Reflection

Thank you for reading this blog.  We are a group of students from 10th grade at Robinson School in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  This blog was created as a team project for our Puerto Rico History class as assigned by our teacher Mr. Victor Quiñones.

When we first heard from our teacher the title of our project, “Scavenger Hunt”, we were all excited, thinking about a fun and exciting adventure to look for hidden treasures!  This excitement, however, quickly turned into worry and a bit of an overwhelming feeling as we heard the details of the task that lay ahead.  First of all it was a hunt for historic places in Old San Juan, I mean, how fun and exciting could that be for us?  We have been going there since we were little kids and already knew everything about it.   Second (and here is where the overwhelming feeling came from) we had to find 55 different places,  yes you read it right FIFTYFIVE!!  How could there be 55 different historic places in Old San Juan? and, if that was right, how long would it take to actually walk to each of these places and take pictures under the heat of the sun with 4 teenagers that have VERY different personalities and very different ideas about everything from the fastest way to find the places, the best pose for each picture, to when we should take breaks for snack/lunch and the bathroom…??!!

 

We thought we knew everything about Old San Juan.  For example, we have been going to "El Morro" since we can remember.  For us it was just a big Spanish-built fort that was the best place ever to fly kites!  We all remember going as little boys to "Parque de Las Palomas" to feed the pigeons and riding along "Paseo de la Princesa" in our bicycles and scooters.  Now as teenagers we go with our parents to enjoy many different types of cuisine at the various restaurants on the cobblestone streets and some of us never miss the “Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastían”, an annual carnival-like celebration held every January, which marks the end of the Christmas season in Puerto Rico.  By the way, if you didn’t already know, Puerto Rico is known as the place with the longest Christmas season in the world!  For us Old San Juan was just a fun place.

 

Well, let me tell you, we were all in for a big surprise because, actually, we weren’t really aware of the vast extent of history that lies in the many different corners of our Capital city.  For example, "El Morro", where we used to fly kites when we were little, is actually called "Castillo San Felipe del Morro" and it took the Spaniards more than a century to build!  This fort was built to protect the island from attacks by other countries that wanted to take over its privileged location between Europe and the Americas.  Thanks to "El Morro" the island remained part of Spain (unlike many of the other islands that were taken over by England, Holland and France) until 1898 when it was turned over to the United States as part of the Paris Treaty that ended the Spanish-American War.  We also learned some little known facts about the important role that "El Morro" played in both World War I and World War II.  The first shot fired by the United States in World War I is said to have actually been fired from "El Morro" to stop German ship Odenwald in its attempt to take supplies into German warships stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.  "El Morro" was also used in World War I and World War II as an observation port to monitor the safety of the Panama Canal and defend the Caribbean region from potential attacks.  Underground refuges were built there during World War II by the US Military in case they were needed.  As another example, el “Parque de Las Palomas”, that we visited so many times when we were kids, was originally built in the 1700's as a staging area for cannon placements , and the “Paseo de La Princesa”, where we strolled on our bikes (not allowed any longer :( ) was home to a prison built by the Spaniards in 1837 were many dangerous criminals and political prisoners were held (we had no idea!).  These are just 3 examples of the many things that we found, so follow along to learn it all. 

 

This was definitely an adventure that we will always remember and we learned a lot of history along the way, which we are now sure is what Mr. Quiñones intended by assigning this project!!

We hope that you enjoy our blog and it motivates you to visit our beautiful island and enjoy all the history that lies in Old San Juan, one of the oldest cities in the Americas…