I’m happily writing from Puerto Rico, reporting from my lab visit to Ingi Agnarsson’s Lab. I’m in San Juan, and this does not classify as a field work trip exactly. Ingi is an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico and expert in social spider matters, so I’m here for collaboration. Since there are no social spiders on the island, Ingi also works on island biogeography. And sharks. And whales. From all of those, I have so far on the island seen only the Anolis lizards, and heard Coqui frogs sing in the evening. Still fascinating, though no social spiders!
So after a short intro, I’ll start with skipping describing the 25 hours’ drive and flighiing from the docking point A to the final point B, San Juan. Jetlag made me not sleep the first morning, so I joined Matjaz to the Rio Piedras campus. The only thing I knew ahead of my arrival is that I would be coming from Denmark, to be staying in the house with a Danish guy, my old Slovenian arachnopal Matjaz, and Shakira. She is a native Puerto Rican, and the only one in the house who doesn’t work with spiders - so a minority in our happy residence. We also have 3 cats, and 3 means of making coffee: espresso machine, like in Cristina Tuni’s house; macchinetta, like in our house; and classic pot for Turkish coffee (Croatian: dzezva). Nice. 3rd floor in a block of apartments, with the tropical trees sheltering the windows of the living room, and in the evening coqui frogs start their /all night/ singing. They are endemic to the island. Green and frogs are pleasant to one’s eyes and ears.
First day I met up shortly with Ingi to have lunch with him and the Slovenian. I also noted the labs on the campus are too air-conditioned, so would be freezing without a fleece in PR! Well, as a field biologist I learned it’s appropriate to bring your fleece everywhere, luckily I also packed mine to PR. Except that I’m here to do only modelling projects, and no field work. I don’t get this overdose of air-conditioning, since natives are possibly, like the permanently-social spiders, supposed to be tuned only to a seasonal environments with heavy rain and nice constant heat. One of my projects has so far been about getting the lat longs of the data I’m working on in the right order, so it took a while to get a nice map I could look at satisfactory while extracting everything else I need from the data. You’ll hopefully read about the other things and achievements in our publications.
Puerto Rico, Associated Free State to US, is a tropical island, so here’s a palm photo. One of the things that amaze me here is the vegetation, and orchids planted in pots on tree trunks of the palms outside of our block. Besides that, the streets look very Americanized, and cars are the ultimate means of transport. The Old town of San Juan is not in the actual city, but further west along the coast. This Sunday we tried to reach it by AquaExpress, the ferryboat, but none were sailing. Than we were waiting for the guagua (bus), but none came. So I can only say that the beaches in the New San Juan are sandy with palms and reasonably high waves for surfer beginners like me. We tried boogie board surfing yesterday, it was super fun! Only us girls actually, while the guys were at home, making cakes for a dinner at Ingi’s place. Really nice food, I have to salute all the men who cooked.
I kind of miss the heavenly biking lanes of Denmark, like the Danish guy, Heine misses lakrids here. We’ll survive. Over and out, hasta la vista!
Pics :)
So after a short intro, I’ll start with skipping describing the 25 hours’ drive and flighiing from the docking point A to the final point B, San Juan. Jetlag made me not sleep the first morning, so I joined Matjaz to the Rio Piedras campus. The only thing I knew ahead of my arrival is that I would be coming from Denmark, to be staying in the house with a Danish guy, my old Slovenian arachnopal Matjaz, and Shakira. She is a native Puerto Rican, and the only one in the house who doesn’t work with spiders - so a minority in our happy residence. We also have 3 cats, and 3 means of making coffee: espresso machine, like in Cristina Tuni’s house; macchinetta, like in our house; and classic pot for Turkish coffee (Croatian: dzezva). Nice. 3rd floor in a block of apartments, with the tropical trees sheltering the windows of the living room, and in the evening coqui frogs start their /all night/ singing. They are endemic to the island. Green and frogs are pleasant to one’s eyes and ears.
First day I met up shortly with Ingi to have lunch with him and the Slovenian. I also noted the labs on the campus are too air-conditioned, so would be freezing without a fleece in PR! Well, as a field biologist I learned it’s appropriate to bring your fleece everywhere, luckily I also packed mine to PR. Except that I’m here to do only modelling projects, and no field work. I don’t get this overdose of air-conditioning, since natives are possibly, like the permanently-social spiders, supposed to be tuned only to a seasonal environments with heavy rain and nice constant heat. One of my projects has so far been about getting the lat longs of the data I’m working on in the right order, so it took a while to get a nice map I could look at satisfactory while extracting everything else I need from the data. You’ll hopefully read about the other things and achievements in our publications.
Puerto Rico, Associated Free State to US, is a tropical island, so here’s a palm photo. One of the things that amaze me here is the vegetation, and orchids planted in pots on tree trunks of the palms outside of our block. Besides that, the streets look very Americanized, and cars are the ultimate means of transport. The Old town of San Juan is not in the actual city, but further west along the coast. This Sunday we tried to reach it by AquaExpress, the ferryboat, but none were sailing. Than we were waiting for the guagua (bus), but none came. So I can only say that the beaches in the New San Juan are sandy with palms and reasonably high waves for surfer beginners like me. We tried boogie board surfing yesterday, it was super fun! Only us girls actually, while the guys were at home, making cakes for a dinner at Ingi’s place. Really nice food, I have to salute all the men who cooked.
I kind of miss the heavenly biking lanes of Denmark, like the Danish guy, Heine misses lakrids here. We’ll survive. Over and out, hasta la vista!
Pics :)
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