travelling

When we woke up Saturday morning the sun was shining, the sky was clear blue and it was nice and warm: vacation!

We had breakfast in a coffee place outside near the hotel and for the first time this year I was wearing my sandals and shorts. After our sandwich and coffee we went for a walk in the area around the hotel. The ocean shore there is rocky (see these two pictures) and the waves were crashing against the shore.

After that I worked for a few hours while Sasha was enjoying the pool. The hotel has a wireless network, so I first sat in the lobby and later even from the poolside.

It was a great feeling when I was done with work. We had lunch together at the pool, with a beer in the sun. Excellent.

The view from the balcony in the morning.

Rocks in the sea.

Right next to the hotel there is a small beach, that is protected from the large waves in the sea by a rock formation.

At the pool, with towels and a laptop.

Enjoying the pool.

So Friday night I went to my new hotel, and met with Sasha there: a great start of a great weekend.

The hotel were we stayed, the Wyndham Condado Plaza, is located closer to the city than the Holiday Inn I was in during the week. It's a very large hotel, with a casino downstairs, a couple of restaurants and about five swimming pools.

Friday evening the weather was pretty bad, just like it had been pretty much the rest of the week. In the afternoon, when Sasha arrived, the weather was good though so she got a nice welcome on Puerto Rico.

We went to the city by cab and when we arrived there it was raining. That was unfortunate but we were obviously in a good mood and it didn't spoil our evening. It helped that the cab stopped right in front of a small shop where they sold umbrella's. We looked around for a place to eat and after a while we found a very nice restaurant, "Amadeus". There we had a nice dinner with some typical Puerto Rican ingredients such as fried plantain, and enjoyed the Friday evening.

I finished work for today, that means we'll go into old San Juan in a little while to see what's there to discover.

Working is much nicer at the poolside or lobby of a hotel than in the office. This morning we went to the sea. There is a small beach nearby, but most of the shore are rocks. Big waves are crashing on them.

The weather is great today, so before we'll go out we'll have lunch at the pool.

I moved to a different hotel for this weekend, because the hotel were we originally stayed was booked for the weekend. A nice change to check out a new hotel, and Sasha checked in before I came home. It's much nicer to be on a tropical island together with her than alone.



Although I've been here about a week, I didn't get a chance to see much of the island yet -- something we'll make up for this weekend. There is some work that I need to do (that's why I'm in the lobby now, using a wireless connection for my e-mail), but we'll definitely go out and see the places around here. Pictures later.

Thursday evening I went out with 3 colleagues. First dinner together, then drinks on top of the Intercontinental hotel overlooking the ocean, and then to a surprising bar: a very interesting evening.

Today I travelled to Puerto Rico. I had a direct flight from Dulles to San Juan, and in the plane I was studying Spanish. Although many people in Puerto Rico speak English, it is very useful to know at least a few phrases in Spanish. And it's just a lot of fun to learn a new language.

I arrived in Puerto Rico around 13:00 o'clock. It was raining when the plane landed! I'm prepared for sunny weather, and the rain was a surprise. It took a while before my luggage appeared on the carousel and it was a relieve when I finally got my suitcase.

Today is a holiday here, so we are working from the hotel today. The rooms all have internet connection. The are a lot of tools available that make working outside the office much easier: e-mail, chat, cell-phones, conference calls, online document repositories... the combination of these makes it easy to work with the people in the office in Virginia.

I went for dinner with two colleagues in Old Town San Juan.

When we were in Williamsburg two weeks ago, we spent the Saturday in the historical downtown area.

Williamsburg used to be the capitol of the state of Virginia when it was still ruled by the British. In the beginning of the 20th century the historical inner city was restored to its original state.

A very large area contains the old-style wooden houses, and there are many small museums and actors; very pretty. It reminded me a bit of the Zaanse Schans in Holland. I enjoyed walked around in the old town.

See also these pictures.

Saturday afternoon we took a bath in the bubble hot tub in the cottage, something that I though was very luxurious. In the evening we went out for dinner the four of us. We are all city dwellers, so we never realized that going out at 21.00 o'clock in the evening in a rural city like Williamsburg isn't that easy... most restaurants close so early! After a long search we found a nice place where the kitchen was open (also only till 22.00).

Sunday we stayed in the Plantation. Late breakfast, swimming, taking it easy. We went home around 21.00 o'clock, and this time it took only 2,5 hours.

We slept in Saturday morning, but didn't wake up very late.

It was such a great feeling to be in a new town, full with historical places to go visit, and in a holiday park with all kind of nice things to do. A real vacation! I feel really privileged to have this kind of opportunities.

Around 11.00 o'clock we went to the front-desk to ask about the new cottage they wanted to assign to us, and they told us that the other cottage would be available after 16.00 so we choose to go out to the city immediately.

So, Friday night around 21:00 o'clock after a long trip we arrived in the Powhatan Plantation, our holiday park.

Powhatan Plantation is located just outside Williamsburg, Virginia, and it's a park mainly for time-sharing owners: people who buy a share in the company that manages the cottages and in exchange are allowed to stay a certain period of time in the park each year. A friend of Rosa has such a share, and she let us stay in the park -- thanks a lot!

We had a terribly nice weekend, but we're very sure that we'll never agree to such a time-sharing deal. There's hardly any flexibility, as you'll have to reserve your place in the park many months in advance. What's worse, the service in the park was pretty bad. Not that that interfered with our enjoying of the weekend, we had a great laugh about it, but I suppose it would feel different if you visit the park more often and for longer periods. Anyway: for us it was a perfect weekend, and the invitation came pretty much as a surprise; Thursday morning Rosa asked us to join.

The first item causing confusion between us and the people at the check-in counter was on when we were supposed to check in, Friday or Saturday. It was thanks to the determination of the ladies in my group and a printed e-mail that everything turned out well. When we went to the cottage that was assigned to us it turned out to be double-booked: we arrived exactly at the same time as another car in front of the cottage, and the lady told us they were assigned the same apartment number. Because they had small kids we went back to the office, where it took another half hour for the reception to figure out where to put us next. Beautiful park, nice cottages, but the people at the service desk are not the friendliest.

After the check-in we were offered a free breakfast in the restaurant, "...that will only take 60 minutes...". It took me a while to realize that they were inviting us for a marketing-talk over breakfast, to try to sell us a share in the park. We politely declined the offer.

Finally, around 23:00 o'clock we entered our cottage which was nice because even though we were in a good mood, two hours 'fighting' the check-in desk was becoming rather tiring after a long trip. The apartment was very nice! We were on the second floor, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large livingroom. Our bedroom even had a steam-shower.

We had dinner together and drank a beer, and after trying the steam shower went to bed.

Rosa and Sasha, just after we entered the cottage.

Friday I left work at 16:00 o'clock, a nice early start of the weekend. Rosa, Mila and Sasha picked me up by car near my office, and we were ready for the journey down south. Our destination was Williamsburg, a bit east of Richmond, the capitol of Virginia.

To go to Williamsburg, you'll have to take the I95, an interstate highway, and we were told that it would be pretty crowded on the way. Although it wasn't a three-day weekend, it was Easter and many people were leaving D.C. early with large traffic jams as a result.

The nice thing was that because we were with four people in a car, we took the "H.O.V.". This is a dedicated lane for cars with more than two people in it. We didn't realize that immediately, and got stuck in traffic for half an hour, but then we were able to switch to the dedicated lane and that was very pleasant: seeing all cars standing still, and we're passing them quickly.

It still was a long drive because the HOV was only 40 miles long or so. We took a break half-way and we arrived in Williamsburg around 21:00 o'clock: five hours by car.

Here you can see what the difference is between the HOV lane and the regular traffic, going southwards from D.C. on the I95.

The afternoon we're travelling to Williamsburg. Rosa invited us to join us there for the weekend, an invitation we were very happy to accept!

Williamsburg is well known for a restored colonial area in the center of the city and it's located a few hours driving south of D.C. (Google map).

I'm leaving work in a little while; many people told me that it will be very busy on the road (the Friday before an Easter weekend) but we're looking forward to it a lot.