Sawyers Around the World

 Believe it or not, we didn't do any research on Puerto Rico before arriving here a little over two weeks ago (Saturday, February 11). If you know us well, then you can find that really hard to believe. We're still not sure why we didn't research this place at all, but it may have something to do with the overwhelming amount of research we had to do for traveling with type 1 diabetes supplies, traversing across Europe, getting medically prepared for the Amazon rainforest, etc. We chose Puerto Rico for our first stop because we have really good friends from college that live here who graciously agreed to host us. I guess we figured that since the basics were figured out for us, we could learn as we lived here! That being said, it was easy to be surprised by this place once we got here. So here are a few of the ways I was surprised by Puerto Rico... This place is definitely not Americanized. I had assumed that because Puerto Rico is a US territory, that it would feel a little...

      Yesterday we went to Castillo San Felipe del Morro which is a very old castle in Puerto Rico that was used in the spanish american war. Here is a Document that I made that has facts about  Castillo San Felipe del Morro. *To be clear the Spanish stole the land first from The Taino people Some pictures                                                 -Christian

       Yesterday we just got back from another part of Puerto Rico called Isabela. It was amazing! We stayed in a beautiful house in the middle of Isabela. Like we were right next to the plaza. But the annoying part about staying right next to the plaza is that it's really loud. Like there's music going on the plaza almost all day. But it's still a really nice house. There is also a Popsicle and Ice Cream store right next to our house. So one day, for an appetizer before dinner we went to the Ice Cream store and I got Passion Fruit Sorbet and it was really good. Also we had 4 (four) beach days in a row! I also have pictures of the beaches. Here they are. -Christian

       Last week I had an amazing time in the Caribbean on our cruise. We went to Saint Thomas which is in the US Virgin Islands and we rented a car that had a left-side steering wheel but you had to drive on the left side of the road. We then drove to two amazing beaches, one was a warm bay, and the other we had to hike to and it was called Mermaid's Chair, the beach was a skinny strip of land, and on one side was the Caribbean ocean, and on the other side was the Atlantic ocean, then we went to Sint Maarten which is actually split into two countries owned by the French and the Dutch but we just went to the Dutch side and had a relaxing beach day. Then we went to Saint Lucia where we rented a car that had the steering wheel on the right so we drove on the left side of the road. We then drove around the island to a volcano where we got to hike right next to it and see boiling water coming out of the ground. The last island we went to was Barbados which was ...

  Well tomorrow is the day it all begins. We head off on our epic 4 month adventure! I woke up this morning bright and early with final plans on my mind and I was finally able to book our last train reservation in Europe! It was a big relief to realize that all of our major reservations are set! After years of dreaming and imagining what a semester abroad with our family could look like we are actually doing it. We decided to do it for sure a couple years ago, started really planning summer of 2022, booked our first plane ticket (Rome to Fresno 😊) on August 15th 2022, and probably booked at least one thing almost every week since then. Now here we are February 1st the day before we leave and we actually have the vast majority of it planned. Booking that final train reservation felt like a huge accomplishment. If any of you are interested in the whole itinerary you can see that here .  For the next 4 months we will go from Fresno to many Islands in the Caribbean, Ecuador, the ...

Christian's entry: Last week we dropped off Betsy at my grandma's house in Lake Havasu. Here is a movie I made about Betsy:  Betsy's New Home