Thanks Jose Lopez!

Bryce and I enjoyed 1 1/2 days in San Juan Puerto Rico earlier this month all thanks to Jose Lopez. Who, you may ask, is this Senor Lopez? As noted in the previous blog, Bryce bought new wheels. He sold his stock wheels on ebay and a nice gentleman in Puerto Rico bought them. We did actually make $9 after his new wheels were mounted and balanced, all ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping, and the actual price of the wheels are taken into account. Good job Bryce, keep it up and I'll have a new pair of shoes in no time. :) We shipped the 4 wheels - acutally, let me stop there and say I mailed the wheels. Bryce put them in my trunk. On my lunch break I was lucky enough to go to the Post Office ask to borrow a dolly and push the wheels in myself - while wearing heels! You read that right. I like the people in the parking lot watching me as I pulled boxes out of my trunk and pushed a pretty janky dolly into the post office. I had to make 2 trips because the dolly was not tall enough to lean all 4 boxes against the back. It would've been too heavy for me anyway since I am a little girl. Each wheel weighed 25 lbs packaged. So, I got them inside and they took them away into their back rooms. Done right?! No or our story would not have such a happy ending. One of the 4 wheels gets lost and never makes it to Senor Lopez in San Juan. Bryce now decides it would be ok for us to buy a replacement and fly to Puerto Rico, spend part of the weekend and give Jose the wheel in person. And so our journey begins: Jose met us at the airport he brought along his 16 yr old daughter (he kept referring to her as his husband, but we got the point) He was nice enough and clean, and he drove a nice, new Mazda 6 (he got the point across that he bought it a few months befoer) so we took him up on his offer to drive us to the hotel saving one taxi fare of $17. Note: taxi drivers add in their own tip to the base fare in San Juan. The guy we took back to the airport apparently thought he was worth $2. 1st thing we learned: Bryce likes to pick a hotel by price and overall cleanliness ratings. 10 minutes and I'm done upon finding it on a map. Cecily likes to look at mpas, read reviews, read about the districts and areas of where she's visiting, come to the point of recognizing roads of where they'll be and then look and read some more. We went with the Conrad. The site has a neat aerial shot of the hotel and a couple lobby pictures. The first day we spent in Old San Juan - it rained all morning while we were at the airport and with Jose. a map of Old San Juan. The view to the left (southeast on a map) of the island. the fort walls on the northern side of the island another fort in Old San Juan the main fort on the tip that you see pictures of. Christopher Columbus statu in a square where there are lots of vendors set up. The guy had parrots and such on his shoulders. the view from our window. 10th floor city view - the body of water there is the lagoon. The white van and car taxis lined up in front of this hotel and we could walk over and take the next in line. I liked the taxis because they were playing tapes of some sweet mexican music. It was the real deal. sculpture in Old San Juan sculpture down from the hotel, near the beach and where we ate lunch/dinner. blue cobblestones of Old San Juan while we were at the fort in Old San Juan - a full rainbow. at our hotel's beach. Where we spent the morning before heading to the airport. the other side of our view from our hotel. The traffic over the bridge was backed up all night. Got busy. There was lots of nice shopping just down the street. Gucci, Cartier, and others of the sort.