Okay so if you’ve been around a while, you probably know that I wrote a whopping two posts in 2023. Now, I didn’t do that because nothing happened, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Soooo much happened in 2023, lots of things came to an end, I started doing new things, and honestly my eyes just kind of opened a bit and I gained some new perspectives on the world and life. For the next little while, the posts you see on here are going to be me catching up with all of the thoughts I have on the past year, with of course the odd random thought thrown in the mix.

At the beginning of 2023, I went on a cruise. I’ve vacationed like this before, you meet new friends, see new places, and get a nice tan. This one was a bit different though. First of all, I cruised the Southern/Western Caribbean, which introduced me to a whole lot of new cultures and lifestyles. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a cruise, you board the ship in some city that has a cruise port and then you spend (usually) the next week going from place to place, stopping at that place’s port for the day and going on tours or exploring and shopping on your own. I went to five different islands, in addition to Puerto Rico, where the cruise started and ended. I’ll get into what those were in later posts. The next few posts you see from me are going to be like a little recap of each of those, and what my biggest takeaway was. I’m definitely not a travel blogger, but hey, who’s to say what I can and cannot write on here, right?

I’ve been rambling for a bit, so here’s a picture from my first night in Puerto Rico. In this post I’m going to talk a bit about the first half of my stay in PR and what I saw here (also my chance to dump my camera roll).

The first thing I noticed getting out of our taxi and into the hotel was the humidity. Holy moly. This was at night, and in JANUARY! I’ve been to warm places, don’t get me wrong, but I think all Canadians have this thing where anytime they go to a warm climate in the wintertime, they’re obligated to say, “Wow why don’t I live here!”. My mom always talks about how people in warm climates don’t have to deal with winter clothing and bundling up to go outside, but I have to say I don’t mind the trade-off for not being sweaty all months of the year.

We stayed one night in San Juan before boarding the cruise the next day, at a hotel near the port. Let me tell you, this location was awesome. We were backed onto a kind of destination live concert area with a lot of other things to do too. It was essentially a covered outdoor social hub. I was like okay yeah, this is a great tourist spot. But to my surprise, there were a ton of locals here. I guess I was surprised by this because this isn’t something common back home, but that’s where I see the difference in culture. The energy, the atmosphere, I don’t really know how to truly explain it, but I guess seeing what was considered the norm made me realize we’re kinda missing out on something up here in the North. It was such a different kind of environment, where people were brought together by music and food in a different way than we are back home. I know places like Puerto Rico have it harder in a lot of ways than Canada, but in this setting, people just seemed happier and maybe, more connected.

I can’t not talk about the food. This will be brief because I didn’t have a lot of food while in San Juan, at least not before the cruise. However, I did go to this restaurant that was across the street from our hotel and my gosh I could talk for an hour about these nachos. I can’t lie, my small town does have a variety of cuisines, especially from local restaurants, but something that makes me want to talk about it over a year later would be nice.

Let me also talk about the fresh fruit. In Canada at this time of year, finding fruit that actually TASTES fresh is like finding snow in the Caribbean at any time of the year. Next to impossible. Imagine me going into a grocery store and having a choice of literally any fruit I wanted. AND IT WAS CHEAP. If you live in Canada you know how expensive it is just to fill those daily fruits and vegetable servings we’re supposed to have each day. I know there’s a huge difference in the economy, but as a tourist, I could not complain.

The avocados in this grocery store were huge in comparison to the ones in the grocery stores near me at home. Also, first time trying papaya in my 18 years of life. I think we occasionally have these in our grocery stores, but never cut up like this. Side note, I was sadly not a fan. Needless to say, being in a climate that stays warm all year round meant having a wider variety of fresh food options.

I think there are also differences between Canada and a place like Puerto Rico which don’t really need much explaining. I stayed in a more tourist-friendly area of PR, but there was a residential area nearby that was just completely different from that at home. The houses in the area were not even similar to something I’d see in my city, and I think a main cause for it was once again, the weather. These houses didn’t need the same weatherproofing we need in Northern Ontario in the winter, because the snow just isn’t exactly a worry in the south. I wouldn’t say this area was where I saw the biggest difference in appearance on my trip, but I’ll talk about that another time :). It really was fascinating though to see the difference in colour and architechture.

So, as I said before, I’m no travel blogger, and I’m really not trying to be. Just wanted to put my thoughts out there about what I was thinking about when visiting this area. Another note, the driving down here, and in all of the islands I visited, was so different compared to small city roads. I don’t want to say people were super aggressive, but they definitely made it known that they had a place to be and they weren’t waiting around too long. Safe to say we either walked, or took and Uber or taxi. This is one of those things you really have to experience first hand to understand. I definitely learned a lot just in my first 24 hours here, and the difference in lifestyle between the Caribbean and a vacation to let’s say Florida. I wasn’t expecting to not experience something new, but as with anything, you never know what to expect until it’s happened. Anyway, if you’re reading this it means you found what I had to say at least somewhat interesting. I plan to make this into a little series based off of this specific trip, lets hope it doesn’t take me the whole year to finish. Thank you!