Saturday 16 March 2013

Grade 8 Social Studies repeated

March 16, 2013
Another beautiful day, Rex and I walked on the beach before breakfast. I never tire of the roar of ocean waves. Top of the list today was an explore of Old San Juan. So after breakfast Scott took us on a crazy ride through the narrow streets to drop us where we could then make our way back to the designated pick up spot 2.5 hours later. Scott wasn’t feeling up to another  day of walking all day having had a restless night so he agreed to chauffeur. I had two”want to see” places on my list. One was Casa Blanca, the oldest standing Mansion from the early times. It was the home built for the family of Ponce de Leon. De Leon himself never lived there as he died in Havana of  wound inflicted by Indians in his attempt t conquer Florida. The house was steeped in history. It had a throne room with portraits of Spanish kings. The floors were beautifully tiled. The rooms were open to the beautiful ocean view by several doors and windows. I could imagine the women standing on the balconies staring out to sea, wishing for a glimpse of their loved ones returning from their usually violent  explorations. The other area we spent time enjoying was out the city gate where there was a walkway built outside the 3 mile long old city wall below the fort we explored yesterday. We had seen the path but could not find a way to get to it. We stumbled upon the huge old gate to the city that open up to this area. The path through the gate lead directly up the hill to the old church where, it was said, the conquering heroes made their first stop when they returned safely from their escapades. Oh it was grade 8 social all over again. Mr Bunnage you would have loved it!
After walking the narrow streets, peeking into a few shops, looking inside the open courtyard to the university and making our way past the piers and back to find Scott we tried our hand at finding the Mission home with use of a google map printed instruction. Slight problem...not many streets have signage and often it they do it does not match the name used by google. Ie: PR22 or what ever the street name may be at that point of the highway. So we tried the GPS and ended I up in a infinite loop where it sent us up on to the highway looped ua around off the highway and then sent us back on to the highway again. Problem was we were in the same spot and it was telling us to repeat what we had just done. What a cruel sense of humour that thing has. We tried recalculating but it just started the whole thing again. The missionary package was not delivered but we sure did have a giggle over the new infinite loop definition.
We took a long stroll up the beach tonight. It was cloudy in a storm cloud sort of way but very warm and humid. It sprinkled a little while we sat out and played cards but not enough to fall on us in the court yard under the little palms. I lost at Dirty Joe but nothing could spoil another fabulous day!

2 comments:

  1. I love reading about your adventures and explorations.

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  2. Ahhhh....thanks mom! That was awesome! I love seeing the world through your words and dad's eyes!!!

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