Sunday night was quite an adventure. After a failed attempt to go ice skating with the family, Michelle brought her boyfriend Billy, her cousin Kyle, and her friend Johnathan over. After some brief hanging out at our place, Billy wanted to go to bed and Michelle wanted to play pool, so we dropped Billy off and then headed out to San Juan.
We went to Douglas' Pub and had a round of Jellyfish Shots (old photo because this time I used the Holga, and I haven't gotten the roll back yet). We went upstairs and played a game or two of pool before Douglas' closed at 1am. We went next door to the Pink Skirt, a bar which, as the bartender of Douglas's told us, was not technically a lesbian bar, but in effect it was. This night it was pretty empty though, so we had the dance floor mostly to ourselves, with only a single lesbian couple dancing in the corner. We had a good time there (mostly spent appreciating Andrés' flailings).
After an hour or so, we set off to find another bar that was still open, and eventually made our way to El Batey. We hung out there, played some more pool, took a bunch of pictures with Michelle's camera, and met an awesome drunk old man. He claimed he owned the bar, but one can't really be sure. Regardless, he was one of the highlights of the evening.
By around 4:30am, mutterings of "Denny's" were being heard, so we made our way back to our cars. Michelle dropped off Johnathan, and then met Andrés and I at the Denny's in San Patricio, only to discover that they were "closed for cleaning" until 6am. Come on Denny's, nobody expects you to be clean, they only expect you to be always open.
Unwilling to go home empty-handed, we set off for another Denny's. Andrés was convinced there was one in Condado, so we headed there, but we couldn't find one. I knew there was one in front of Bellas Artes in Santurce, and we called to be sure they were open, but I wasn't sure how to get there from Condado. Andrés claimed he knew the way, so I followed his directions, which took us efficiently to Fine Arts Cinema. Close, but wrong language.
Oh, did I mention that we passed Fine Arts going the wrong way down the one-way road? It's not as bad as it sounds, because the one-way road has a bus lane that runs in the opposite direction, and it is that lane we found ourselves driving down. Still, it wasn't the most legal thing we'd done that night. But since the real Bellas Artes was actually farther down (up?) that road, we were hesitant to get off onto some side road and become lost again. We crossed our fingers and hoped we'd reach the Denny's before we encountered any cops.
You know what comes next. We passed a big bunch of cops standing by the side of the road. We were careful to avoid making eye contact, and started looking for a road to turn off on. Seconds later, we pass two police cars going the right way down the road. Fortunately, neither of them turns around to enlighten us. Still, we decide it's time to get off this road, and I take a right onto the first side road I see.
It's a one-way road, and I find I'm still going the wrong way. A man waves us down to tell us so. He signals for me to lower my window. Sure, back alley in Santurce at 5am, what could go wrong? Still, he seems friendly and I want to know how to get out of here, so I lower my window and ask him. He helpfully pointed us in the right direction and was nice enough to not carjack us or anything too.
Finally we found our way to the Denny's, but discovered that the parking lot was apparently built with an emphasis on volume rather than accomodation; the ceilings were 6 feet, which made it interesting for Michelle's Land Cruiser. Still, she made it in with an inch to spare, and we finally enjoyed quality food, which tasted even more delicious after the adventure it took to obtain it.
From there we went our separate ways, arriving home with the sunrise. An evening well spent.