Puerto Rico school feedback?

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Anyone out there have info on the school in Arecibo, PR? It is a 24 month program that begins in August.

I'd love to hear anything, thanks.

zzzzzgirl

Thanks but I need to know where I can get this done, so facility name or address will be helpful. Somewhere near Rio Piedras. Did you get your health cert?

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On the second link Río Piedras Medical Center, Av. Americo Miranda, Río Piedras (tel. 787/777-3535). Was listed.

I didnt get it yet.

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Well I am in San Juan. This very moment I am in Amado salon in Plaza Las Americas getting my hair cut and colored. Well I have to find a salon sooner or later so it may as well be sooner.

After this I am going to head over to the school. I tried to open up a bank account today but was told I needed the rental agreement of the place I will be living. Well it looks like the bank account will be later.

So who will be at orientation on Friday? I know it will be:

ChanelCinq

designer-mommy

labsrock

Benny26

Anyone else I don't know about?

Oh and it is confirmed that Verizon does NOT work here at all. I have spoken to Verizon 1/2 a dozen times and they convinced me not to cancel service and that Verizon worked in San Juan. They said not the whole of PR but that San Juan was 100% covered by Verizon and that all aspects of my smart phone would work. Well they were wrong. NOTHING on my phone works except out of network calls at .69 a minute.

By the way someone was looking for yoga on the beach. I picked up this free magazine called "Natural Awakenings" and the back has a listing of a bunch of different yoga classes. I saw "Vinyasa Yoga at the Beach" at Parque del Indigo, Condado through Rasa Yoga and the telephone listed is 274-0061.

Mike I didn't see any Bikram in this magazine, sorry. I may have to get you hooked on Jivamukti and most certainly AcroYoga.

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ChanelCinq=> I wont be able to attend the orientation on Friday, but please let us all know what we missed. Also did you get your Medical Cert yet? I know its a requirement and was hoping someone could tell me when I can get one. Hope all goes well for you while you're there.

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Sorry I ment to say "Where I can get the Medical Cert. from"

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ChanelCinq=> I wont be able to attend the orientation on Friday, but please let us all know what we missed. Also did you get your Medical Cert yet? I know its a requirement and was hoping someone could tell me when I can get one. Hope all goes well for you while you're there.

Nope I have not done that yet. I may try to do that Monday. I'll ask them at the school tomorrow.

So I am amazed that very few people at the school speak English because every single person I came in contact with today spoke English. There is not a single person from the hair stylist to the police man I asked directions to or anyone else of the 2 dozen or more people that I came in contact with. Every single person spoke English except the people that work at my hotel but they are from the Dominican Republic. I am not quite sure why the people at the university do not speak English. I find that odd. Everyone on the island speaks English except the people that work in higher education.

The people here are sooooo friendly. I love it. They are so helpful as well and go out of their way often.

I found the public transportation clean and efficient. Although I will get a car or a scooter. From the little I have seen of the roads and the drivers I would feel fine on a scooter. Although the humidity would drive me into a car.

If anyone is coming to SJ in advance and wants to do it on the cheap I suggest the Fortaleza Guest House in Old San Juan. It is 40 USD a night and Old San Juan is so, so cute. To get into town you walk 3 or 4 blocks to the ferry that leaves on the 1/2 hour, every hour from 6:30 AM until 6:30 PM. The ferry stops at the Hato Rey train station and you can either jump on the train or take a bus. The ferry costs 1 USD each way. The train I only took once and it was .75 cents.

I will post a little review of the orientation after Friday and Midwest I'll let you know what I find out about the health cert.

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Specializes in Psych, Substance Abuse.
Nope I have not done that yet. I may try to do that Monday. I'll ask them at the school tomorrow.

So I am amazed that very few people at the school speak English because every single person I came in contact with today spoke English. There is not a single person from the hair stylist to the police man I asked directions to or anyone else of the 2 dozen or more people that I came in contact with. Every single person spoke English except the people that work at my hotel but they are from the Dominican Republic. I am not quite sure why the people at the university do not speak English. I find that odd. Everyone on the island speaks English except the people that work in higher education.

The people here are sooooo friendly. I love it. They are so helpful as well and go out of their way often.

I found the public transportation clean and efficient. Although I will get a car or a scooter. From the little I have seen of the roads and the drivers I would feel fine on a scooter. Although the humidity would drive me into a car.

If anyone is coming to SJ in advance and wants to do it on the cheap I suggest the Fortaleza Guest House in Old San Juan. It is 40 USD a night and Old San Juan is so, so cute. To get into town you walk 3 or 4 blocks to the ferry that leaves on the 1/2 hour, every hour from 6:30 AM until 6:30 PM. The ferry stops at the Hato Rey train station and you can either jump on the train or take a bus. The ferry costs 1 USD each way. The train I only took once and it was .75 cents.

I will post a little review of the orientation after Friday and Midwest I'll let you know what I find out about the health cert.

Please, please, please don't get a scooter! Trust me on this one. I've lived here for years, and I would never recommend that anyone drive a scooter here. I don't know where you're driving that people are driving sane, but trust me, that's not the norm. The driving conditions here just aren't the same as in the states. For example, yesterday the stop lights at one of the busiest intersections in Caguas was out, and everyone was on their own. I kid you not when I say that it looked like a scene from one of those "end of the world" movies. Not only that, but I saw TWO police officers make their way through the lights and they didn't even bother to stop and direct traffic. They just don't care. Also, running red lights is pretty much a normal thing here. Another thing is the pothole situation. We have some nasty ones, and they will sit there forever before anyone does anything about them, and they pop up overnight too. Another thing to consider is our little unwritten law here. We're allowed to run red lights here between midnight and 5 a.m. because of the bad carjacking problem here. We just have to do the "California roll," just slow down and yield to anyone who is driving by, then you can go. So, I don't know if you like to go out or ride around late at night, but I wouldn't feel too safe all out in the open and exposed like that.

I hope I don't sound cranky about it or anything...I just kinda like ya ;) so I don't want to see anything bad happen to you. My hunch is you're driving around a lot of tourists who actually know how to drive LOLLLL If you live here, you have to drive like a butthole or you won't get anywhere. Sometimes you have to just throw yourself out there because PR is so overpopulated and you'll never get a break if you don't. If you can drive here, you can drive ANYWHERE!

That's wild about no one at the school speaking English. I have never realized that, because both me and my husband speak Spanish so it's never been an issue. Did you go see "E" in the English trimester office? He's so awesome! He might be able to direct you to people in different departments that speak English.

As for the medical certificate, I haven't gotten it yet. I'll make sure that I find out where to get it tomorrow. Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow!!!

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Did you go see "E" in the English trimester office? He's so awesome!

Preface: This is going to be log. I typed it on the train and ferry.

Wow, what an awesome day! So I was waiting for my future roommate, labsrock, to arrive from FL when his travel plans were a bit delayed so I got a late start. I got down to the ferry at 10:31 just as the 10:30 ferry was pulling away from the dock. So I had an hour to kill and spent it sipping wonderful Puerto Rican coffee at the Café Cala'o next to the ferry.

Then I did the ferry -> train -> trolley (shuttle) route and finally ended up at the school. By the way the trolley that you take when you exit the Cupey train station has Interamericana written all over it. The shuttle is free and provided by Interamericana and runs every 30 minutes.

So I asked where the nursing dept was which of course was a big deal because again no one speaks English. It is not that I expect them to speak English only that I find it odd that the guy at the grocery store, all the people that work at the train/subway/metro station, the people at the ferry, the woman working at the drug store, etc all these people speak English. Then you go to a higher education establishment and they don't. It just seems so backwards.

I definitely plan to learn Spanish as I found today amongst a group of people that all spoke English very well that when they are together as a group they will speak Spanish. So I wandered off and spoke English to the son. Also it will be a huge benefit to be trilingual when I return to CA.

So I found the nursing school and was told to fill out some forms and then come back tomorrow for orientation. I asked where I could do the health certificate and the woman (sorry I already forgot her name) said anywhere. I asked if she could give me a specific place and she said we would get all this information at the orientation tomorrow. I asked if I could register and she said that would be done at the orientation tomorrow.

So it seems like they will be going over everything tomorrow.

In the middle of all this the power went out for about 10 minutes and someone lit a candle. I love it. It is so random.

Then the woman told me that my acceptance letter did not state that I was in the accelerated program. She said if I had been admitted to the accelerated program that it would state that on my letter. She asked if they evaluated my transcripts and I said that I thought they had because I was told since I was a Religious Studies minor (went to a Catholic University and it was one extra class to minor) I was not required to take the religious studies class at IAUPR. She tried to call someone but the phone rang and rang and she said we would deal wit it tomorrow but I should not be worried. And now that I am here I really am not worried. It will work out. Heck I have over 250 units, which is a heck of a lot of units. 120 is a Bachelors and 60 is a Masters so I have the equivalent of 2 Bachelors or a Bachelors and 2 Masters.

Anyway that was not the part of the day that was supper amazing. It starts here. Than I went over to meet "E." I had sent him an Amazon gift certificate when I was accepted as a thank you and I just wanted to introduce myself.

E is such a character. He was so appreciative of the Amazon cert and was drawn to me as a person. He is very spiritual but can't let his colleagues know as it is a Catholic University and most Puerto Ricans in general are really religious. He liked my aura. I wear a bracelet that represents 9 different religions and religion like systems. It is like the Believe bumper sticker or the Tolerance bumper sticker. And I wear an Om necklace. He was drawn to me and I was getting a kick out of him.

Anyway he was appreciative and decided to give me a tour of the campus. Then I was talking about looking for an apartment. He was going on his lunch and he said I should check out the apartments in Las Cumbres right next to the school. Then he offered to drive me there. The gate to the entrance was up so we drove in. There was one place that was for rent and had a number listed. The next thing I knew "E" was calling the number and the real estate agent was on her way over to show us the apartment and some others.

She showed us 3 places and "E" was saying that these places are really nice and I should jump on one of them as I will not find anything else this nice in PR.

So my roommate is flying in this evening just after midnight and we will meet the real estate agent first thing tomorrow morning before we go to orientation.

So then "E" dropped me back off at school and just so all of you know he was actually done with work. He was supposed to be in a class but he had decided not to go even before I was in the picture. So, this is not why the IAUPR staff is not reachable when we call.

Sorry this is so long. I typed it on the train and the ferry.

I still plan to post tomorrow after the orientation. Hopefully it will not be this long.

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Specializes in Psych, Substance Abuse.

ChanelCinq -- Call me please!!! It's kinda important, but I don't want to call you because I know you're in roaming.

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Specializes in Emergency.

I am in hot and sticky Puerto Rico! I will be attending the orientation tomorrow. Are people from this board going to try to hook up there and meet? I've been here since Tuesday and I've gotten a healthy dose of the island. Are people stressed about the health cert because we are supposed to have that before we can register? I think it would be cool to meet some new people. Especially since I am one of the crazy few that speak no Spanish.

Until tomorrow.

Cahoon

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I am in hot and sticky Puerto Rico! I will be attending the orientation tomorrow. Are people from this board going to try to hook up there and meet? I've been here since Tuesday and I've gotten a healthy dose of the island. Are people stressed about the health cert because we are supposed to have that before we can register? I think it would be cool to meet some new people. Especially since I am one of the crazy few that speak no Spanish.

Until tomorrow.

Cahoon

Cahoon you are not alone. I am another one of those non Spanish speakers. But I have yet to meet a person outside the University and my hotel who does not speak English. What are you finding?

I have been here since Tuesday as well and I may be wrong but I think you are the one who flew out from SLC with Benny26?! I looked at some apartments today that you looked at yesterday and I am 99% sure we are taking one of them.

Tomorrow there will be at least 8 of us from allnurses.com and I am sure a ton of others not from the board. designer-mommy just informed me that two more people from allnurses.com are on there way to the guest house I am staying at. She asked if I would accompany them in the morning to orientation. So 4 of us will be arriving together tomorrow.

Cahoon have you found any places that you really like as far as places to live?

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Sounds like everything is going great. What are rents like in Las Cumbres?

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