Newark Liberty International Airport was the next stop, so I gathered all of my things (or so I thought). Moments after stepping onto the train platform, I felt like something was missing... OH. RIGHT. MY WALLET.
I turned around in horror as the train slowly inched away from the station with every single piece of identification that I possess. No time to mourn. Off to TSA to plead my case!
I grabbed the first TSA agent that I saw, frantically telling her that I had pictures of all of my IDs. She told me to get in line and hope for the best. At this point, I finally had time to report that my wallet was lost.
Side note: Police don't care when you call them and tell them you left your wallet on the train, although they are very nice in telling you so.
Plan B: call my ever-understanding sister and have her fill out the Lost and Found form since the mobile version of the form was entirely dysfunctional.
I finally made it to the front of the security line, only to find out that they do not accept pictures of identification. He asked me if I had ANYTHING official with my name on it. I racked my brain for anything that I could have possibly brought with me... and this is when my terrible habit of procrastination became my salvation. I had grabbed my internet bill on the way out the door because payment was due that day, and I had been ignoring the bill on my dresser all week.
I dug the bill out of my bag and presented it with pride. The experts were called over, and after thorough examination, it was authenticated, and I proceeded through security with an armed escort.
The next step was searching my bag. I was filled with fear as they searched through my bag - not because I was smuggling contraband, but because I had a sudden fear that my wallet was actually in my bag, and I would become the laughingstock of Newark airport.
My wallet was not in my bag, and I continued on to the gate with nothing but a mobile Starbucks gift card to my name. Sooo Starbucks for dinner it was! Could be worse.
I FINALLY made it to the plane, caught my breath and settled in - leaving all of my misadventures behind me... Or so I thought.
Upon arrival in Puerto Rico, my only option for transportation was a taxi, and in my experience, Starbucks gift cards are not a widely accepted form of payment. So, I climbed into a taxi and pretended to not be a dumb blonde that was traveling with absolutely no money.
When we got to the address that I had given the man, I told him to just wait a moment for my friend who would pay him. This called into play a slew of Spanish words which I am fairly certain were not compliments.
He started driving again, and I yelled to pull over, promising vehemently that my friend was right around the corner. He pulled over, took another look at me through the rear view mirror, got really mad again and then declared, " BACK TO THE AIRPORT!!!"
I, in turn, began yelling "you're capturing me, you have to let me out, this is illegal, YOU CAN'T CAPTURE ME!!!"
This outburst struck a chord of some sort with the driver, and with a string of curses, he told me to GET OUT. Which I did rather quickly. If you are reading this, Mr. Taxi Driver, I really am sorry...
The place that my friends had me meet them at was called La Placita, and I hadn't been lying, Eli was really right around the corner. He greeted me with a drink, which some random Canadians had bought him, and the world felt like a safe place again.
The rest of the trip was pretty much perfect, which I know is boring to read about, so I'll give you the highlights...
And I say "pretty much" because of the way we were woken up each morning. One of the first things that Ross said to me was to prepare myself to be awoken by the most unusual things. I laughed because it was a stupid story, BUT he was right. My first morning, we were woken up by the Airbnb hostess sneezing AT LEAST 40 times in a row. The next morning it was someone wrapping enormous packages with packing tape for at least 15 minutes. And my last morning? The lovely combination of a weedwacker and dogs barking. Okay, so maybe you think this is a stupid story like I first did, but it was freakin WEIRD.
Anyway, about my first day... We started the day with a (rather muddy) hike through the rain forest, where we encountered water falls, streams and essentially anything else that you would expect from a rain forest.
Next stop? BEACH. After some drinks and some waves, we headed out for the evening.
While I am very thankful that they don't card in Puerto Rico (seeing as I would not have been allowed anywhere), it meant there was a plethora of teenagers out in the area which we had chosen - which prompted us to get the hell out of there and find some people our own age. We ended up at a bar with a balcony, where we were able to lounge and stare at the stars: something that we sorely miss doing in NYC.
Day 2 consisted of even more beach. We discovered this awesome place called Pizza City (I think?), which was a perfect place to hop back and forth to from the beach. We had a super intriguing conversation with our Airbnb hostess all about how Puerto Ricans feel about their relationship with the United States. We were actually able to talk to several different people about this topic, which if you don't know much about, is super interesting to read about.
That night we went back to La Placita, met several interesting people (including a girl who not only had armpit hair, but had dyed it red - be mad at me for saying this... but it was disgusting). We thankfully avoided getting into a car with 8 people and a surf board, and instead ran down the street to what ended up being the favorite bar of the evening (and where I learned to play maracas)!
Day 3 was more beach: tanning, walks and talks - everything the last day of a vacation should entail. The crew graciously went out for dinner and drinks with me (despite being utterly exhausted) before I had to catch my plane back to NYC!
No comments:
Post a Comment