¡Meow! ¡Adios! 👋🏻

In our final week, I crossed the rest of the items off my Puerto Rico trip bucket list and said goodbye to the country in which I’d spent two months conducting research and learning to live in an apartment with roommates.

I planned a Sunday outing to the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. We made our way out to Santurce and had breakfast at a really interesting place near the museum called Abracadabra Café. It had a magician theme and the decorations were really cool. There were a bunch of old black-and-white group photos on the wall and each one had bunny heads painted over some of the people’s faces. They also had a Remy toy over the stove hood, which I found humorous. The food was also super tasty and I was really glad to have gone there for breakfast.

People say that you don’t even have to walk into el Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico to see art because its very facade is art itself, as you can see in this photograph. Of course, we had come to see all the art it had to offer, so during our visit, we checked out the whole place. There was a lot more abstract and contemporary art than I expected, but interesting, though the rare instances of more traditional art were comforting. For many of the works, one needed an explanation of the history to understand them, but thankfully the gallery assistant while some works provided the history lessons themselves. It was a very interesting and enlightening visit. Here are some of my favorite pieces:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last item on my bucket list (though it may seem silly) was to try bubble tea in Puerto Rico before I left. After conducting two sessions Wednesday morning, Cat and I split up; she went to the beach, and I went to see if the bubble tea shop in Rio Piedras was open. It was! The place was super small; the part behind the counter was twice the size of the seating area, which was just a thin strip of counter lined with chairs facing away from the wall. I ordered rolled ice cream (because a shop back home had stopped selling it before I got to try it) and bubble tea, of course. The bubbles were mid but the tea and the ice cream (plus toppings!) were tasty. 🧋🍨

I met Cat and our participant-turned-friend, Cristian, at Escambron Beach for one last meeting. They went out to see the octopus Cat had found and I stayed in Cat’s hammock and watched the sun set since I hadn’t brought my swimsuit. The sky turned the most beautiful pinks, purples, and blues, and though it hardly rained, I spotted a lovely rainbow on the other side of the sky.

After spending some time at the beach, we went to a ramen place called Peko Peko and had a great time just talking and enjoying our last night in Puerto Rico. The restaurant itself proved to be quite the entertainment, with an robot waiter with an animated cat face that made cute expressions and said, “¡Miao! ¡Aquí estoy!” when it reached the kitchen. 😸

Our last pair of participants, scheduled for Thursday morning at 8:00 am, never showed up. After receiving an email from them saying they couldn’t make it, we used the time to download all of our data, pack up the equipment bags, and clean up the lab. Getting up early was not all for naught, however, because it gave us the chance to say goodbye to our favorite café, Bien Dulce. Before leaving campus for the last time, we took a picture in front of the Torre Universidad with the YO ❤️ IUPI sign.

We all had lunch with Rosa (Cat, Jessica, and I) to say goodbye before the next day. Rosa recommended a place to go souvenir shopping, so Cat and I went there and bought small gifts for our friends and family members. I bought chocolate for my dad, coquí earrings for my mom, and sea turtle necklaces for myself and my best friend.

I consider this trip a successful research trip and learning experience! This was my first time conducting linguistics research, and it has introduced me to the kind of problems that can occur when recruiting, scheduling, and conducting sessions. We certainly made mistakes, but we also managed to act on the spot to handle unexpected situations a few times and tried attacking problems at different angles to achieve our objectives. We managed to exceed our participant goal 😉‼️ by 2 pairs (which will help if we end up having to throw out any data) and made friends and acquaintances along the way, from which we learned about the island and the people who live here. I hope to return to Puerto Rico one day and see all the places I missed on this trip, and meet up with aforementioned local friends. See you next time, Puerto Rico! 👋🏻