copies of the new Harry Potter (it's great!) and enjoyed some of New York's best food treats: the Union Square Farmer's market!

7/22: The next day, Valerie and I said our goodbyes, and headed off to the sun. We're going to be on our own for the next few weeks, until we meet again in Boston on August 10.

Up next: Valerie parties in Cincinatti. Adam parties with Drew in PR. The doog parties in Columbus.

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