From San Juan, With Love

I usually want to choke myself when I hear the regular joes in my newsroom sling mindless banter around. My usual style is ear phones in, zone out.

But last week, I heard something that sounded like, “20 bucks round-trip to San Juan?”

I quickly investigated and before you could say, “Please shut the hell up – no one cares,” I booked two tickets to the gem of Puerto Rico.

Jet Blue just started non-stop flights to the Rock from Boston and some other East Coast spots so to celebrate, they offered extremely cheap airfares in between San Juan and St. Thomas for only 10 days and this guy (two thumbs pointed directly at me) jumped right on it.

My next stop naturally was priceline.com. Mama Gray swears by the whole bidding strategy for cheap-ass hotels and it works like magic in Vegas. Puerto Rico, not so much. Don't get me wrong, I still got a smoking cheap room just a 10-minute walk from the beach but many people don't operate like that.

“Dude, do not get one of those cheap rooms in Syracuse, trust me,” Michael Rothstein, a former colleague of mine from Virginia, told me when I was planning out my trip up north.

“Why the hell not?” I barked back.

“Prostitutes, dude. Plus, they rarely clean the sheets.”

Since my travel partner was my lovely girlfriend, the prostitutes posed little problems. The sheets, well, what can you do? I can't tip the cleaning ladies in advance. We were booked for only one day.

As we embarked on the 16-minute flight from the Rock to San Juan, I told Brianna that I would pay more for dinner that night than both our round-trip flights and hotel room combined. Then I told her we had reservations at Burger King. She was not amused.

I know we live near the beach but guess where we hung out during the day in PR? The beach.

Even though most of the pink and yellow hotels in Condado were under construction and the subsequent beaches were swallowed whole by the Atlantic, it was a nice change of pace from Limetree, Magens, and Brewer's Bay.

I ordered a Cubano sandwich from a coffee shop, stayed clear of the casino, took a long day-time nap and even ordered a little entertainment for that evening.

It was dinner and a show. He was drunk, slurred the words to many classic Christmas carols and wouldn't leave our table until I greased him. Now Brianna can't say I never serenaded her.

The morale of the story is that San Juan is great. Charlotte Amalie ain't got nothing on Old Town San Juan. If I could go back every week, I would. As we made our final walk around town, Brianna said, “This is nice. I could work here full-time, what do you think?”

Ear phones in, zone out. And then I stepped into a Jet Blue plane.

Puerto Rico - Day 5

Maybe it's the beard? Or perhaps, the charm and good looks.

For some reason, young PR girls keep coming up to me and asking me questions. The questions are always in Spanish and then they see the polite confusion on my face and run off giggling with their friends.

It's starting to really annoy me. It's like I have a 'Kick Me' sign posted on my back and I don't know it.

A waitress at some steakhouse last night said I could pass for Puerto Rican if I didn't say anything and just nodded all the time. I guess it was a compliment. She said the second I talked, it was very obvious I was an American.

Like there's anything wrong with that.

The other day, I was at La Piscina -- that's 'pool' for all you non-Spanish speaking bastards out there -- for the swimming relay finals and these two girls that worked security or something got right in my face and started to bark questions.


I tried out my best Smokey impression: "I don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth..."

Then they got mad and moved on to someone else. I guess I looked prominent or something. I later found out they wanted to know if that was the last race of the day and if they could finally go home. Apparently, some child-labor laws are being broken and the teenagers in Mayaguez are getting over-worked for these CAC Games.

I started to vent with some of the USVI boxers the other day about my lack of communication. I think I was just happy to talk to someone in free-flowing English.

Clayton Laurent, a USVI heavyweight boxer, was already making an impression on the PR faithful.

"I just ask if they speak English and if they don't, I just move on to the next chica. The ladies here are spicy," he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about. Spicy? It's like I finally found someone to speak English with and I'm still shaking my head.

Then a group of older women hollered at me when I returned to my hotel two nights ago. I was exhausted and half a sleep by the time I made it back around 11 p.m. They were drinking and hanging out near the extravagant hotel pool and almost in unison, they gave me a construction worker whistle, like it was something straight out of Ugly Betty.

I raised my hand to acknowledge them but never stopped walking. Normally, I would have made new friends despite the language barrier but they caught me on the wrong night.

I was a tired Gringo, which means dumb white boy. At least I'm learning a little Spanish.

Puerto Rico - Day 3

It took me coming to the Central American and Caribbean Games to realize how small and sometimes insignificant the U.S. Virgin Islands can be when compared athletically to the other countries in the region.

The athletes have repeated that same theme to me multiple times as I interview them for another losing story.

The USVI has only about 100,000 people. Puerto Rico has 5 million and even though their fans have showed up in force to support their countrymen, they are hardly the most-populated country here. Countries like Columbia and Venezuela are cleaning up at the medals podium and have sent teams of journalists to cover all the action.

The USVI has not won a medal yet and they sent me, a photo/writing extraordinaire.

The newsroom is packed with dark-haired Spanish-speaking reporters yelling into microphones for reasons I do not understand. Web casts? Audio clips? I'm not really sure. All I know is that it's very distracting when I'm trying to dictate quotes from an athlete who spoke to me on the sideline of a packed gymnasium with a DJ who had a ridiculous volume preference.

The music here is garbage. Maybe it's because I don't understand Spanish. Yeah, that's probably it because you can see all the fans mouthing the words to the songs.

I was hoping for a little help from The Buzz, an alternative rock radio station that I listen to while on island. It broadcasts out of San Juan and here's the kicker: it's EN INGLES! As soon as I got to the western quadrant of Mayaguez, nothing but static.

I didn't bring any CDs and I forgot a wire for my iPod. So my 20-minute ride to and from town are consumed by my own singing. It is not a pretty sight.

Well, I'm about to go watch the USVI women's basketball team take on Jamaica for the bronze medal. Hopefully, the ladies can pull it out or it's going to be another "close but no cigar" story.

Cuba is not participating at the CAC Games. I wouldn't mind a cigar right about now.