An American Abroad

Archives for August 2018

El Local en Santurce and La Maquinaria de Tortura

August 21, 2018 by Leave a Comment

I was at El Batey a couple weeks ago and got talking to the guy on the next barstool. This is something I’ve rarely done at other bars, but there’s something about El Batey that brings out my extrovert side. He told me he was in a band called La Maquinaria de Tortura (The Machinery of Torture) and that they were going to be playing a gig in Santurce at a place called El Local. I told him I’d go. Last night, I did.

I’ve never been anyplace quite like El Local. The front half of it consists of a bar and a sitting room that were apparently decorated by someone on work release from the local insane asylum, circa 1980.

It’s the sort of warm and sinister place where you’d be playing a board game and discover that your opponent had turned into a demonic clown or a large bipedal reptile, but you’d just roll the dice and take your turn.

The back half of the building was . . . well, let’s just say that the decorator hadn’t gotten there yet. This made it the perfect setting for the propulsive punk of La Maquinaria de Tortura. The sound was old school: 90 second songs screamed out incomprehensibly by sweaty shirtless men while a distortion-heavy guitar bashes out the same two chords over and over and over and…

…and meanwhile, people who will always be cooler than you no matter how many tats you get or indie films you direct sit by impassively digging the scene.

On the way out, I saw this sign for future fun at El Local.

Not quite sure what that’s all about, but I might give it a try. It’s a strange place. And so of course, I want to go back.

Filed Under: Music, Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , , ,

Cataño, Inadvertently

August 15, 2018 by Leave a Comment

The idea was that on Sunday morning, I’d drive to the neighboring town of Cataño, catch the ferry across San Juan Bay to Old San Juan, and then stumble around there until I found some way to get into trouble. This seemed like a great way to visit a part of the metro area I’d never been to, get a lovely view of the old city, and even save money. But for want of two quarters, my plans fell through.

I made my way to Cataño all right. I parked and walked along the corniche, admiring the view of the 500 year old town and its fortifications across the bay.

I found the Terminal AcuaExpreso Cataño. The ferry was idling at the dock there, preparing to cast off. I walked briskly up to the window and asked for a ticket. “Fifty cents,” said the ticketseller. I pulled a twenty out of my wallet. The woman behind the window looked at it like it was some sort of alien artifact and archly informed me that she didn’t have change. Fine, I said, I’ll pay with a credit card. No dice. It was fifty cents, exact change or near to it.

I must learn to keep a better poker face, because I’m certain my expression at that moment revealed that I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard and/or that the ticketseller and her boss and her boss’s boss and her boss’s boss’s boss were a bunch of dolts. So any hope I might have had of getting a free ticket or even convincing her to loan me four bits vanished with the incredulous look on my face. So I was here — and not going anywhere.

With my plans for a ferry ride to Old San Juan thwarted, I decided to see some of Cataño. I wasn’t too put out, really. The weather was uncertain and sprinkling rain. I made a mental note to come back for the ferry when the sky was bluer.

The area around the ferry terminal wasn’t rich, but neither was it poor. There were some restaurants, apartments, and commercial buildings. All looked modest but well-kept.

There was a public dock where one sport fishing boat was moored.

I watched across the bay as an enormous Carnival cruise ship edged along the San Juan peninsula, angling to dock at one of the piers along Calle Marina. I’ve never taken a cruise or even been aboard a ship like that. I don’t think it would be the way I’d want to travel — I prefer a more unscripted approach to new lands — but I wouldn’t rule it out forever and ever.

A few blocks away from the main waterfront area of Cataño, I found another ship that wasn’t quite as fancy as the Carnival Horizon. It was, however, definitely more fun to photograph.

I also found a much poorer part of town and was reminded, oddly, of Chelsea, Massachusetts, where I lived for a while when I was 20 years old. Perhaps I have a strange affinity for down-at-the-heels seaside towns. I saw an old woman sitting out on her balcony, surveying her surroundings. I didn’t want to intrude on her Sunday morning by walking up to her house and taking a photo, so I captured her from far away. It was another reminder of Chelsea: an older population sitting out on their porches surveying the gradual decay of a neighborhood they’ve probably lived in for decades.

I headed for the town square and found a modest but well-kept pavilion, some gothically decaying architecture, and an interesting church whose bells were summoning the faithful.

Across from the pavilion was a mixed-use building that housed a Chinese restaurant. This, too, reminded me of another place I’ve lived. During my year in China, people would sometimes express surprise that I knew how to use chopsticks and liked Chinese food. I explained to them that Chinese food is their country’s gift to the world and you can find Chinese restaurants even in the smallest, most out-of-the-way towns in America — and indeed, around the globe.

A few blocks away, though, the local bakery was out of bread and the pizza truck hadn’t woken up yet.

Having completed my accidental tour of Cataño, I was heading back to San Juan when I saw this motorcyclist, pulled up beside him at a red light, snapped his picture, and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Moments like that make me smile for hours and remind me how very glad I am to live here.

Filed Under: Puerto Rico Tagged With: ,

Windy Day at Playa Último Trolley

August 14, 2018 by Leave a Comment

My favorite beach in all of Puerto Rico is in the San Juan neighborhood of Ocean Park. It’s called Playa Último Trolley — Last Trolley Beach — because it’s near the final stop on the now-defunct San Juan streetcar line. I’ve gone there almost every weekend for the last five months. It’s a locals’ beach, a place where Puerto Rican families go for swimming and sunning. There’s butter-soft sand in some parts and flat shoreline rock in others.

Some Saturday mornings, an older man drives up, parks his car, and opens the trunk to reveal medium-large speakers. He sits in the parking lot on a lawn chair with an old wooden box about two feet long in his lap. Then he cranks up the salsa, drums along on the box, and rocks the whole beach. It’s that kind of place. I take everyone who visits me there.

Last Sunday it was windy. When I arrived in early afternoon, the ocean was dotted with windsurfers and the sky was speckled with kiteboard sails.

I walked east to the less populated end of the playa, the part that’s across from the swanky real estate on Calle Park Boulevard.

The breeze was coming toward me and I could smell the sweet tobacco of this man’s cigar from 75 meters away.

But I didn’t come to smell the smoke; I wanted to be nearer to where the windsurfers were congregated.

I’ve never gone windsurfing or kiteboarding — but I’d sure like to try someday.

On my way back to the main part of the beach, I passed this mountain bike. Everything about it looked seemed catalogue-perfect.

I passed by families enjoying themselves in the shallows and a vendor doing a good business in cold drinks on a hot day.

Weather permitting (and it usually does), I’ll be back next weekend.

And in case you want to check it out, Playa Último Trolley is here:

Filed Under: Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , ,

Women Who Ride, Women Who Travel

August 10, 2018 by Leave a Comment

For several years now, I’ve made a similar post to Facebook every Friday morning. I put up a photo of a woman riding a motorcycle and caption it “It’s FRIDAY and the streets are OURS!”

To my surprise, this weekly post gets a lot of love every time. To my even greater surprise, I get more positive responses from women than men. That may be because the photos I choose are not motorcycle cheesecake shots — you know, the kind of photos that show a lushly upholstered lady wearing nothing but a dental floss bikini and a provocative smile improbably draped over a heavily customized show bike. That is, shall we say, not my genre. The photos I post are of real women actually riding motorcycles, or at least those who look like they are about to: real women, real riders.

Recently, the publication I work for, ConsumersAdvocate.org, challenged me to publish a feature story about women who ride. It was a labor of love. I profiled three women riders who inspire me every time I ride.

Bessie Stringfield was an African American woman who rode all over the continental United States and several foreign countries back in the 1930s. She traveled alone through the Jim Crow south during a time when lynchings were disgustingly common. During World War II, she became a motorcycle courier for the US Army. When the war was over, she became a motorcycle performer, doing death-defying stunts at carnivals and fairs and participating in dirt track races. She later moved to Miami and founded a motorcycle club.

Lois Pryce is an English woman who’s ridden from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from London to Cape Town, and into every corner of Iran. She chronicles her travels in prose that is at times amusing, at times poignant, and always insightful. She, too, usually rides alone. I asked her about how she kept herself safe during her journeys, and she replied that her very vulnerability was her strength. Seeing a woman riding alone on a small motorcycle in a strange land makes people want to help and protect her. Not that she needs a lot of help — her strength, resourcefulness, good humor, and courage have carried her though some fairly terrifying situations.

Melissa Holbrook Pierson writes about riding motorcycles the way some people write about religious rituals: deeply, beautifully, movingly. She favors Ducatis, brawny Italian bikes known more for their power and style than their reliability. In lapidary prose, she profiles people who ride, showing them as the complex three-dimensional people they are. And she gets closer than any other writer to understanding the allure of motorcycles. The title of one of her books gets at this: The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles. Reading that book not only helped me understand motorcycles — it helped me understand myself.

The piece I wrote about these three riders became one of the most linked-to features out of the 450-some articles we’ve published. If you’d like to read the whole thing, please do. And send me your comments.

Filed Under: Wheels, Writing Tagged With: ,

One Year in Puerto Rico

August 9, 2018 by 1 Comment

One year ago today, I moved to Puerto Rico to take a job as a Managing Editor for a web startup that reviews and compares consumer goods and services. I’d never set foot on the island before. I’d never worked full-time as a writer. I had no clear idea of where I was going to live or how I was going to get around. But having been in similar situations in China and Tunisia, I was confident that I would get things figured out.

And I did. It took two weeks, but I found a beautiful apartment (with a super landlady) in Hato Rey, the business and banking district of San Juan. I bought a used but well-loved Toyota 4Runner from a coworker and started to explore my new island home.

I took a quick trip to the Dominican Republic over Labor Day weekend.

I’d been on Puerto Rico for exactly one month when Hurricane Irma grazed the island. Though I was without power for six days and the streets flooded outside my apartment building, nothing too terrible happened. I improvised and made do. I thought then that I was a seasoned resident of the Caribbean basin. Category 5 storms? Bring ‘em on!

But just five days after power was restored, my hubris and high spirits were blown away by a Cat 5 bitch named Maria. I fled the island shortly before the San Juan airport was closed and spent five weeks on Curaçao and two weeks in Panama.

Curaçao was beachy and lovely.

Panama was urban and vibrant.

But for much of the seven weeks I was a hurricane refugee, I felt lonely and slightly depressed. When I finally returned to Puerto Rico on November 5, I found that a formerly verdant tropical paradise had been stripped of its leaves. Tens of thousands of homes had been destroyed. And the laid back Caribbean populace was suffering from PTSD. I busied myself on weekends with relief work in Utuado, Canóvanas, Aguadilla, and elsewhere.

During the work week, my colleagues and I played a morbid daily game of Utilities Roulette in which the whims of the gods of chance seemed to dictate whether we would have power, water, and internet service on any given day.

I learned a lot in those four months. I realized that working remotely, even from fantastic places like Curaçao and Panama, isn’t all I’d hoped it would be. I learned that I like office camaraderie more than I’d suspected. I discovered that it’s not easy to learn a new job when you’re working remotely.

By the time I returned to Ohio for Christmas, I needed a break. And the cold weather of Toledo in late-December revived me. I liked the bite of winter against my cheeks and the crystal blue skies overhead. Feeling less gloomy, I returned to Puerto Rico and rang in 2018.

For the next six months, I worked to establish routines that had eluded me in my short time in pre-Maria Puerto Rico. I went to work Monday through Friday and immersed myself in learning new skills. I experienced what it’s like to be part of a startup in its manic growth phase, as the office of six people I started in became an office of 32. On the weekends I went to the beach, painted my apartment, shopped, and wrote. I zipped back to Ohio twice, once to do Shakespeare and once for dentistry.

During that time, though, my personality pendulum swung too far toward introversion and routine. I was living on a Caribbean island the size of Connecticut that I’d scarcely explored. Hell, I’d hardly explored San Juan.

When I moved here, I enthusiastically sought out new places, explored different parts of the island, and delighted in the richness of the Puerto Rican experience. But Hurricane Maria was a little too much novelty for me, and so I spent the six months after I got back to the island seeking out a comfort zone. Having seen how quickly things could change, I craved stability.

I decided that the cure for routine lay in South America, so in early July, I took an eight-day trip to Peru.

That trip was like a sample of my old life, the one I lived from 2013 to 2015, when I was traveling all the time. It made me hungry for the new and different. So when I returned to San Juan, I got out of my comfy rut and started to revisit Puerto Rico. I went to new bars, beaches, neighborhoods, restaurants, museums, libraries, monuments, and tourist attractions. I paid special attention to Old San Juan, which I may have disdained initially because I was too sensitive about being perceived as a tourist instead of a resident.

It took a year of ups and downs, but I now feel like I’ve got exploration and routine in proper balance. During the last year, I’ve been helped, comforted, accompanied, and loved by Lori Seubert. Without the peace, encouragement, and equilibrium she brings to me, I’m sure I’d be a lot worse off after this tumultuous year.

Both my sons, Spencer and Josh, accompanied by friends of theirs, made it down to San Juan to visit me — and to bring me joy.

Friends from my past and friends from the world of social media also came to visit and let me know that though I was far away, I was not forgotten. And I’ve made new friends of my colleagues, fellow relief workers, and neighbors.

I don’t know what the future holds for me. None of us do. And wanderlust still seizes me from time to time. But I’ve renewed my lease for another year and I’m not planning any moves. There’s a lot to like in Puerto Rico and a lot of it left to explore.

Filed Under: Hurricane Maria, My Apartment, Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , ,

Casa Blanca: Ponce de León is Not at Home

August 8, 2018 by 1 Comment

I know I had the right address: 1 Calle San Sebastián in Old San Juan is hard to miss. When you get there, you can’t go any farther.

There was even a plaque by the door identifying the place as Casa Blanca, the residence built for Juan Ponce de León and his family back in 1521. It was also the first fortification built by the Spanish in the San Juan islet.

Juan never actually moved in. He died in Florida after being shot by a poisoned arrow, but his family and descendants lived in Casa Blanca until the mid-18th century.

The place is not just one casa; it’s a whole compound of buildings. On the Sunday that I went, I didn’t see another person there–not even a security guard, a ticket-seller, or a docent. While it was cool to have the premises to myself, I found the lack of information, maps, or informational brochures disappointing. I wandered about the premises without any idea of what I was looking at or what its historical significance was. Gates were shut, but not locked. I wasn’t able to get inside any of the buildings. Supposedly visitors are allowed into the de León family dining room, but if that’s the case, I wasn’t able to figure out how to do it.

There were some pretty gardens and courtyards, though many parts were in need of gardening and repair.

This was the only living soul I encountered at Casa Blanca. Perhaps a descendant of a de León family pet?

Filed Under: Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , ,

Lote 23

August 7, 2018 by Leave a Comment

A shiny Airstream caught my eye as I drove past. There was a row of buildings cheek-by-jowl in a blighted area of Santurce — and then there was an open space with this silvery sausage of a trailer set at one side. There were people milling around it, but from my car window I couldn’t make out what was going on.

Then one day I went to a movie, and while suffering through the pre-show commercials, I saw this Diet Coke ad.

The image of the attractive Puerto Rican woman buying a Diet Coke from an Airstream food truck clicked with me. I knew where that trailer was. But I didn’t yet know what it was.

A few weeks later, I was looking for a place to meet up with a high school classmate who was visiting Puerto Rico. I asked my colleagues for a casual restaurant recommendation. They told me about Lote 23, a vacant lot on Avenida Juan Ponce de León that had been given over to small food stalls. Two of them operated from Airstream trailers.

At that point it all came together for me.

Lote 23 is an outdoor food court comprised of more than a dozen food shacks and a couple of trailers. It celebrates local cuisine, chefs, and culinary entrepreneurs; Starbucks and Subway need not apply. The space manages the neat trick of being simultaneously hip and down home, chic and welcoming to all, creative and grounded. You eat sitting at picnic tables — who knows who might sit down next to you?

Travel vlogger David Hoffman did a video segment about Lote 23 that shows and explains more about it.

One of the wonderful things about Lote 23 is that you can go out to eat with friends and sample a variety of foods and cuisines. You can get Cuban sandwiches, poke bowls, chicken fingers, stir fry, mac and cheese, and cocktails all from different vendors.

If you go by day, you’ll be kept cool outdoors by the “Big Ass” fans (yes, that’s an actual brand name) that create a strong breeze and by a system of water atomizers that produce a cooling mist.

And if you go by night — my favorite time — you might catch some live music or even a movie. The place is lit with little Italian lights overhead, giving it a warm, romantic glow.

Almost anytime there is a good time for people-watching.

Since I discovered Lote 23 a couple months ago, it’s become one of my go-tos for dining out. Both the concept and the execution are wonderful. This is an idea that other cities could copy with minimal investment. I hope they do.

So as we say in Puerto Rico, buen provecho!

Filed Under: Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , ,

El Museo del Mar

August 6, 2018 by Leave a Comment

I’ve always been interested in sailing, boats, and life at sea, even though I have very little experience with any of it. Part of this interest comes from my wanderlusting soul, but there’s a geekier element to it too: I like the stuff of sailing. Compasses, sextants, radios, engines, radar displays, and the whole host of related instruments speak to my gearhead side.

I found a lot of that kind of stuff at El Museo del Mar, Old San Juan’s Museum of the Sea. It’s a one-room affair, tucked in amid a row of shops on Calle San Francisco. It’s somewhat misnamed, being a museum of ships and boats rather than of the sea itself.

There were many antique compasses on display. These have a special place in my personal iconography. My one and only tattoo (so far) is a compass rose. I got it in China after I’d lived there a year. It symbolizes a new direction in my life, the plotting of a new course.

These next two instruments were manufactured by the Chelsea Clock Company. I used to live in Chelsea, Massachusetts where they were made. The firm was founded under a different name in the 1880s and has operated under its current name since 1897. In the early 20th century, it made maritime clocks for the US government and automobile clocks for Rolls Royce.

The photo immediately below is a radio room clock. A plaque on the wall by the display reads as follows:

The sinking of the Titanic resulted in the Radio Act of 1912 that required 24-hour radio watches. The disaster also led to clocks in the newer radio rooms featuring three-minute periods marked in red. Those three minutes provided a silent period when only emergency radio messages could be transmitted.

In the US Government specifications for the Chelsea clock, it notes ‘the dial has accurate 4 second marks in red around the outside edge, over which the sweep seconds hand passes, enabling the radio operator to accurately transmit the 4-second alarm signal provided by the International Telecommunication Convention and the International Conference on Safety of Life at Sea.’

The combination barometer/thermometer below is unusual for its curved bulb.

The model ships were awesome — and I use that word in its original sense. The level of detail, patience, and skill their construction requires is astonishing.

And building a ship inside a bottle is an extravagant demonstration of genius.

There’s a display dedicated to the Titanic. I didn’t see much connection to Puerto Rico there, but I understand how the exhibit could be a crowd-pleaser.

Though I haven’t sailed since I was a kid, I would someday like to learn celestial navigation. That might be my own ship-in-a-bottle endeavor: something to do purely for the satisfaction of mastering it that has no tangible benefit whatsoever. Maybe I could learn to use a sextant like this.

I learned something about the gizmo in the photo below. I’d always assumed it was something like a throttle, whereby the captain or the helmsman on the bridge could directly adjust the speed and direction of the ship’s propellers. Not so.

This is actually an engine order telegraph, or Chadburn, after the Liverpool company that originally manufactured units like it. It’s a communications device, not a throttle. When the handle on it is moved, a bell rings in the engine room and causes a dial there to move to indicate the speed and direction ordered by the bridge.

The most unexpected feature of the museum was its display of life belts, which is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest such collection in the world. Well, it has to be somewhere, so why not in San Juan?

Filed Under: Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , ,

The San Juan Community Library

August 4, 2018 by 1 Comment

I hadn’t lived in Puerto Rico very long before I asked someone where the nearest public library was. I was met with a puzzled look. Well, there are libraries in universities, I was told. There’s the Puerto Rico National Library, which contains the island’s archives and some specialty collections. But for whatever reason, the idea of a public lending library never really took off here. I found this odd, because my sense is that Puerto Ricans show far more interest in literature and poetry than their stateside cousins.

But while there isn’t a grand public library of the size I’d expect in a city of 300,000, there is The San Juan Community Library. It’s located in a nondescript (OK, ugly) building on the outskirts of the city–almost in Guaynabo–but that made sense. A library in Old San Juan or somewhere downtown wouldn’t be near to the people who’d be likely to use it.

On the Saturday of my visit, Alice, a 77 year old retired teacher originally from Washington State, was the only person working there. She welcomed me and immediately asked me to sign the visitor log. “They want to know how many people come here,” she explained. “It affects our funding. There are so many cutbacks coming, and …” She sighed in a well-what-can-you-do way and gave me a smile.

After recording my visit, I walked through the stacks. The books are housed in one good-sized room and organized by section.

There’s a kids’ area, a young adult stack, a Puerto Rican authors corner, and so on. Books are available in English and Spanish and all the signs in the library are written in both languages.

The library has WiFi and loans out movies on DVD. In total, it has more than 29,000 items to lend. It also has a schedule of community events, including a regular chess camp, book sales, and classes in art, music, yoga, and languages.

I paid $25 for an individual one-year membership, received my library card, and went prowling through the stacks.

When I checked out, I was pleased to see Alice date-stamp the tag in the book I borrowed. I hadn’t seen one of those in years. There was something very personal and homey about it, a more intimate experience than scanning your books into a bar code reader. The whole experience — the modest scale of the library, the organized shelving with occasional pockets of clutter, the rubber stamps, and Alice herself — took me back to my youth. I remember spending scores hours in libraries like that.

It was drizzling a little when I left, but I grabbed this photo on the way out.

From the outside, it’s not much to look at, but inside the atmosphere is cheery, warm, and welcoming. I have to return the book I checked out within two weeks — so I’ll be back soon.

Filed Under: Books, Puerto Rico, San Juan Tagged With: , , ,

The Places I Haven’t Been

August 3, 2018 by Leave a Comment

I’m lucky. I’ve had the privilege of international travel. That’s something that’s been denied to much of the world’s populace.

Some people are denied the pleasures of travel by law. My American passport is powerful talisman that allows me to travel almost anywhere in the world. Other countries’ passports are not so mighty.

Some people can’t afford to travel. Oh, there are far more expensive obsessions, but having the travel bug requires disposable income and the ability to take time away from their jobs. Not everyone has that.

Some people have obligations that prevent them from traveling. If you’re taking care of a child or an elderly family member and no one else can shoulder those obligations, you’re stuck.

And some people don’t travel for purely internal reasons. This is especially true of Americans. They’ve been taught to fear the people in the next village or the foreign country. Or the spark of curiosity and the tinder of imagination haven’t come together inside them. This can be the most stubborn impediment to travel, because it can’t be cured by simply giving people a passport, some money, or a helping hand with their family obligations.

I’m a travel evangelist and addict. The more I travel, the more I want to–and the more I encourage others to do so. When I’m flying home from a trip, I pick up an in-flight magazine and page to the back where the maps are and start thinking about where I could go next. Not long ago, a friend showed me how I could make my own travel map. So I did.

Maps like these are marketed as a way to visualize all the countries you’ve visited, but I look at them the other way around. This is a map that shows (in red) all the countries I haven’t been to yet.

Here’s an interactive version:


Of course, this Mercator projection exaggerates the size of countries in the northern and southern quarters of the globe. A projection that was more faithful to the actual relative areas of different countries would show that there’s even more of the world I haven’t been to. And of course, countries are artificial and arbitrary ways of dividing up the world. If there were a map that simply showed the municipalities I’d visited, the map would be a sea of red spattered with a few hundred blue dots.

People who are thought to be “well-traveled” usually have seen a small percentage of the big wide world. Keeping that in mind make travel both a humbling and frustrating thing to do. No one’s seen the whole world. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With:
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