Our flight was at 8:50AM, so we wake up before sunrise, had remarkable breakfast, and Natasha had drove us to airport (45 minutes from home). Routine checking passed without any problems, but we got surprise during boarding. When we entered the plane, the stuard guided us to the left compartment instead of usual right side. Unexpectedly, we flew in the business class. George became pale for a moment, but quikly controled himself and announced that this is a Christmas gift to us from him. There were only two seats in a row (not three as in econom class) and seats were from leather. Also the small table came from the armrest for each seat and spreaded out by several rotations. This was fun. We enjoyed with the breakfast and the movie 'The Journey to the Center of the Earth'. 3.5 hours passed unnoticed, and we softly landed in Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU). We failed to rent a car in airport and took taxi to the hotel ($20). Driver recommended us car rental companies near our hotel and we decided to take car later. Room was not bad, 2 beds, table, TV and view on the pool from the window. But we decided to go for lunch first and then to explore the beach. After spending $40 on the ridiculous Chinese food lunch we had, we remained hungry and went to the beach. There we scavenged a ripe coconut and drank the milk out of it. The water was perfect temperature. After exploring the beach, we walked to the center of Condado, where we found the restaurant we would eat in for Christmas Day tomorrow. After stopping by Walgreens and “buying” some candies and buying ice cream, we happily headed on home and went to sleep.

We woke up early in the morning and had a breakfast at our hotel. We ate cereal and bagels at our hotel and took some fruits to the beach with us. Anton and Eugene played some beach tennis while George took a lejaka. The beach was very nice and the waves were humungous. After lunching at the beach on some bagels and fruits, the team went for an expedition in the water. Then we went to the center of Condado again to the restaurant that we picked out before. We ate dinner there and explored more of the town. We then realized where our candy went from last time. We found out that Anton and Eugene had left it in the Walgreens. The misfortune was most horrifying for George who could not live without it for a day. Sadly stricken, the crew wobbled on home.

Again we woke up early in the morning to go to the beach. We had packed some bagels and fruits from our continental breakfast in the hotel. The weather was nice outside except for a few showers every now and then. After lunch, we had rented a car and drove ourselves to the Old San Juan where we explored many old plazas and site seeing streets. We had ate dinner in one of the Mexican Restaurants found in the city. We saw many cruise ships docked at the bay of Old San Juan. For Christmas Day, there were many Christmas trees set up in the countless plazas. After tiring our feet, we had headed on home and almost got lost. Luckily, Eugene is an expert with maps and got us home.

As usual we woke up early and ate a delicious breakfast at our hotel. The crew went to the beach thinking about where to go after. We checked on the map for points of interest and we found an observatory. We decided that when we were finished swimming we would go to the observatory. When we were done swimming we went back to the hotel and drove to the observatory. We arrived and learned a lot of interesting facts about our world such as the moon can orbit the earth in exactly 29.3 days. We watched a movie based on the worlds largest radio telescope. It is very sensitive and it’s 305 meters. Eugene’s and Anton’s heads started hurting of all the information that they learned so finally we finally moved on. We went to the beach Ricon, where the waves were supposedly huge. But in reality, they were really only very long and not big. This disappointed the crew but they still went on surfing. The crew stopped at the lighthouse and behind it was a beautiful view of the ocean. It was getting dark so we went to our hotel and bought ice cream along the way remembering to take it. We ate dinner and for dessert the ice cream. We ate the ice cream happily and went to sleep.

Today was another one of those days that everyone waited for. Today we were going to drive to the beautiful beach of Luiquilo. The native people of Puerto Rico had said many fascinating things about this place; it was a place of great tourist attractions. We had woken up at the usual 8 o’clock and went through our daily breakfast routine. The two hour drive to Luiquillo beach went as planned, we had not gotten lost. Swimming in the clear waters of the beach, all four members of our crew were satisfied. After about an hour, the team united together and made a short movie about two native cannibals who eat the notorious Captain Hook, stranded in Puerto Rico. All went as planned. Driving to the hotel at night was a whole different story. The dark roads made it hard for the driver, George, to see where he was going. But not only had that but the two young recruits fallen asleep unable to aid their captain. This was a great misshapen. When finally Valentina woke up Eugene, he guided the crew safely to the hotel using this knowledge of the map. Exhausted from a day’s hard play, the crew went to sleep dreaming of the next day to come.

Once again, we had swum in our beloved beach. After lunch, it was our last day with the car rental so we decided to use it wisely and go to Old San Juan again. We had explored the old fortresses this time. We stopped by Fort Cristobel first and then Fort Del Morro. We had walked to the center of the city again and tried to find the great Christopher Columbus statue. After finding the Ponce De Leon statue, Ballaja statue and countless others, we never found poor old Christopher Columbus. Then we went to find some ice cream, and Anton yelled 'Christopher Columbus!', but George said 'No, no he’s not alive anymore.' To this Eugene responded 'No, silly, there’s your statue!'. Happily, George ran to take a picture of the statue he has been drooling about. We finally decided to go home after our legs were very tired from looking for Columbus, who actually founded San Juan. George had ordered four Lights and Shadows tickets for us to watch. Because of the rain, our show was ruined but we still learned a lot about the history of Old San Juan. The whole crew was tired and wet and wanting to go home so George carefully drove everyone home.

Today was the day we’ve all been waiting for. Today was the day that we were going snorkeling! We had planned to take the ferry from Fajardo to the little island of Culebra, which was said to be the best snorkeling place around. The line to buy a ticket was extremely long. We were too late to buy a ticket, because we were in the back but there were still a lot of people behind us. Instead of going to Culebra, we went to the other island of Vieques. Immediately we bought tickets back to Fajardo knowing that there would be a big line again. There we took a taxi to the beach and we snorkeled in the water by the pier. Anton and Eugene each found a conch shell. We took a taxi back home and were in time for the ferry’s arrival. We were extremely happy with our prizes when we got home and washed them quickly.