Superficial observations about Puerto Rico

1. Burger King is everywhere. EVERYWHERE! My sister and I did a few day trips outside of San Juan, and that familiar fake thatched roof was just ubiquitous. (Probably outnumbered McDonald's by like four times.) There were also a substantial number of Blockbuster, Curves, Walgreen's, and Baskin Robbins... which was all really depressing when you realized that it looked like any other generic highway in the U.S.

(But seriously, there was a crazy number of Burger Kings. And for those interested, "drive-thru" in PR Spanish is "servi carro"!)

2. Speaking of chains, I saw two Condom World stores... one located right by our hotel on Avenida Ashford (total tourist strip) and the other on a highway on the way to the Bioluminescent Bay (very cool, by the way). Since the one by our hotel was so decrepit-looking, I was surprised it was actually a chain (and I think I recall seeing one in Boston on Newbury Street?). As a business owner (ha!), I was curious to know how a store could survive selling something that is so universally available. I mean, I'm sure they have other stuff but these stores were pretty centrally located which made me even more curious about the merchandise. I wanted to check it out, but my Catholic guilt (or I guess Protestant guilt) was raging like whoa.

3. Have you ever noticed whenever you travel somewhere, people from that region seem to think that stuff that just happens to be in that region is totally unique to said region? During our first meal in Puerto Rico, our waiter* asked me and my sister, "You ever try AVOCADO? A-VO-CA-DO? Avocado!" The next day, our tour guide at El Yunque National Forest helpfully pointed out when it started raining that umbrellas were originally created for protection against sun, not rain. She looked at us expectantly as if we were supposed to gasp in surprise. (Isn't that a "fun fact" that pretty much everyone in the world learns in, like, the fourth grade?)

From these two encounters, I can concede that either:

a. These people are stupid. (Not likely.)
b. These people think that WE are stupid. (Fairly likely.)
c. I'm an easily offended bitch that needs to lighten up... especially since I'm getting upset at myself all over again that I can't think of the more-than-two-things word for 'either' and therefore feel very dumb right now. (Fact.)

(Anyway, this all reminded me of when I was watching The Simpsons with my six-year-old host sister in Salamanca, and she asked me if I'd ever seen The Simpsons before. I answered that yes, I had, and in fact, The Simpsons is actually a show from the U.S. that gets dubbed into Spanish and many other languages. [Although I think that was too much for her to understand, so she just looked at me like I was nuts.])

4. Yeah, so overall, Puerto Rico is pretty darn cool. Go.

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* Eduardo can pretty much be described as a totally offensive caricature of what you'd imagine a Puerto Rican waiter to be. He greeted us with an effusive "Hel-LO! How are YOU? We have no sushi here! No sushi!" I COULD read into this, or I can choose to believe that a disproportionate number of previous diners at Cafe del Angel were all disappointed sushi aficionados, ergo he greets every patron this way. (Then again, he later told us about how he saw a documentary about the national orchestra in China, emphasizing how pretty the women were. I then had to ask myself if a man needs a reason to tell somebody about the attractiveness of orchestra members of a country to which you have no connection... I guess one doesn't.) But yeah, when sending us off, Eduardo was nice enough to say, "Good-bye, my sushi girls! You are pretty! Be careful!" so I guess I can't get all that annoyed at a well-meaning local.