PR Day 7: Shabbat

Today I slept in until almost 11:00 am, a luxury I can rarely afford. Being that it was Shabbat and I was homebound, I made the most of it. I had a good breakfast-lunch, and spent the rest of the day just talking with my Mom and playing with my nephew, which I really hadn't had a chance to do. It was good to be home and just relax. After my nephew went to spend the night with his father, my Mom and I just talked for about 4 hours about everything. Funny, since I actually talk to my Mom on the phone quite often, but it's not the same. Today we had a chance to really catch up on everything we had on our minds and talk about the future ahead.

Shabbat ended at around 7:30 pm, and then we had dinner, I took a shower, and we sat down to watch some old home movie my Mom had recently come into from her brother, most of it being movies shot during her trip to Europe in 1970. It's so weird seeing my Mom as a 16-year old in those movies! My late grandmother and late uncle (who died now in July and had had the movies and pictures of the trip to Europe all his life) were also there, and there even was a little surprise in the form of a quick 10-second shot of my Father when he and Mom first got married back in 1972. I'm gonna look into getting that video transfered to DVD.

At around 10:00 pm I took off to my friend's Braulio's store to hang out with my friends for the last time this time around. We basically just took up space at the store, playing Street Fighter and Soul Calibur up until almost 1:00 am. I bid them farewell and till the next one, as I always do. Braulio and Josue are like family to me, and it is just as hard to say goodbye as it would be to a dear cousin. I hope things go well for Braulio's store; we've all wanted to open up a gaming store in our lives, and Braulio actually managed it, so now we all live vicariously through him in that sense, and we all pitch in however we can to see that Gaming Emporium thrives.

I decided to head home, but I took a detour to see where my sister works as a waitress. The placed, called El Meson, is nice, secure and well-frequented, so at least I can breathe easily that she's in a safe place overnight. On a whim I decided then to head over to Old San Juan, at least to see it at night, but when I got there, I found out that have now closed access to what we call "el casco," the historic colonial area that is the heart of Old San Juan to all except residents. If you wish to go up there, you need to park at the foot of the island and walk up, and I wasn't about to do that alone and without a plan, so I turned around and came back via the very long, scenic way of Condado then Isla Verde (if you don't know P.R. then this means nothing to you--suffice to say it was a very long-winded, traffic-heavy trek I could have shortened considerably by taking the expressway).

Now I'm home and getting ready to sleep. In the morning I'll see if I have time to do anything, and if not, I'll just stay here, pack and spend the time with my Mom.

I do have various observations about P.R. from the little trip to San Juan I took, but I'm tired now and I'll write them in later. I'll probably end up doing a revision, along with some pictures I've taken, so I can add all the thoughts I've left unsaid so far.