"I challenge you to visit Puerto Rico and proclaim it is not enchanted," said the cruising guide. The author now lives outside of Milwaukee, but I figure he is still enamored with Puerto Rico. On a side note, he is the proud owner of a parrot, as we learned from the back cover. A large herbivorous dinosaur would certainly enjoy a big bite out of the Puerto Rican countryside. Munch munch crunch. Leaves dangle from it's big happy mouth. It's not just brontosauruses who want to bite Puerto Rico, I do too, but I'll be honest in saying I don't really know how to deal with my feelings. It's just so green and forested. Mmmmm.
One thing we saw in Puerto Rico Was Coconuts:
I didn't know it at the time, but I was later to drink the very milk that is sheltered in these objects with a straw.
Then We Visited The Arecibo Observatory,
home of the largest radio telescope EVER. It was really sweet. We watched a video on what goes on at the Observatory. At first I thought, "Oh good, a video that will explain in plain language what it is the scientists are actually studying here." I was wrong. The video used the most complex jargon in the most unnatural and nerdy way possible. Instead of a voice-over explaining what the scientists were doing, the scientists themselves addressed the camera and one another with vague one-line comments: "Billy-Paulina, the transducer reducer super 430 megahertz mega uber antenae is interfering with our work on sector D PQ-niner-squared over in Phase C, Rendezvous Point: Code Hovering Octypus-hat."
Then someone would respond with an impossibly simple solution: "Oh shooty-bummer, Chet, send someone from Electronics over to assist them."
At the end of the video, the credits mentioned that the video was in fact created by a production company in, - hold your breath-- EVANSTON, ILLINOIS. So that's handy. Now I can show up at their doorstep in 5 months. "Hello! Yes, I saw your video on the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. I'd like my 5 dollar admission fee back, please and thank you. And please tell me just what goes on in that metal super dish, and you'd better not tell me it's a giant microwave.
--See the previous post for some action photos from this one room we were in at the Observatory--
Then we snorkeled
to take cool underwater pictures for kids of cool stuff that we almost saw. We did see eachother under the water, which was cool. And some sand and coral, which was enjoyable as well.
All in all, Puerto Rico was enchanting and educational. I'm excited to go home and tell our Puerto Rican kids that I have seen, and desired to eat, their homeland. In another life, I was certainly an herbivorous dinosaur. But now, now I am a sailor.
