While i wait for my pipes to thaw out i thought i would update my blogs.

Sunday in Puerto Rico...
After getting my bag from the hotel, Christine and I got ready and headed out to the east part of the island to the rain forest.

Tip of the day...don't wear a white t-shirt to a RAINforest.

I was able to get a couple of great pictures while at the rainforest before I entered the Puero Rican Rainforest Wet T-Shirt Contest. I got caught outside in a heavy rainshower while we were in the upper region of the rainforest. I got drenched. I blame it on American and Hampton Inn. Not that it was there fault but everything that went wrong on this audit i blamed on American Airlines and Hampton Inn.

Waterfall at the rainforest


View of San Juan from the rainforest


Last picture before it rained on me

Monday morning I mee thte rest of my audit team (who flew in late Sunday night) downstairs for breakfast. We leave the hotel and begin to make our 1 hour trek south across Puerto Rico to Cidra where our hospital is located. After we get off the interstate we have about 20 miles of a 2 lane road up a mountain. Christine makes a comment about how horrible the drivers are in Puerto Rico. David coins the term "Driving Laws - Optional." I started laughing and at the same time, Jason and I both say "It's nothing compared to Honduras drivers." Neither one of us knew the other person had even been to Honduras. Puerto Ricans do not use their horns like the Hondurans. I tried to get Christine to bring "horn honking" to Puerto Rico but she would have none of it. Later on in the week when i drive I bring back horn honking.

FYI - shoulders of the road in Puerto Rico can also be used as a lane if you are too impatient to wait.

The view at the hospital is incredible. Later on in the week the view gets better when i see the hot interns!

View from the parking lot at the hospital

Hot off the Press! Honduras Day 10 is now posted.

Dumb American and Dumb Hampton

My trip to Puerto Rico started out uneventful. Flight left at 6:15 a.m. We landed in Miami at 10:30 and our connecting flight left at 12:30. We had two hours to kill at the airport. I love to people watch and the airport is one of the best venues. The Miami airport didn’t let me down. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud when I saw this girl. She walked up wearing one of terry cloth swimsuit cover-ups that some people wear as a sun dress. Well, this chick was wearing a green terry cloth swimsuit cover-up (strapless) with her swimsuit on underneath. That alone was not bad but when I looked at her shoes I had to turn away. She was wearing Uggs. She looked as though she had passed out by the pool the night before and someone woke her up in time to get her to the airport just in time. My co-worker looks at me and says, “Clearly she isn’t from England because the English have more of a fashion sense than that.” I get in line and I over hear this chick talking. Sure enough – she’s from England.

We boarded our plane and made it safely to Puerto Rico. We go to baggage claim and our bags did not make it. Not only did our bags not make it, none of the bags from Nashville made it to Puerto Rico (about 40 bags). We were told that they might make it to the island that night. Christine and I go eat dinner in Old San Juan and then head back to the hotel, which happens to be located right next door to a (no lie) Cockfighting Arena. I call American Airlines and they have located our bags. I was told that the delivery service would pick up our bags at 11:00p.m. and I would have my bag within 6 hours. I go to bed.

I wake up in the morning, call the front desk to see if my bags had been delivered and they had not. The hotel told us we should probably go to the airport to pick them up ourselves. Christine and I get in the car and head to the airport. There is no way for me to enter the baggage claim area from the outside so I have to go to the ticket counter, have them print me off a fake ticket where they write in huge red letters BAGGAGE. I take my fake ticket and go through security and then I find my way to baggage claim. Once at baggage claim I am told that my bags had been delivered to the hotel the night before. At this point I’m just ticked. I try to always remain calm but I’m just tired of the run around. I made American Airlines call Hampton Inn and talk to the front desk. The front desk tells them they have not received any bags. Before American hangs up the phone I tell her to tell the front desk to actually look for the bags. Sure enough, my bags are at the hotel. At this point Christine is laughing at me because she’s never seen this mad. This is ridiculous and uncalled for. As soon as I make it to the front desk the lady tells me 5 minutes after we had left the hotel for the airport, American delivers our bags. I know that’s a load of crap and I called her out on it. I’ve received pretty good service from Hampton since then.

You are probably wondering where all 40 bags had been for 16 hours. We were told that they were in Miami. American had FORGOTTEN to load the bags onto our connecting flight. How does someone forget to load an entire cart of 40 bags sitting on the tarmac? I surprised the Airbus didn’t roll over them.

Greetings from Puerto Rico

Greetings from Puerto Rico! We arrived here yesterday afternoon so we could get a few days of fun in the sun before we have to work on Monday. It's only day 2 and I already have so many stories to post. I'll try to post some tonight. Got to go...i think i hear a few Puerto Ricans calling my name...