Day 23: I screw up my title by being interesting.

Today's post was going to be titled "This is the way the journey actually ends, not with a bang but with a whimper" because the plan was to go to the beach and do nothing all day.

So I got up (with the sun, one of the perks of sleeping on the balcony) and went back to sleep. Eventually I got up for really, updated my blog, bought an airline ticket and after a while set off for the beach. I swung through the grocery store for breakfast and lunch (a bag of chips that tasted a bit stale.... because they were 6 months past "use by."

I walked to the bus stop, got ADD, and then walked to Condado, the beach for the hotel district. I saw a interesting looking fort that wasn't one of the two I'd previously toured and set off up the beach / beach street to find it. And that's when I passed a 10 floor hotel... with bricked over doors. I walked around back just to check, and, well, one thing lead to another, and I found myself in the penthouse, with no windows to block the breeze and no railings on the balcony. I got some great shots of the surrounding area, but not many showing the height of it since I didn't want to be too obvious to the people in the real hotel next door. Especially since I had already paid for a plane ticket and my mom would kill me.

I left without incident (because I am a ninja), wandered through the real hotel (and out past the security guard designed to keep people like me from getting in), and found the fort. It was right on the edge of Old San Juan, so after crossing the bridge to the island, walking past but not up a tower crane with poor security, I finally got to the fort-thing only to find its gated AND guarded. Boo. Hiss.

I got the most expense-dense cab ride of my life (12$ for 1.5 miles, which is what happens when taxis charge by the zone and they fall just wrong) and went to the sea-glass beach! I love sea glass much more than I should. So I spent... two hours walking up and down the beach, reading a bit here and there. AND I FOUND SOME PURPLEish. Like I said, more than I should. Then I wandered through Old San Juan, went back to my cemetary-wall-reading spot (Little girl: "Este es un telefono grande"), and ended up at dinner in the same place I ate last time. For no good reason except Italian is hard to find down here.

After dinner I looked for more seaglass until sunset ruined my fun and caught a taxi back to the hostel. I think a few of us are going out, so maybe there will be more to report. Update: it's like herding cats and we ended up watching youtube videos instead.