The day before we left I was double checking tickets and connections.  It turns out, in my excitement over the trip I had miscalculated.  Our trip began on the 16th, not the 15th.  Yano was mildly irritated, since she had to take tests days before to fit in our early departure.  We discussed various options, including spending a day touristing in San Juan.  That didn’t go so well…

So, we changed our San Juan <-> New York ticket for a day earlier, which meant we now had a 30 hour layover in NYC.  Thanks to a quaint hostel near Central Park we were able to stay for $26pp and see Manhattan.  Stupid me decided to join Yano in an 7 mile run in Central Park and we got horrendously lost, which made us go faster and faster.  7 miles turned into 8, and 8 turned into 9, the last of which was walking.  Not one to waste a day in a foreign city, we washed up, and went for a stroll in 5th Avenue, 42nd street, Times Square, Grand Central Station, and what we thought was the Empire State, but was actually the Chrysler building.  Whoops.  We ended up with very swollen feet, which wer’e still paying for.  I don’t think the human body is meant to carry a huge backpack for hours, then run for 9 miles, and then walk for 3 hours in an effort to save on metro fare (BTW, there’s a $7 all day pass for public transport which we didn’t know about).

Onto Helsinki swollen feet and all…