Last day in Puerto Rico

Let's celebrate!
With a delicious seafood dinner

at Pito's on hwy 52, approaching Ponce from the West

It is a very relaxing place, with good food

and a lovely view.

Well, to tell you the truth I have stopped there last time when I picked Disa from the airport in October.

I have been too sick today to celebrate. Managed to get the last errands done, ship mt stuff by mail to Atlanta... and collapsed in bed, conserving energy - or what was left of it, for the trip tomorrow.

But I felt like a celebration was in order.

I feel like going postal

I hope my sanity returns someday.

I wish it would return as soon as tomorrow and I would wake up being my old self again: a sane, nonviolent, open minded and openhearted liberal.

But today, if I had a machine gun, I would most likely open fire at a group of locals gathering on the beach under my balcony, enjoying 72 hours of a non-stop beach party with a non-stop obnoxiously loud music.

And totally ignoring my pleas, my helpless cries to turn the music down.

So today I would coldbloodedly mow them all down, men, women and children, to silence that obnoxious noise. And then I would take a nap!

I could not run away from them this weekend, not even for a spell of a silence, because on Thursday I was diagnosed with a bad case of infection and ordered to stay in bed at least till tomorrow. And I am sick like a dog...

I used to like Latin music (I doubt that after this weekend I would ever be able to), I used to like Puertoricans ( again, I am not sure that after this weekend I will ever be able to).

I used to be nonviolent - but today I would kill gladly those inconsiderate monsters on the beach.

And, I am afraid, that after 72 hours of being tortured with increadibly loud Latin music (who cares if good or bad??? 72 hours of Chopin or Bach or Vivaldi would be waaaay too much! especially at that decibel level!) if I ever hear a loud Latin music again, my instinctual reaction would be to want to murder - quickly - anyone who plays it.

Oh, boy, I used to be an open minded liberal - today I am closer to being a racist that I could ever imagine!

Of course it is not the beach goers race, not their skin color that makes me today want to coldbloodedly murder them all - it's their obnoxiousness, their total lack of consideration for people, who live in my building, as well as for people, who might want to enjoy the beach - without having been forced to listen to their choice of music at their chosen level of deafening amount of decibels.

Now I understand first hand at least some of the mechanisms behind the so called "racism" and "racial profiling" - they are likely to have nothing to do with race as such, but are perhaps only an unfortunate result of obnoxious elements of a lifestyle of a group of people, people behaving according to a different set of cultural norms (and now I am being euphemistic - liberal that I usually am).

I hope this weekend - and the beach party outside my windows - will end soon and that I might soon start regaining my sanity.

Punta Tuna

Punta Tuna is an architectonically gracious lighthouse on Maunabo coast.

Dramatic vistas abound as you approach it from the west


on a winding roller-coaster of a road

But the beach to the east of Punta Tuna is calm and tranquil.

What to do with a car when leaving Puerto Rico?

The simplest answer would be to sell it, wouldn't it?

But what if it is the beginning of spring, when both the surfers and the snowbirds leave the island, many of them also planning to sell their cars?

What if it is the middle (I am being optimistic here) of a worldwide economic crisis, a severe credit crunch, AND the biggest glut of cars - new cars, used cars - imaginable?

What if I have been duped into overimproving the car mechanically (practically new everything, high performance, heat resistance etc., low mileage), so it drives like a brand new car, while the outside shows signs of the car being driven in Puerto Rico: a few scratches, a small dent, where someone must have bumped into me on a parking lot... and fled ?

How many thousands of dollars am I likely to lose if I sell this car in Puerto Rico?

And how many if I do not sell it?

What can I do with this car other than sell it?

I do not need it in the US, because I do have another car there. A tad older, true, and with more than twice the mileage, but always driven on US highways, performing well, all services performed on time and without a hint of a problem. I plan to keep my US car - in the US.

But what if I decide to move back to Europe at least for part of the year?

Due to the peculiarities of my country's pension legislation, when I live inside European Union, my European pension income more than doubles. Something to take into account when I am getting older and might soon not want - or be able to - work at all, right?

Since I have owned my PR car for over a year, I am entitled to import it to Europe duty free - so shipping (around $2000) would be my only expense plus adjusting the car to European regulations: asymetric instead of symetric beams, etc.

Of course, I would have to factor in the higher cost of living in Europe and the nonfinancial aspects: both positive, like living in a multicultural, multilingual surroundings, with a plethora of high culture at my fingertips, both old and new; easier access to less processed food, hormone free, antibiotics free... but also an emotional cost of being across the ocean from my only daughter, my practically only remaining close relative...

But if I spent winters in Florida and summers in Sweden, or France (I would prefer Italy, since I know it much better than France, and love it, but in Italy I would be taxed to death, due to the peculiarity of Swedish-Italian tax treaty), it might work, beautifully even... for a while, at least, since the question is: how many more years will I be able to effortlessly hop on a plane and fly over Atlantic twice a year... with cats? And how expensive might it become?

I do not really have time right now, in the moving rush, to factor all these aspects into a meaningful equation, so I guess I'll just have to leave the car here somewhere for a few months or so, until I make the decision what would be the least expensive way to get rid of a car in Puerto Rico. Sigh...

My last electric bill in Puerto Rico

The AEE (Autoridad de Energia Electrica) procedure for returning your electricity deposit is not designed for people who leave the island.

After you inform AEE- in person, in their office, not online - though you can pay a bill online, thanks heavens: in PR a lot of stupid errands has to be done by foot, or wheel, not by phone or email, which would be a lot easier - that you no longer want to have electricity in your place, because you are moving away, they tell you to await a letter from them in about a week's time.

Ok, the letter arrived two weeks - not one week - later, but, surprise, surprise, there is no check in it. Just a statement that you have a credit with AEE and that you have to go visit their office - in person - again, to collect your money, I am hoping.

But what if you need to have electricity up to the day you move away from the island???

They apparently do not want you to move away - at least not with your money!

Traveling with cats and packing ... again!

I moved close to a hundred times - I think - overland and overseas - and yet it is the first time I'll move my stuff using USPS.

Because I am not taking any of the furniture this time (I am making a deal with my landlady for them, since it is far easier to rent a furnished condo that it is to rent an unfurnished one - overpriced that it is - in the current economic crisis ), few household goods (practically only cats' stuff: their toys, beds, to which they are accustomed, dishes, etc.) and not yet sure if I'll take a car - but that's another post.

I am taking cats - all four of them - and have found a way to fly them all myself, at once, to Atlanta (due to family's health issues I can't yet go to Florida as planned): on Delta and Cape Air, so I don't have to drive to San Juan.

OK, flying four cats costs me four times more than my own ticket (I wonder why: the two small ones will be stowed under my sit - in one container, small enough to fit there, yet large enough to allow them to nap huddling together - as they love to do anyway, while the two larger - and considerably older ones - will be sharing another, larger, container, being shipped as luggage in a pressurized, air conditioned compartment of the airplane) plus the added expense of four health certificates issued within 10 days of travel.

Here again: nobody asks me to bring a health certificate for myself, as if people could not spread infectious diseases, but cats, who spend all their time inside - save for the balcony - they are indoor cats - need to prove they are healthy!

Also, my two older cats are experienced international travelers and have their European "cat passports" - electronic chips with detailed information on them and their guardian - under the skins of their necks. The two Puertorican youngsters don't have those, yet - they are not going to Europe - at least not yet, so they need collars with identifying info instead, in case they somehow got lost somewhere.

This - long - weekend is all about packing. I found out that the USPS takes suitcases, provided they are locked - and it is a good thing, since with two containers of cats I can only take my computer with me as a carry on and no more than one suitcase as a checked luggage.

So most of my clothes and linens will fit in them. Books - except the huge, so called coffee-table editions - I plan to stuff all in large size flat rate boxes, thanks to advice from Jeff, who used them for heavy, yet small, tools, when he and Katrina moved here, and thanks to Miri, who mused recently about fitting a 50 pound of ceramic clay in each of them.

Larger shipping boxes I found at Home Depot, at prices lower than U-Haul on the mainland. There I also found stretch wrap and bubble wrap, but no packing popcorn and I decided to take my flat screen TV with me.

But supposedly Office Max has it, so off I go to Mayaguez Mall to look for it and also to look for locks to my suitcases. Perhaps Wall Mart? Or the stand where they make spare keys? (Office Max had packing peanuts, different kinds, different size bags, rather pricy, but.... A key making stand next to Wall Mart had a good selection of locks, including suitcase locks)

If I don't find it, an employee at Home Depot suggested that they have one and two inch wide foam panels, which I can cut to size to cushion my flat screen with - it looks like it might work, so I shall see.

Green day

It's St Patrick's day and the only green thing I had today was a green sallad for dinner: lettuce, sprouts, microgreens.

For lunch at work there was arroz con pollo - definitively not Irish, so I thought of cooking dinner for a change, but did not found in a PR grocery anything Irish. So green sallad it was. And a green tea. My Irish friends would laugh themselves silly.

But I was reminiscing Ireland today - I worked in Dublin two summers in a row some 15 years ago - on an all-European project. Our hosts seemed to love taking us on pub rounds around Dublin... and I had to hide the fact that I really do not like Guiness. :-((

Otherwise, I loved the green island, Dublin, following in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, a character from James Joyce's Ulysses, who wanders through Dublin some 90 years earlier... Loved the pastoral countryside of east Ireland, too, all those brambles, leek soup, potatoes, cabbage, corn beef... :-)

Sunday afternoon

the weather's so so, yet the beach in front of my condo looks like that

and that
Does not seem like too big a crowd, but the noise they make is horrendous. Kids scream, adults shout - all at once, all the time, from Thursday afternoon till late Sunday night, there is no quiet minute!

And I still have two more weekends of that noise pollution to endure...

Finally!

You can't imagine just HOW RELIEVED I feel to finally having been able to figure out the way to leave this island soon and without jeopardizing the work I have been doing here - thus without any qualms of conscience !


Will I miss this silvery sea?

No, I am moving to another seafront location - in southwest Florida.
So I won't miss the sea, or the tropical ambience or... the discomforts of living in Puerto Rico! ;-)

I have a new place arranged preliminarly - and - surpise, surprise: due to the recession and overbuilding it is now less expensive to live in Florida's cultural mecca - with its miles and miles of stunning beaches, opera, theatre, ballet, tons of art galleries, abundance of organic veggies at every corner and all the other stuff I could only dream of here - that it is to live in Puerto Rico!

I just need to fly to Florida one of the nearests weekends to finalize things there, so my new place will be waiting for me.

And I also need to figure out how to take some 5-6 suitcases and boxes of my belongings (how on earth have I accumulated so much stuff here, so fast???), 75 punds of books, a flat screen TV and 4 cats off the island with a minimum of trips ( I am hoping for no more than two), and ... how to sell a car in Puerto Rico, while I need it practically to the very last moment....
All the furniture and household goods will go to charity, so that's easy. I'll have them picked up!

Boy, am I glad!

In-fern-o

Looking for an unique - an environmentally friendly - Valentine's Day present?

Then perhaps one of those one-of-a-kind vases made from fallen fern tree branches by 3T Vakil could fit the bill?

Or any other of the Puerto Rico rainforest crafts?

I (almost) caught my dinner tonight!

It was cloudy this afternoon, but I had a headache when I got home and decided to walk on the beach for a while to cure it.

And I was doubly rewarded. The sun got through the clouds promising yet another glorious sunset. The beach was almost deserted, but there was a solitaty fisherman. He just caught a fish when I approached him and was reeling it in, so I stopped to watch. A red snapper!

'Nice catch' I said.

The fisherman smiled. 'Do you like fish?' he asked.

'Very much so' I smiled back.

'Wait a moment, then' he said 'and I shall clean this fish for you'!

And so he did. Just like that.


Ah, the kindness of Puertoricans!

And that's how I caught my dinner tonight.

We chatted while he cleaned the fish and he told me where to find the mussles, whose colorfull shells I found on the beach. They are apparently every bit as tasty as the black ones. I am looking forward to swimming with a mussles bag next time I go for a swim.

And then may be I really catch my next dinner myself.

More bingo

AMPI has bingo fundraisers three times a year: in January, May and September. Here are some pictures from the first bingo I ever attended.

It's early, about four hours before the official bingo starts, but already there is a group of volunteers busy : ...assembling and placing tables and chairs...
...filling ice chests with water and soft drinks...
... brewing the first pot of coffee...
... arranging snacks...
... while kitchen volunteers start cooking...

... bacalaitos... ... and sorulitos... which, of course, require tasting...

...a chore undertaken with enthusiasm by Eunice, needing refreshments after assembling tables...
a crew selling food vouchers is getting ready...
... as is the crew selling and validating bingo cards...
and the first players are greeted enthusiastically by Zenaida.
The most eager players start gathering around 10 am, ... preparaing their cards and their tokens...
socializing...
introducing themselves...
... snacking... having a good time...
... or concentrating on an informal pre-game.
... while the kitchen crew keeps busy...
as does the food serving crew, serving lunch...
and this fabulous Tres Leches cake for dessert....

while THE game finally BEGINS...

Affordable Puerto Rico

Today New York Times in an article on affordable Caribbean lists Puerto Rico's northwest coast, between Aguadilla and Isabela as the most affordable for surf oriented vacationers. Check it out ... together with 10 other affordable spots on Caribbean islands.

Medicare advantage in Puerto Rico

Yes, at my last birthday a month ago I reached official retirement age and became entitled to Medicare.
Thus, I had to do my due diligence and research both Medicare advantage and Medigap policies in Puerto Rico ( since I am still here) and in the USA and compare them.

I am happy I finally can say something really positive about Puerto Rico: the benefits of the best medicare advantage here are far greater than benefits offered by the best in the USA.

So for retirees on a limited income, especially ones that either require hospitalization or serious dental work, it would be financially beneficial to live in Puerto Rico and enroll in one of the best medicare advantage plans here. They could save thousands of dollars per year... at the cost of dealing with local bureaucracy and with Spanish as a prevalent language, but yes, some things are so far better here ... though these benefits are likely to end once PR becomes a regular state ... if it becomes a regular state.

I am dirty... :-(((

.... I was looking forward to making a trip to my favorite beach today... but I can't go anywhere, for the simple reason that there is NO WATER in my apartment complex today and thus I could neither take a shower or wash my hair... and I am not going to go anywhere dirty!

Nobody knows why there is no water, nobody knows if and when it will be back... not even the maintenance people. Oh, Puerto Rico is hell more often than not!

OK, I brushed my teeth and washed my face and hands - using water sparingly. I have only one galon of it and carrying enough water to the third flor to wash up is not a doable task for a woman my age.

So I am sitting on my balcony - sweating (it's hot!) and fuming that I HATE Puerto Rico! With a vengeance! I want to leave, NOW, no matter if I had to give away all the stuff I acquired here. I am - personally - sooooo sick and tired of this hellish "paradise"!

But one of my coworkers quit her position during the holidays, I got a couple of grants for a project I designed. It needs to start in February, or the organization risks loosing its credibility as a grantee, not to mention the disadvantaged Puerto Ricans we work for, who'd lose a chance at employment, income, improving their living standard and their quality of life....so for THEIR sake I should stay - another six, seven months??? Until a suitable replacement for me could be found?? If there would ever be another skilled one willing to work for peanuts....

And I am doing best I can to try to stay, despite the fact, that I am uncomfortable and thus unhappy here, that I can't stand all those inconveniences: heat, lack of water, general shabbiness and shoddiness of dwellings plus a bysantine bureaucracy everywhere!

The repairs in my current apartment finally were done last saturday.

But... not only had I to cut short a brunch with club friends, witch I greatly enjoyed, to hurry back home to meet the plumber.... one of the newly installed faucets - the one in the bathroom, stopped working already the next day - lasting barely long enough for me to pay my January rent!

So I am thinking HOW, on earth, could I be able to stay here any longer???
Where???

There is NO supply of decent, even halfway decent rentals in this part of the island. And there is no service. None. Zero!

Cabo Rojo has a plethora of houses and appartments for rent on clasificicados. So does Mayaguez. But that's a theory.
Many of them are the same places listed in duplicate, triplicate etc.
Many of the reasonably priced ones have already been rented and are no longer available, but are on the list.

I keep calling real estate agents, yet few of them even have a decency to return a call, once they know you want to rent, not to buy.

So how am I going to be able to do any job without even a halfway decent place to live??? With water, internet, working appliances?
You tell me!

Landlords from hell

I am sorry to say, but ALL my patience with the discomforts of living in Puerto Rico is now gone!

I know that - in a larger perspective - my complaints are petty ones, but I detest discomfort caused by someone's inneficiency, uncaring and general lack of service.

I can take a certain amount of discomfort, if it is adventurous and only for a short time: living in the rain forest, without a phone (since not even cell phones work there) and internet due to lack of coverage (providing those services are available nearby and can be accessed daily), parking my car half a mile down and walking up a steep hill to the cabin.... carrying my laptop, and all the groceries on my back.

But I can't take a lack of water, because the cabin's owner did not install it properly... or an invasion of bugs, because the owner put a roof floating over the walls, instead of attaching it to them... and failed to inform me of any of the cabin's "quirks". And abandoned her kitty in the cabin, so I had to adopt the poor creature!
At least there the rent was peanuts.

But here in Joyuda I rented a beachfront condo, a so called luxury one for a luxury price. It proved to be a hellish place - overheating so badly, due to lack of insulation that even now, in January, when the temperature outdoors is 84 degrees it becomes even hotter inside. Didn't the landlady know about it? Didn't the real estate agent? Should not any of them inform me?

Anyway, I was not aware that I needed a temperature clause in my rental contract, so there was not much I could legally do about it... I could only swear and complain.

But repairs, which according to contract were the obligation of a landlord, were another matter: so after two months of reasoning with my landlady - through a real estate agent, since any efforts to reach the landlady directly failed totally (she never replied), I finally decided to delay the rent payment until the things that - according to the contract needed fixing - were fixed.

And, halleluja, after only two and a half months (!) I finally got a missing window screen, an internet connection (landlady insisted all utilities etc. remained in her name, so I could not get it in my name, without violating a contract... I suspect she does not declare the condo as rented in order not to pay taxes on the income... but I am not a tax police).
I got hot water after only a month, because I got tired of cold water and fixed it on my own. I know, I am sooo impatient!

So I paid my November rent in a sheer euphoria that my landlady finally got something fixed, despite the fact, that faucets in both my bathroom and kitchen needed urgent replacement, as they tended to fall off at will, creating unexpected - and undesirable - fountains in the kitchen and bathroom. And she promised to fix them.

But come December and they were not fixed - surprise, surprise! - so I delayed rent payment again. My landlady called me promising to fix the faucets, but asked for a rent check in advance of repairs. I declined.
And still nothig happened. Faucets fall off almost daily now, and ... two days after I got back from the mainland, my stove top and oven quit working.

A message to my landlady remains unanswered - ok she might be travelling, or even be in a hospital, but she has family: a daughter living close to me and dropping in during my work hours to put utility bills under my front doors. So there is no excuse. And I guess she does not need the rent money???

So by now I have " recovered" my deposit - by not paying rent since November - and could - and should - move out without having to sue her in an unfamiliar legal territory ... since I seriously doubt I would ever get my deposit back, or manage to get a discount on my rent for all the dicomfort living at her place caused - and causes - me, without having to sue her for a breach of contract. Sigh...

OK, OK, I feel slightly sorry for her, if her negligence as a landlady is a result of a - monumental! - ineptitude and not ill will, because I am almost equally inept in practical everyday matters... but knowing my strengths and weaknesses I would never even entertain a thought of being a landlady... without hiring a management company to deal with bothersome for me details!

But a simple thought of moving to another place in Puerto Rico and dealing with - most likely - irresponsible landlords, in addition to extremely shoddy construction, gives me shivers... so I sent a couple of emails instead, to check a possibility of a relocation to Florida and ... got a green light the same day... despite my age and recession. (But I do get results - funding - for my non-profits, despite recession, so - naturally - they all want those results.)

Still, I decided, that if I can fix the stove top and oven for a reasonable amount of money, I'll endure another seven weeks on the island and transfer at the end of February - in order to be able to finish at least the most critical aspects of my work project and - hopefully - find a replacement for myself.

But if the stove can't be fixed inexpensively - I am out of here now!

Flying over Puerto Rico

Leaving Mayaguez airport on a Cape Air flight
There were only two passengers on this flight... but Cape Air never cancels flights

When I was planning to leave PR for two weeks of Christmas/New Year vacation I decided to take a Cape Air flight from Mayaguez to San Juan instead of driving to San Juan and flighing from there.

The extra expense of flying was more than offset by not having to pay for 2 weeks of parking at SJU, not having to drive there and ... as an added bonus ... seeing Puerto Rico from the air. Here are a few pictures:

Lago de Guajataca
Over the mountains
In the clouds
Approaching San Juan
Cape Air planes at the San Juan airport
Starting the return flight from San Juan Flying over Isla Verde
Somewhere over NW coast... does anybody know where this is?
And over the mountains again.

Now I am thinking of taking a weekend trip to St Croix ( I have previously visited both St Thomas and St John, but haven't been to the largest of the USVIs) with Cape Air: the connection is good: leaving Mayaguez at 9:25 I can get to St Croix in about two hours... and the fair from MAZ is only $240 round trip - less than from San Juan.