Puerto Rico--Sabado

Saturday, I had breakfast with Brothers. The food was actually pretty good, and even cooked to order (eggs, omelets, pancakes). I laid out by the pool with Becky before meeting up with everyone else for the tour of the Bacardi factory. The best part was the free drinks we got.

We had to wait for our tour to start, so we went shopping in the Bacardi store. I bought 2 bottles of light rum, 1 bottle of coconut rum, 1 bottle of Rum Island Ice Tea, 10 single serving bottles of light run, 2 small bottles of big apple rum, two glasses, a pack of shot glasses, and a bat-shaped pourer. All that only cost me about $70 (think about it, it really is cheap--the regular size bottles were only $8.25; around here, they are closer to $15).

The cool stuff I learned from the tour:

• The bat is the symbol of Bacardi because there were bats in the first factory (in Havana, Cuba)
• A classic daiquiri consists of: ice, lime juice, and light rum
• A true mojito consists of: ice, crushed mint leaves, Bacardi Superior, lime, and sugar
• A rum and coke is also known as a Cuba Libre ("free Cuba")

Before the banquet, I hung out with and played a few games of pitch with some bros that I've known awhile, and some that I just recently met. The banquet was pretty nice, but dinner was still mooing (translation: it was pretty pink and Gabe had a pool of blood on his plate).

After the banquet, most of us decided to go to the bar where we could ride a mechanical bull. I actually did pretty well. It was great seeing everyone try it, especially "Mom," Odie, Josh, Suzanne, and Jeremy. After everyone had a ride on the bull and we got sick of the bar, we headed over to the Wet Bar, which was a roof-top bar with an amazing view of the beach. There was even a giant bed (made of vinyl) on one side of the bar.

We hung out in the hotel for awhile, then around 3am, Gabe, Jay and I went to the El San Juan hotel (a couple blocks away) so Gabe could play craps. It was fun, especially since I didn't lose any of my own money. Gabe let me roll a couple times and Jay gave me some chips to play roulette. The casino closed at 4am, so we were forced to head back to our hotel and go to bed.