Puerto Rico: Day 4…

Another lovely walk into San Juan Old Town in glitzy Puerto Rico for Stuart and me. 

Forts, battlements, picturesque views, colourful colonial houses, and pretty vistas. 

And then the wheels fell off. 

We met up with the Tim, Andy, Jim, Eddie, and Q. 

All-day happy hour in a delightful gay bar. 

A bucket of booze. 

Back to the apartment to muck about in the pool. 

Such fun!

Tottenham 2 - 3 Arsenal…

It was odd watching the north London derby from 4,200 miles away. But with a big telly, and the roar of the away fans it felt like I was there. 

The result was a relief, the Gunners were in danger of throwing away a 3-0 half-time advantage in the most unlikely fashion but held of for a win that kept us top of the table with three games left.  

It had started well, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s own goal and Kai Havertz’s header bookending Bukayo Saka’s smooth finish on the counter. 

Not wishing to make life easy for ourselves, our keeper David Raya’s dreadful clearance then gifted Cristian Romero a goal. 

There was then a nerve-shredding finish after Heung-min Son scored from the spot three minutes from the end of normal time.

Luckily the boys held on. 

Plenty of drama in this north London derby and plenty more drama to come as the Premier League season reaches its climax.  

Happy St Totteringham’s Day everyone!

Onward and upward my friends.   

@Arsenal   

#COYG   

#NLD

#TOTARS

Puerto Rico: Day 3…

Yesterday was a day of exploring. Mainly exploring San Juan’s Old Town.  

We had started the day with both Matty and Jim for breakfast but our self-guided exploring of the Old Town was just the three amigos; Stuart, Jim, and me.  

San Juan is of course the capital of Puerto Rico and its historic Old Town founded in 1521 is rather beautiful. 

Spanish Colonial in nature there were castles, a lighthouse, colourful buildings, picturesque squares, statues to the great and the good, fountains, a fabulous white marble sea-edge cemetery,  and much else besides. 

Oh, and there might have been cocktails along the way. 

Later on and back at the hotel we can a swim in the pool, the rest of the guys arrived, and we all went out for food and trip to a local gay place called rather auspiciously El Pergatorio! 

A fun day. 

Puerto Rico: Day 2…

We left Miami early afternoon yesterday for our short hop flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

American Airlines rather made up for themselves by giving us free beer and I managed to watch Disney’s Walk-E on the plane too so I was happy. 

Flying into San Juan is pretty special. Lovely view of the wonderful city.

Less wonderful was the 25 minute wait on the tarmac for the airport to allow the plane to reach the gate. Also less wonderful was the Uber surge pricing that went from $16 to $60 at the moment we left the baggage carousel.

We ended up getting a taxi into town, which was only $22 though. 

The place we are staying is a really quite nice, an apartment. The room is big and in very good order  although I’m not sure the kitchen has actually had anybody ever cooking in it! Also, there’s a building site next door. But least we do get to look at the builders!

San Juan itself seems very pleasant. The usual mix of tourist trap bars, plastic chair places,  and nice restaurants. 

Some of those bars do seem a bit dodgy though and we did walk into Patrick Irish bar and spin straight back out!

The food is good though, and the local beer nice. 

We met up with Matthew who was also as an early arrival like us and went out for some nosh and to a bar or two to eye up the locals. Some of these locals did look a bit rough though - so we didn’t engage too much by way of conversation. 

Then back to the hotel for an early night to fight the jet lag. 

Today our other partners in crime will be around so no doubt the 10 of us will make some plans for this evening. 

¡Vamos!

Puerto Rico: Day 1

Stuart, Regenersaurus Rex, and I are on our way to Puerto Rico to help a close friend celebrate his 50th birthday.  First stop Miami though. 

Slight moan: American Airlines are rubbish. Shit food. Shit service. $29 for 2 hours WiFi (many airlines do it free these days). You have to pay extra for luggage (if you can find the right section of their shit web site / app to actually do it - we couldn’t). Moan over.