Week of January 18th

Okay, we got to the 1st US territory, Puerto Rico, with no immediate cruise planned so we decided not to throw this pick back in the bag and forge ahead.

For all other states we have been noting when and in what order the states were admitted to the union, so I decided to begin my research there. This was no easy feat. All the sites I consulted skirted around actually giving any concrete facts. Therefore, don’t look to me to give you any valuable information about the perimeters of becoming a US territory or even when Puerto Rico became one. I can tell you that Puerto Ricans became US citizens in 1917 so I’m going with that date.

Now that the history lesson is over, I went in search of the fun stuff. Believe it or not, St. Louis doesn’t have 1 Puerto Rican restaurant or a place to hear Puerto Rican music. I emailed the president of the Puerto Rican Cultural Society for guidance but still haven’t heard back. I decided to concentrate my research on holidays and festivals for some direction. Being an US Territory, Puerto Ricans observe all US Federal holidays and that didn’t sound like much fun. I also elected to stay away from the religious holidays. At last I stumbled onto brief references to a local fair called the San Sebastian Street Festival that’s celebrated yearly on the 3rd week of January – coincidence, again I think not.

Every year the street of San Sebastian in old San Juan becomes a carnival where local artists and craft traders exhibit their wares during the day and at night the street becomes full of music, food and a parade of people decked in vibrant costumes and colorful traditional masks called vejigantes. Now, a celebration is coming together.

Of course, a Puerto Rican celebration wouldn’t be complete without a rum drink. Since the piña colada is reported to be the official beverage of Puerto Rico, it was the logical choice. There are several hotels that claim this sweet coconut, pineapple & rum drink as their own, but I’m going with the story that it was introduced in 1954 at the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar.

So with the sounds of the band “Puerto Rican Power” in the background and the makings of piña coladas in the blender we gathered to make St. Louis versions of the vejigante mask.

The truth of the matter is that we wanted to watch the end of the Viking’s game, I know – last week, so by the time we sat down to create we had a little piña colada buzz going on. All the better for the creative juices. With hardly a beep out of any of us, we felt the spirit of the vejigante coming through in our creations of paint, feathers and sequins.

With our masks finished, in keeping with the tradition of the San Sebastian Street Festival, we paraded around weaving a conga line throughout the house.

Color in the US Territory Puerto Rico with the vibrant colors of the vejigante mask and travel northwest to the “Silver State” - Nevada. 13 down - 39 to go.