Four Days In San Juan (A Travel Guide)

“San Juan is an excellent destination for a long weekend or for a longer holiday depending on your preference. I do believe that at least three to four days is necessary to enjoy what San Juan has to offer.”

San Juan is an excellent destination for a long weekend or for a longer holiday depending on your preference. I do believe that at least three to four days is necessary to enjoy what San Juan has to offer. Puerto Rico is more than just San Juan, but it is good to just start out with getting to know the capital city of this United States territory. I have various recommendations to focus on during your stay and there are still some places that I would check out for which I was not able to visit personally. Not only is San Juan a fun city but the weather in the Winter and Spring months will make you want to come back in the future.

  • Visit The Beaches – On your 1st day in San Juan, I recommend checking out a beach or two to relax, enjoy the sunshine, go swimming, or even go windsurfing with the help of a guide especially if you had a long flight coming in. There are beaches that cater more to tourists such as Condado Beach, which are close to different resorts and hotels that are right on the beach within walking distance.

Condado Beach can be a bit crowded depending on the time of the year that you visit it, but it is clean, compact, and has enough chairs and umbrellas to go around if you decide to rent one. Personally, I prefer Ocean Park Beach, which is further from Old San Juan and the Condado Neighborhood, but for which is more local, laidback, and is likely to have less tourists. If you decide to split your beach days up, I recommend going to Ocean Park Beach the 1st day if it is closer to where you’re staying and then going over to Condado to explore the neighborhood and to visit that beach on your 3rd day in San Juan.

Other beach options in San Juan include Balneario del Escambron, El Alambique Beach, and Playa (Beach) del Capitolio, one of the great things about San Juan is that the neighborhoods that have a beach are quite walkable and are accessible to the public. While the hotels take up a lot of real estate and have their own areas of the beach for their guests only, each beach is still accessible to the public even if they are not staying nearby, which makes visiting multiple beaches during your four days in San Juan a good way to spend your vacation time there.

  • Enjoy Nearby Nature – El Yunque National Rainforest is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System. There are hundreds of unique animal, bird, and plant species that call El Yunque home as well, making it must-see. While not in San Juan, it is only a 45 minute to an hour drive away. While I would not recommend an Uber to get there and back, it would be wise to hire a taxi to get to and from the rainforest to avoid paying for parking there. You can also join a tour group, large or small, to get there without splurging. Rental cars are also available that your hotel can arrange for you or that can be given at the San Juan airport. If you visit the rainforest, be sure to leave earlier in the morning so that your hike through El Yunque won’t be delayed by packs of tourists wanting to stop for selfies on the way up to the waterfalls.

However, you choose to get there, you will enjoy the beautiful, quiet, and peaceful nature of the rainforest. It is the largest protected forest in the country and where you can really enjoy hiking, swimming, and even doing rock climbing if you choose to. Parts of El Yunque also have natural pools where you can jump in from meters above or use a rope swing in certain areas. One area that I went to have a naturally formed waterslide with a smooth area of rock formation allowing you to slide down without hurting yourself.

Having a guide there will teach you a lot about the flora and fauna that inhabit El Yunque as well as the kinds of frogs, fish, birds, monkeys, etc. that call the rainforest home there. A trip to El Yunque would not be complete without stopping off for some fresh coffee or some fresh fruits or fried empanadas at a road stand where they wake up at the crack of dawn to start getting the produce ready. In between beach days, I highly recommend spending a full day at El Yunque to enjoy a bit of nature outside San Juan.

  • Eat, Drink, and Dance – I love Salsa dancing and if you enjoy salsa music as I do, going to San Juan will allow you to indulge in some live dancing even on a weeknight! Old San Juan has many salsa bars and clubs along with for bachata and reggaeton if you prefer those music genres instead. My go to place would be La Factoria, which has been ranked among the Top 100 bars in the world. It’s not only known for its old school décor, six unique bars within a main bar, as well as its live Salsa bands playing most nights, but its cocktail drinks are fantastic and reasonably priced.

La Factoria has a very relaxed vibe, and the bartenders are friendly enough to give you their favorite drink recommendation. While the Salsa live music does not start until 10 PM, it doesn’t take long for the dance floor to be filled with people from Puerto Rico and all over the world who enjoy this fun genre of music. Puerto Rico is the home of many famous Salsa musicians including my favorite, Hector Lavoe. If you come to San Juan, I highly recommend this bar to visit and make sure to bring your friends or family with you!

For dancing and drinking good cocktails, San Juan has a lot of options and that is also the case with its food scene. As the capital, there are several good restaurants to check out with not just Puerto Rican cuisine but also seafood, pizza, and burgers available. My recommendations to check out would first be Kasalta, a famous bakery that even former President Barack Obama visited in his trip to San Juan. Kasalta is known for its sandwiches, local cuisine, but especially its desserts including its Tres Leches cake.

Other recommendations for dinner are La Cueva Del Mar, where they are known for their delicious fish tacos, and I would recommend the shrimp arepa as a starter dish. Lastly, while I am a native New Yorker, the best Pizza place in San Juan may be Pirilo Pizza Rustica, where the island’s influence extends to the pizza where you can order a delicious pizza pie with sweet plantains and shredded beef. It’s a good option for having a nice beer to go with your pizza and has outdoor seating as well to enjoy your meal with a cool breeze from the ocean. Lastly, for the coffee drinkers out there, you must go to La Coffeetera, with excellent coffee to stay or to go before hitting the beach with excellent paninis including one with egg, sausage, and cheese. It’s a great way to start one of your days in San Juan without question.

  • Explore Old San Juan – No four days in San Juan is complete without spending some time in old San Juan, which is well preserved with its colorful houses, trendy shops, and beautiful murals that capture your attention. While it is nice to shop around in old San Juan, the main draw for me going there was to check out the famous and historic San Felipe del Morro Castle or Castillo. It’s right on the edge of the old part of the city leading into San Juan Bay, which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is a very strategic point and one that exchange hands for centuries going under the control the Spanish Empire, the Puerto Ricans, and now the United States since the 1500s. It is a massive castle and one that is well worth a few hours with all the information to read and parts of the fort to explore.

San Felipe del Morro Castle is not only great for its history but has some great vantage points to see the coastline of San Juan, to see the bay in its full view, and to see the rest of the old city as well. You can really appreciate how much the island has changed in five hundred years but also see that not much has changed as well. If I had more time during my four days, I would have gone to see Castillo San Cristobal, which while younger than San Felipe del Morro, having been constructed during the late 1700’s, is still the largest of any fort ever built in the Americas including the one in Cartagena, Colombia.

To cap off the four days and to really enjoy old San Juan, I would recommend visiting Scryer Rum Barrelhouse and Rooftop for drinks to end your trip to the city. It has an excellent, spacious rooftop, with a pleasant overview of one of the old San Juan’s most bustling streets. You can get the Scryer rum brand that is only made in San Juan and is not exported currently and it’s good to mix with a cocktail or have a beer after at the impressive three-story bar. You’ll be glad to have a refreshing rum drink after a day of seeing the historic Spanish forts and walking the cobbled streets of the old city.

In terms of four days in San Juan, I hope you will follow the recommendations I have laid out but don’t be afraid to add or subtract other activities to bring to your own itinerary. I believe there are a lot of ways to spend time in San Juan and what I laid out is just a sampling of what the Puerto Rican capital can offer you. It is one of my favorite destinations for a short trip and since it was only four days total, you know I’ll be back for another visit soon! For a short getaway, you can’t go wrong with going to San Juan!

The Who Live In Concert

Camera: iPhone 12

Location: Capital One Arena, Washington, District of Columbia, United States

On Territory and Hierarchy

“It’s not just being rewarded financially but there are also the noted past benefits such as being the first to eat at a meal or having livestock awarded to you for leading the tribe or group.”

When you rise in the hierarchy of any company, firm, or organization, you are likely to be rewarded for it subsequently. It’s not just being rewarded financially but there are also the noted past benefits such as being the first to eat at a meal or having livestock awarded to you for leading the tribe or group. The leader, if he or she does a good job, gets first dibs on what they would like as a result whereas if it’s money, food, or what I think is the most common today as it was in the past: land or space.

In my view, there is a direct correlation between rising in the hierarchy and having more space or territory allotted to you. This kind of correlation has really stood the test of time when you think about the era of feudalism when there would be lords over the land and forts or castles would be built to maintain that territory, even if it was contested by outsiders. When you think of the rise of empires from the Ottoman to the French to the British whose kings, queens, emperors, or sultans who would make their royal palaces and compounds as elegant, grand, and massive as they could.

Even your modern-day Presidents and other heads of state live more lavishly than 99% of their population and while they may command a modest salary, they still hold the keys to a massive home and office where they have people waiting on them to make sure any of their needs are taken care of. Because of the way hierarchies are set up, the people who have the most power tend to get the most benefits in terms of taking up space and territory because of the office or title or family legacy that they hold.

While it would make sense that in a capitalist society, you must ensure lopsided rewards and benefits to those people entrusted with political or other forms of power. When you think of your average CEO or company owner, they tend to on average also take up more territory or have more space than your average person. As your status rises so does the amount of acreage or square meters you would like to claim as your own. While there are exceptions, popular culture encourages the acquisition of power and status to correlate with not only acquiring financial wealth but territorial wealth too.

You can even see this in terms of who gets the most space in the c-suite or in the average office. While the average worker may have to work in a cubicle or share a space with others at a lower level of hierarchy in their organization or company, the management or higher-level executive will often have the corner office or their own floor depending on the place of work. It is easy to see where your status in the working world is just by seeing who is taking up the most space even when the impact you or your colleague have on the firm, company, organization, may be different in terms of actual value provided.

The societal drive to get that corner office, or to get a bigger home, or to have a piece of land to call your own is an innate part of what keeps our drive to boost our economic means in life. Taking up territory and holding it is such an innate part of our caveman-like nature that even if we may have come out of the caves into homes, palaces, and offices, we still strive to show off to others where we are in the hierarchy by showing how much space we take up compared to the other guy.

While there’s nothing wrong with staking your claim, working hard for what you earn, and claiming that corner office or hectare of land as your own, it does not mean that you’ll automatically be happy or fulfilled. It’s likely you’ll be satisfied, happy, or content with how far you’ve come and how hard you had to work for your spot in the hierarchy, but it does not guarantee you long-term happiness or fulfillment. When you think about it, while you can get an office or a home or a castle to yourself, it can cause a tendency to isolate yourself, to think you know better than anyone, and worst of all, to lose a kind of empathy for what your co-workers, your compatriots, or your community is going through.

You may be able to stock more resources, live more lavishly, and show off to others, but it won’t fill our most basic need as human beings, and that is to connect with one another on a deeper level. You may have family or close friends but the higher you are up in the hierarchy, the tendency is there to ignore others’ advice, or to start thinking you’re better than other people even when you may not know what to do or what the answer is, and it may prevent you from being touch with other people are going through who are going through a tough time in life.

The more we seek to rise in a hierarchy, whatever it may be, the more likely it is to lead to isolation, loneliness, and even unhappiness if we use the territory that we have to shut the door on interacting with others around us or who work with us. It is tempting to let our success and our status get to our heads, but it can lead to increased narcissism, apathy toward what got you there in the first place, and an ego that can run out of control if it’s not checked by others.

When you think about a successful leader or executive, they let others tell them when they are wrong or show humility when they don’t know the answer. Instead of isolating themselves entirely, they make sure those people who helped them share in the success and are treated well. They share their space with others instead of hoarding it for themselves. They go out in the community to find out how they can help as a leader with more resources and knowledge. Instead of becoming a hermit with a lot of territory but no one around to help, a good leader will let people in to give advice, counsel, and to back down when he or she knows when they are wrong.

It’s the reason why dictators, kleptocrats, and monarchs can be so out of touch with their compatriots and why the CEO who has his own floor and never leaves his mansion are not long for staying in power. They neglect having people around them to be part of their apparatus and to tell them when the decisions they make should be rethought. It is also because when a leader hoards all the wealth, territory, or resources for him or herself and their family or close friends, people who are worse off tend to notice, can congregate, and organize together, and an overthrow of that leader is just around the corner.

A good leader makes sure that he does not hoard more than he needs to succeed in his role and that he or she relinquishes their title so a successor can rise whatever the vocation to share in the continued success of the company, organization, or firm. There’s nothing wrong with letting your rise in hierarchy allow you to acquire more land, territory, or money, but to hoard it all or to do nothing to let others improve their own lot in life to make sure they have the same shot at success is a recipe for disaster. You cannot take land with you after you’re gone so the priority should be on making sure you are a good leader first and also someone who uses their status to assist others, to make wise decisions, and to help give other people in their community or country a leg up so they can have enough territory to live a good life and share their own success with their family and friends.

Rochester Lilac Festival

Camera: iPhone 12

Location: Rochester, New York, United States

Kindness Always Matters

“One of those things is the effort taken to be kind. It does not take much to do and while it can be difficult to be kind all the time, it doesn’t cost anything, and the effort is always worth it.”

There are a few things in life that are non-negotiable. One of those things is the effort taken to be kind. It does not take much to do and while it can be difficult to be kind all the time, it doesn’t cost anything, and the effort is always worth it. Some of the issues that we experience in our world is due to a lack of kindness in our daily interactions. If more people tried to be kind towards one another, I could guarantee that a lot of conflict, irritation, and resentment would go away.

Someone who is always kind to anyone regardless of who they are or what they can or cannot do for the person will stand out even more. The smallest gestures can make all the difference in another person’s day or week. As the popular saying goes, “It costs nothing to be kind.” I would add on to that saying but highlighting that, “It costs nothing to be kind, but it means everything to be kind.” When you do kind gestures and use kind words, not only will it reflect well on you, but it will also endear you to the people around you.

When we are living in a day and age of rapid technological, social, and political change, it is even more important to stay true to the morals and values that make people trust, believe, and have faith in one another. Showing kindness and being a kind person helps make the world a little bit better in a measurable way. I have written before about the ripple effect and how your kind gesture is likely to lead to another kind gesture from the person you impact. I’ll give an example to highlight just exactly what I mean.

We open and close doors multiple times a day and usually we are in a public place when we must do this. It takes approximately three to five seconds to hold the door open for the next person. You may not think it’s a kind gesture, but I would like you to imagine that the person behind you has a bag or two bags in their hand. Maybe, they also have their dog with them, or they are on a cell phone call. Thus, when you put it like that, the simple gesture of opening the door for them so they don’t have to use their arms if they’re full or if they’re busy with another urgent task can make all the difference.

You will have to exert a little bit of physical effort to hold that door open to a complete stranger but think about if they automatically would not hold the door open for you when you are in need. It would not feel that good to you if you were the person occupied with other items or tasks and the person before you did not hold the door open for you when you need that. When it comes to kindness, we do have to think about being in someone else’s shoes and how a lack of kindness can make our day worse and not better.

I do believe that when you do a kind gesture for someone, they will likely then reciprocate by following that learned behavior. It’s similar to what we do when we are children, and someone offers us a piece of gum, or a candy and we do that to someone else as we learn that “sharing is caring.” You can have that kind of impact each day by holding the door open for someone reminding them that they themselves can do that same small act of kindness for the next time when the opportunity presents itself.

In the Post-COVID era where we were instructed to stay away from each other to prevent the pandemic from spreading, I think it’s not even more important to get back to looking out for each other in the opposite way by looking out for one another even more after a hard period of isolation, distress, and uncertainty. The world remains in a tumultuous and difficult period still but now we have the chance to make life a little easier by being kind because it is the right thing to do as we are taught since we are children.

Whether it is holding that proverbial door open or asking how someone is really doing and hearing them out if they are not doing well, or remembering to check in with friends and family from time to time and asking if they need help with anything, especially if you have elder family members in need. We truly show our humanity when we look out for one another, and it is the singular characteristic for which we will be remembered for or not remembered for when we are gone from this Earth.

While we would like to think we were remembered for having a prestigious job or for all the things we did for our own personal gain or benefit, or for what kind of impact we had in the world, which are not bad things to be remembered for, I do think it is better to be remembered as a kind person firstly. I believe it is best for others who will remember you to focus most on if you were the kind of person who endeared himself or herself to others in a selfless manner without expectation of a return for having done so.

You can bet that if you are a kind person, people who will remember you when you’re gone will focus on that quality more than anything else. If you have ignored being kind to others or have not focused on it as a character trait, it is never too late to instill more kindness to people in your life. Every effort matters and kindness always matters. If you can change your ways to a better person, being a kind person is a trait that will always be remembered long after you’re gone. Remember that people are struggling out there and the simplest kind gesture of asking how a person is doing, opening the door for someone else, and checking in on people to help them if they are in need is the greatest gift to share in this world.

National Harbor in Maryland

Camera: iPhone 12

Location: The National Harbor; Oxon Hill, Maryland, United States

The Art of The Long-Form Conversation

“Whereas traditional media outlets like TV, radio, film, etc. are usually of a certain length whether its 30 minutes, an hour, or 2 hours, podcasts can go on for more than even that with some podcasts clocking in at 4 to 5 hours without stopping.”

I really love podcasts and I have loved them for years. They have been around since the 2000s but only really became mainstream during the last decade of the 2010s. Their popularity to me involves the fact that you really can do a deep dive on any subject under the sun without being constrained to a time limit. Whereas traditional media outlets like TV, radio, film, etc. are usually of a certain length whether its 30 minutes, an hour, or 2 hours, podcasts can go on for more than even that length with some podcasts clocking in at 4 to 5 hours without stopping.

It is not easy to have an uninterrupted conversation for so long but there is a real art to it that stands out these days from other forms of popular media. The hosts can pick and choose how many guests they have, their background, as well as how long they would like each podcast to be. Instead of a news report, a sports segment, or a weather minute, where the host or correspondent will be cut off abruptly, a podcast allows the information to be fully thought out without interruptions or commercials. There can be the occasional advertisement read, bathroom break, or even an impromptu cut off of a podcast due to the guest or host needing to leave the studio early, but for the most part, podcasts are an extremely rare form of media that really is not constrained by lack of space, time, or platforms.

Back in the early days of media, you used to have to rely on a corporation or government funding to get your message out, but today, you can self-fund and self-host your own podcast. There are also different crowdfunded platforms like Patreon, Megaphone or popular website platforms for video and audio like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, etc. where you can put your podcast on. There are a wealth of choices and a lot of different technology available to make hosting a long-form conversation easier than ever.

The beauty of hearing or watching these conversations is you get to learn from experts in a variety of fields from comedy to film to music to art to sports where you won’t have to pay a dime to tune in. Even if you pay a flat fee to a podcast hosting platform, you will have access to more podcasts and conversations than you can listen to or watch in a lifetime. There are thousands, if not, millions of podcasts available in the world in every major language. Such a wealth of information is something we could not fathom twenty or so years ago.

In an age of short attention spans and ten-second videos, the long-form conversation is still very much in demand. People may enjoy Instagram Reels, TikTok Videos, or a Tweet, but you will never get the same kind of details, wisdom, or knowledge from your average two-hour podcast. Podcasts are not perfect and often come with the bias of the hosts or the guests involved but it’s good to watch or listen to them with an open-mind and an open-heart.

The sheer number of efforts behind the scenes to make a long-form conversation happen should not be ignored. There are a lot of cameras, microphones, sound design, video quality, and getting the guests to appear, which would take a whole production team to put together. Podcasts do not have to be fancy like that but the more popular they become, the more they rival traditional media forms for both the amount of investment and the amount of time it takes to make them happen.

The core of any podcast though is the quality of the conversation, and the best podcasts are those where the host is patient, asks good questions, can answer them from the guest himself or herself, and will describe to the audience what is going on in case they are doing both an audio and a video feed. The most popular podcast in the world, The Joe Rogan Experience, started over ten years ago, and it was far from a polished product in the first episode.

It was not a fancy set with multiple team members and a lot of advanced gear. Instead, it was Joe Rogan, his computer, a microphone, and the help of a friend, who would bring on his friends, to talk about what’s on their minds. Now, it became the most popular podcast in the world not just the host is also a famous comedian, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) commentator, and a former TV and radio show host, but the fact that Joe is patient, understanding, and aware of how the conversation is going.

He can listen for long periods of time without interrupting, is able to get more out of his guests if they are shy, introverted, or not able to talk at length without prompting, and he genuinely knows about each person(s) he has on his podcast. The conversation easily flows because him and the guest do not talk over each other, when they disagree it’s not a big deal, and it doesn’t hurt also that he has some coffee or liquor on hand to make it a more inviting podcast studio.

With almost 2000 episodes under his belt, Joe Rogan among other popular podcast hosts like Marc Maron, Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman, Sam Harris have not only put a lot of effort, time, and money for the audio and video experience to be good for the audience, but they have also trained themselves well in the art of talking with other people and in being a good host to a wide diversity and variety of guests from all over the world.

Podcasting is a necessary media in today’s tumultuous, fast-changing, and unpredictable world. I find that these conversations are meaningful, educational, and insightful. I do still watch TV and listen to radio programming, but it is impossible to beat the quality and knowledge that is dropped on a good podcast every day.

From news to sports to politics to music and even comedy, there are such good long-form conversations to be had from your average podcast. Whereas the news program will end on the hour, or the radio show will cut off every thirty minutes, you can find multiple podcasts analyzing different topics at a deeper level so that your knowledge and understanding will be much deeper than it would be from your average TV program these days. It is easy for me to see why podcasts in the 21st century is here to stay and why they are number #1 source of information in order technologically dependent world.

While podcasts with long conversations can be prone to bias, misinformation, controversy, and even backtracking after the fact, I still believe that there is no better way to learn from an expert or practitioner in a certain area of human endeavor than by settling into a two or three or even a five hour podcast with just hearing their voice and hearing what they have to say without any commercial or other interruption. If you have not listened to a podcast at this point in 2023, you should start now and remember to watch or listen to the whole podcast even if it is a few hours long. You’ll often be glad that you did at the end of it, and you’ll often learn a lot as a result.

Wilco Live at the United Palace

Camera: iPhone 12

Location: United Palace Theater; Manhattan, New York, United States

Anatomy Of A Scene – “Our Integrity Sells For So Little…”

“In a film with such great and memorable scenes, one scene portrayed as a flashback stands out amongst the rest.”

V For Vendetta – ‘Valerie’s Letter’ Scene

In a film with such great and memorable scenes, one scene portrayed as a flashback stands out amongst the rest. V for Vendetta is a fictional movie based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore but its focus on what happens when a totalitarian dictatorship rises to power in the fact of domestic and international calamities is relevant to what’s happened throughout history.

To give some background on the scene, Evey Hammond, the secondary protagonist to the masked anarchist and freedom fighter, V, is captured due to her alleged support of V’s activities to overthrow the dictatorial government that has seized power over the United Kingdom. Her hair is shaved, she is forced into a tiny cell, and practically starved for food or water. She is held there until she is sentenced to death by firing squad unless she gives up V’s identity and his whereabouts.

Rather than do so, she stifles their inquisition into who the masked man with the Guy Fawkes mask is leading her to a certain death. As Evey is about to lose hope and give in to her demands, she finds a letter stuck in a small crevice within the jail cell’s walls, written by a young woman named Valerie, not much older than Evey when she was forced into captivity by the government.

Valerie’s written on toilet paper what appears to be her last will and testament before a likely execution, waiting others to know about the injustices that the Creedy-led government has committed against her and why she is sharing her story of what happened to her. Valerie begins the letter describing her normal childhood in Nottingham in England and how she didn’t mind the rain because her grandmother told her that “God was in the rain.”

Valerie discusses how in grammar school as a teenager she fell in love for the first time with Sarah, a classmate, and that she was homosexual. Sadly, Valerie was forced to endure her teacher’s bigotry and disapproval of her sexuality and Sarah breaking up with her as a result. Even more painful for Valerie was introducing her 2nd girlfriend, Christina, and coming out as a lesbian to her father and Mother.

Valerie had to strength to show her integrity and not lie to her parents about who she is as a person, but they did not accept her for who she was and rejected her and even threw her baby picture away. “I only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little but is all we really have.” Valerie’s quote in this scene is what makes it so searing as a quote in that being truthful and showing integrity should be accepted and understood because it is not easy for those seen as ‘different’ to come out as being ‘different’ even though it is what makes us who we are. Valerie’s parents wanted her to be someone who she is not, and sadly refuse to accept her as she is. She kept true to herself and did not sell her integrity as a person, which is more than her parents can say, who abandon their daughter because they don’t accept who she is forgoing their love over something so short-sighted and ignorant of them.

Valerie did not let her teacher and her parents keep her from being who she is and in 2015, became an actress on a film, and ended up marrying her co-star on it. Her partner, Ruth, and Valerie, move to London together, start a rose garden, and begin their lives as a couple, and end up in the throes of the rise of a dictatorship throughout the United Kingdom as Adam Sutler comes to power due to war breaking out around the world. They fear for what their country is becoming as “different becomes dangerous” and Valerie does not understand “why they hate us so much.”

The dictatorial regime that takes power in the UK begins to take away people who are ‘different’ for ‘rendition’ and ‘detention’ without cause or just because they are ‘different’ from others. The Sutler regime uses the false platitude that because of growing insecurity internationally that he must withhold civil and human rights domestically. He consolidates his power and ends up arresting and detaining minorities, refugees, and homosexuals including Valerie’s partner, Ruth. Valerie is all alone and cries for how she will never see her beloved partner again because of this injustice.

“It wasn’t long before they came for me.” Another resonating quote from this powerful movie scene related to the quote of how they come for different groups of people until there is no one else left but me. The ending of this scene has its real-world historic parallels to other genocidal and abusive periods of time where crimes and injustices were committed against ethnic, religious groups and races, just because they were ‘different’, including genocide. Valerie is alone in her apartment when Sutler’s regime’s thugs come for her too. Like Evey, her head is shaved, she is held without doing anything wrong and against her will. Valerie ends up in a small jail cell like Evey and they both are alike too in that they stand for principles that make us humane to each other like equality, justice, and liberty. “For three years, I had roses and answered to no one.

During captivity, Valerie does not lose that last ‘inch of hope’ that she clings to from her free years of living her life as she wanted with whom she loved. “Every inch of me shall perish, but one. An inch.” Valerie implores that even though she only has a glimmer, or an inch of hope left, she will not let them take it from her despite how long she is locked up for. Valerie implores Evey to never give up, stay true to who you are, and cling to the hope that there is still good in the world worth fighting for.

Valerie, sadly, does not survive her detainment as it is inferred that she is experimented on by the regime and killed, but the letter survives, likely because of V himself. V knows Valerie as V knows Evey and his role in using roses for his victims comes from his own knowledge of the inspiration that Valerie was for him.

Valerie gave V hope to stand against Sutler’s regime and now that Evey has read Valerie’s story afterwards in the same prison cell, she will gain the same last “inch of hope” to keep fighting for herself and the world around her especially if she were ever to get free and leave Sutler’s prison. Valerie ends the letter to the person(s) who find her letter that it is important to have hope that things will change, and the world will get better. However, Valerie ends her last written words by saying that what is most important thing to her is to let that person reading know that she accepts them, and she loves them, whomever they may be. “Even though I do not know you, even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you…I love you, with all my heart. I love you.” -Valerie.

While many people around her sold their integrity by not accepting who she was as a person, disowning her, imprisoning her unjustly, forcing her to die in their detainment, Valerie never sold her integrity and she never stopped being herself, which is an inspiration to us all watching this excellent scene and film.

Wild and Wonderful West Virginia

Camera: iPhone 12

Location: Moorefield, West Virginia, United States