How is your morning, Gentlemen ?
All is well from 30km east of Carolina.
Only worry today is finding a sports bar where the wife can watch the super bowl. We'll watch it again when we get back home. For accordingly experience hath shewn that the super bowl in PR is accompanied by local commercials, rather than the creativity fest shown back on the mainland.
Imagine that... watching TV for the ads. Whatta life.
Jbreher, are you scouting it out for residency?
In a word, yes.
I don't know how productive the trip will be. I've never before scouted an area for residency. But the special cap gains treatment demand investigation. Perhaps most importantly during a down market.
One week here on the east side, next week on the west side. We shall see what we shall see.
For the time being, yo soy Boricua!
Enjoy!
I've been interested in PR for the same reasons.
The western side of the island sounds more appealing to me. And I've heard there are a lot of Americanos in Rincon. One thing that worries me is that my brother's friend, an FBI agent, said it's fairly dangerous in PR, and kidnapping for ransom is remarkably common. The official crime statistics are cooked (like most places, I'd guess) to make PR look safer. OTOH, I'd assume most of crime is relegated to the San Juan area.
Well, I'm going into this eyes wide open. I am aware that crime is statistically high here. One of the components of the mission is to try to scope out which areas may be somewhat safer than others. So far, I've not felt unsafe. Other than on the roads - these peoples drive crazy-like.
Another issue is the lack of some American staples. A friend of a friend launched a successful ICO, based in PR. He said a few of their employees (from the mainland) couldn't handle the change. For one in particular, the final straw was when he found it impossible to get ahold of a roast beef sandwich.
Well, if your life is going to be dictated by what is available grab-and-go... There's beef in the supermarkets - one could make one's own. There's also pre-packaged roast beef - as in chopped/pressed/cooked/shaved variety. They have KFCs by the dozens, but I don't recall seeing sister Yum brand Arby's anywhere. Though I assume for such a person, Arby's doesn't have roast beef sandwiches either.
Mystifying is the limited selection of TexMex ingredients - tortillas, shells, salsas, etc. It's available, but only one or two items in each category. OTOH, there is almost Hawaii levels of variety of Spam. Go figure. Navy influence?