My flight from LAX to FLL left on Thursday evening, and got into FLL at 4:30am on Friday morning. I then proceeded to have a 6 hour layover, during which I waited in the wrong terminal, and did not realize until half an hour before boarding for the flight to San Juan.... at which point, I had to exit Terminal 3 (where I was cooling my heels) and rush over to Terminal 4, and go through security again. Thankfully, Fort Lauderdale has fast security. Or just less people.
I should mention that I flew Spirit Airlines, which apparently is the worst rated airline for customer service (the Atlantic has a fairly fair assessment of the situation). My expectations for the flight were...low. Maybe that's the trick. You have really low expectations for the flight, you end up pleasantly surprised. Spirit "unbundles" services, so the base fare you pay is very low (for my flights to Puerto Rico, most other airlines were asking in the neighborhood of $1000 for roundtrip fare - my flight, including the $45 I had to pay for my one carry-on, cost me a little over $600). The claim they make is that other airlines bundle in the complimentary drink, the checked luggage, the carry-on luggage, etc etc.
So, for this flight, my expectations were exceeded. The flight attendants were super nice and pleasant. I paid $2 for a tea, and they have a "combo" deal - two hot drinks for the price of one. So I got two teas. And a cup of instant noodle (going for a whopping $3.50) but all and all told, for a cheap flight, not bad. And it's true that the seats don't recline. And that if you don't spend $18 reserving a seat during online booking, your seating is randomized. When I first got to the airport, I had middle seats for both flights. At the gate, I asked if they had an aisle, and the agent told me the only aisle seat was the very back row, and if that was ok. Sure, I said. The back of the plane never bothered me. Turns out, my aisle seat was an entire empty row! Fine, maybe I got really lucky on this flight. But overall, not the worst experience.
The 6 hour layover, though...that was painful. Because of my two teas, I found myself hopped up on caffeine and unable to sleep. When I finally reached FLL, I was wiped. And hungry. And we got in so early that the amenities at FLL weren't open yet. What's a girl to do? Thankfully, FLL has free wifi (at the price of pushing an "agree" to terms button, rather than the downloading of an app or watching of a video required at LAX), so I finished my ICA conference presentation. At that point, Chili's finally opened, so I had breakfast while mooching off the FLL wifi and watching Law & Order: SVU on Hulu.
The flight over to San Juan was very uneventful. By that point, the lack of sleep caught up to me, and I completely conked out.
I'm still not sure what to think of Puerto Rico. It's not part of the US, but it's not really another country either. We don't need our passports to enter the territory. The official language is Spanish, although most people speak English very well. There are a lot of stray animals. We are staying on the west end of Condado, while the east end seems to have a larger homeless population. What is striking about the homeless population is that they all have dogs. Sometimes more than one. And in old San Juan today, when Ioana, Nancy, Theo, and I went and walked around, we ran into a number of stray cats...
And tonight, walking home from the conference, we encountered a stray dog that was following up. He passed us, then looped back around, and passed us a few more times.
It is humid here. Feels like Southeast Asia. The intermittent lack of hot water also reminds me of Southeast Asia....but, very beautiful.
We (Francesca, Nancy, and I) are staying in an Airbnb, which is essentially a studio with three beds in it, and the proprietor only gave us one key, so it has been a full-on scheduling operation to make sure the person who needs the key has the key when needed...
But it is still quite nice. And has AC, so I can't complain.
Oh, and here we are taking a picture with my selfie stick.
I did my presentation earlier today, then Ioana, Nancy, Theo, and I hit up old San Juan -- a mere $12 taxi ride from the Caribe Hilton Hotel - the conference hotel. We walked to the two forts (and didn't know that a $5 ticket pays for admission to both), and checked out (aka entered) the second fort (El Morro - the bigger, more famous one).
After the fort, we were hot, sticky (sweaty), and dehydrated, so we hit up a place with drinks. And live music! I couldn't tell you what the name of this place is... but it was very lovely.
Tonight was the Annenberg party, and the Northwestern party. The Annenberg party probably had around 300 or 400 people there (just...guesstimating from my days in band, remembering how big a 250-piece band is.... there were definitely more people at the party tonight) - it was outdoors, and very overwhelming. A few of us hopped between the Annenberg party and the Northwestern party. Northwestern had rented out the entire Rosa Mexicano restaurant, and were offering tacos and guacamole all night. It was very lovely.
Ok, that was Day 2. I'm tired, and ready for bed.
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