now picnic

Hola! I have arrived this evening in Puerto Rico, for a "Conference on
the Intersection of Particle and Nuclear Physics," with the unwieldy
acronym "CIPANP."

The flight was very lovely and blue. (That's the Atlantic!)










Once I arrived at the airport, I took a shuttle to the hotel where the
conference is being held, and I snapped a few pictures on the way. You
can see the rainforest-y hills in the background. The air is moist and
hot, and the plants look like they are really fighting to grow over
every inch of ground that people try to carve out. I'm only north of the
equator by 18 degrees -- same as Bombay, in India.




This picture's for Bo:




At first I thought the gas was only 67 cents, but a little googling seems to show that the gas is $2.67 -- they just haven't bothered to put up new signs since gas was less than a dollar. All the gas stations we passed were like that...

Ans my room is a really nice one - top floor (7th), overlooking the ocean and the beach.




Most things are the same here, so far, as other places I have visited... lots of Subway and Blockbuster and Burger King on the way to the hotel. My Sprint PCS phone works just fine -- there's better coverage here in the hotel than in my office at Fermilab. Since Puerto Rico is part of the US, I didn't need to go through any customs or anything to get here, and the currency is the dollar. Though Spanish is the primary language, there are lots of English signs, especially here at the hotel. The most notable difference is the noise of the birds and the insects now that it's nighttime. They are loud and many, and very different from the crickets and frogs that I'm used to. There are some that cheep-cheep quickly (bugs?) and another sound like a goose honking that seems like it would come from a bird (at night?). The roar of the ocean waves provides a bit of bass to the otherwise trebly evening. Some of these sounds are different, but the idea is the same: African Rainforest at night and here are some frogs puertorriquenos. Pretty neat.

// posted by kc @  8:09 PM   0 comments