Rain, rain, and a lot more rain!

Day three in PR! So far my stay has included a lot of rain, bad wifi and cell service, rum and good people. The hurricane missed us (I think) but we’ve had a lot of rain and overcast skies. On the first night we got all excited over the pounding rain but Javier, our personal Puerto Rican (as stated by Katie) told us it was normal for the island. Our wifi in the apartment is spotty… I accidently kicked everyone off yesterday while trying to FaceTime mom and Rob. I guess we’ll each have to have designated Skype times. Before leaving for PR, we were all under the impression that our Verizon would work the same as it does back home, including 3G, but ever since we arrived, our service has been “extended” or “roaming.” We all avoided talking on the phone because we thought we’d get charged $0.69 a minute (cough cough according to Bri) but today we learned that we should be ok to talk while we’re on “extended” service. Living without 3G is tough to get used to but I suppose we'll survive. Everyone has been getting along well. I got lucky that the group likes to have fun! The rum that everyone drinks down here is DonQ and it’s pretty cheap. I’m excited to go to Old San Juan tomorrow and look for some more authentic or homemade Puerto Rican rum. We stayed in both nights due to the rain and the fact that we had early mornings but are planning to go out tonight either around the university or in Old San Juan. Hopefully the rain will hold up!

Yesterday we took a tour of the neighborhood, got our unlimited train passes, saw the University, and ate mofongo.. a traditional Puerto Rican dish made from plantains. The city is not as well kept as I thought it would be, but it still is nice in its own way. Living in a city is a whole lot different than living in Suffield or Storrs. Our apartment is amazing and we have a nice view from the 12^th floor. I can’t wait to see the pool on the roof.. the building is 23 stories high so the view will probably be twice as nice from up there!

Today we went to the hospital where we saw the room we’d spend Mondays and Fridays in for class and also the floor where we’ll spend most of our clinical days. Getting the syllabus for med-surg was intimidating to say the least. We will cover the normal 14 week semester in just 7 weeks which will include exams every Friday. I can’t wait till October when we switch to the (hopefully) easier psych. Our home base floor at the hospital seems really great. The walls are painted bright colors and the staff is really friendly. We start clinical next Tuesday. In addition to being on that floor, we’ll have the opportunity to float to surgery, ICU, ER, and cardiac cath lab. I still don’t know what type of nurse I want to be, so hopefully my experiences this semester will help me decide that! We have one more weekend before classes start but I am going to try to get ahead on the readings for next week… oh the joys of nursing school.

Until next time!