Over the river and through the woods to home we go?

My brain is full of adages from childhood that makes me make me think of home. Mike and I have tried to take this extra time and say when life gives you lemons or bombs make lemonade or napalm? Okay, the second one doesn't work so well, but then again, I'm not a superpower with the biggest military in the world. I want you to look at the amazing scene that nature made above. As Mike and I watched and enjoyed this incredible show of force, we watched a different show of force in the sky. Now that we've had a little backstory, it makes a bit more sense. When mike and I were staying in Aguada, the us military actually brought maduro through the airport right next to us in Aguadilla. It didn't make sense to us why the airspace was closed for such a long time but now it does. According to sources, I can't quote, he was brought into the airport, held until he was ready to be taken to Guantanamo Bay and then, of course, onto New York. I have never seen such a beautiful place, with only military planes in the sky. I'm going to have to unpack my feelings on this for a little while, before, I try to even make them part of one of my blogs.

I know this is a lot of videos of the same place but I've never been anywhere that sounded or looked like this before. There are so many things that surprised me about Puerto Rico. I know I've shared some of them before, but sometimes, if we don't say things more than once we forget them.

#1 Puerto Rican food is not like anything I've eaten in Mexico, Central or South America. Due to my own ignorance, I assume that they would use salsa, but they don't seem to in most traditional dishes. Their use of plantaine is expansive and they cook the best bread fruit I've ever had.

#2 The coastline is magical. Remember I've only been from the middle of Puerto Rico towards the West, but I'm going to assume that the sea mounts and mases and other beautiful rock formations, go around the entire island. I cannot think of a place that I was that had better crashing waves on these structures than the videos above, hence why there are two.

#3 The Puerto Rican people love to use their natural resources, and the government has worked to make many of the most beautiful places publicly available. This was amazing for mike and I because we met so many wonderful local families on the beach. For those of you who know Mike, he is not a sitter on the beach. On these beaches, he was willing to slow down, read, talk to others and just watch the water.

#4 They are so friendly, and love to share there lives and home with you. Oh, and their homemede alcohol, their pets, their relatives and their food.

This was the best last night we could have had. Stephanie, Juan, and Maximiliano's family just took us in. We got incredibly lucky to meet her stepfather, who, with Maxamilliano, makes amazing homemade liquor, Maximiliano's sister from Uruguay and two neighbors from across the street. Dinner and hanging out is truly a neighborhood activity. They made the most wonderful pork kababs, also called pincho, Argentinian sausages and a dish I don't know the name of, also from Argentina that contained potato, pea and some kind of a cream sauce. Everything was delicious and normally, that's my favourite part.... but not here, here, it was definitely the company.

Then we got on the plane, but the entire world couldn't let us just go home unmolested.

This is Mike getting on the plane. Oh, wait, it's not because the united states military decided to land one of their aircraft while we were waiting to board. I can't tell you how scared I was. All I could think was, please just let me board and go home. Amazingly we did. We landed in Orlando, and then in Philadelphia.

Then, we went out to pick up puppies. They were extremely excited to see us. Don't worry the favor was returned.