As I have further progressed in my trip to Puerto Rico I have to come to learn that it is not at all what I expected, and i have completely fallen in love. I love the food, the people, the nature, the culture, everything. I came here expecting to see a place somewhat similar to the United States and the Puerto Rican neighborhoods I see in Chicago. But what I have witnessed is an area filled with extreme dynamics and diversity. You can drive for an hour starting in the greenest, oldest living ecosystem of the rainforest and end up in dry and desert-like conditions. The beaches are incredible. They must be the ones that every photographer has captured because every single part is breathtaking. The nature here is just takes me back to a tranquil mindset where I really feel like I can breathe. I remember sitting at Cafe Gran Batey with my entire study abroad group in a quaint little house where our coffee was served to us by the mother of a small family; and I just got to sit in the back and witness entirely separate groups of people interacting and enjoying each other over something as simple as good coffee. We’ve used every day here to the best of our abilities, trying to retain as much information as possible from all of our experiences. The days here feel so full, we wake up early and spend the whole day doing something. Whether that’s going and spending the day at the beach or spending the day at the farm learning about agricultural practices our day is always full of something and it’s never boring. Even sitting on the porch of our apartment looking at the street outside is better, it’s not bustling or loud. Everything is relaxed. So when I look out the car window in the rainforest and see major construction it seems kind of disturbing relative to everything I had just described. The rainforest had already had been altered for tourists and it was getting cut down even more. If this is happening in a place as beautiful as Puerto Rico then I can only imagine the direct impact in other countries where there are little to no regulations on the environment and money is the first priority. When there is nothing holding these big businesses back it makes me worried that there could be a tragedy of the commons type situation that occurs and we would lose the beauty of our planet. It’s an extreme thought yes, but when I interact with the locals here most of them say there are only 2 or 3 beautiful beaches and a few good spots to see it makes me feel like we all take our homes for granted. When I get to look at all the areas of San Juan, Fajardo, Mayaguez, and Ponce I haven’t seen one part that has made me feel the same sort of way. At the same time I reflect and realize there are many parts of Florida and Chicago that I look at all the time and take in as a regular thing. We kind of poke fun at the tourists who think the Sears tower and the bean are some incredible things, and that’s because we see them all the time. I hope to be able to interact more with the locals of Chicago and Puerto Rico and find out exactly which parts are so anticlimactic to them because then I feel I could get a better understanding on exactly what creates certain mindsets that could make it possible for people to forget what kind of landscape surrounds them.