One thing that you will notice driving down the residential streets of Puerto Rico are the satellite dishes.  Everyone has them.  Let me take that back, I mean everyone has 2 to 3 of them.  For the longest time I had no idea why.  When I asked people most of them would tell me “because we get a bad signal”.

Then one day one of my coworkers got a few dishes.  He found Free to air.  With this setup you are basically pirating satellite signals legally…  It is a big gray area.  The sat. companies hate it and are always reprogramming the signals to screw with everyone.  It’s a pretty cool setup that can you get a gazillion channels.  It definitely not cheap.  I would think of it wore as an investment of say $600 that might go belly up when the Satellite companies figure out how to stop the piracy.  Now in his spare time that is all he does is setup these boxes on the side making a killing on installation and reprograming the boxes (that can’t normally get the signals).

So now when I drive by all of these houses with the dishes I think to myself “I can’t believe all these guys are screwing the system”.  In a way it’s pretty cool that every one is screwing the man.  In a way it sucks, because that is what so many Puerto Ricans do here is try to screw the man.  Chaos everywhere…

If you are visiting Puerto Rico from the States, this could be an important issue.  ATM machines are not in the spots that you are used to.

In the States we are used to having ATM machines anywhere and everywhere you go.  Gas station’s machine down?  No problem, go to the ATM machine in the corner of the store to get the money.  Court won’t take your credit card for the fee for whatever law you broke?  They also have a machine hiding somewhere.

In Puerto Rico the machine are here as well, they just aren’t as convenient.  It is rare for you to see ATMs at a gas station.  I am pretty sure there aren’t going to be any machines at the government facilities.  You will see them at the banks, malls, or any “Americanized” shopping centers.

Also know that in Puerto Rico ATM machines are technically called ATH.  Everyone here does know both acronyms.  If you are moving here, please get a separate ATH card because there are no debit cards in Puerto Rico.

I was driving home from work the other day, and while stopped at a stop light I heard this huge sound system.  I kept getting louder.  Finally a school bus with police lights flashing pulls up next to me.  At this point the base was so loud, I couldn’t see out of any mirror because the mirror was shaking to much.  I looked over at the bus and all of the sudden I thought I was moving and slammed on my brakes.  I quickly figured out I wasn’t moving; the bus had HUGE spinners on the wheels.  The bus was “blinged out” with enough gold and chrome on to “bling” 100 cars.  Come to find out, if there is still a public bus system, it’s not very good.  So the private bus system fixes up the buses to lure the kids.  The more “bling” the more kids that ride that bus.

Good times!  This is one of the reasons I moved to Puerto Rico.  To see crazy things like this that I wouldn’t see in the States.

In Puerto Rico there are what seems like a million cops driving around.  On very rare occasions you will see people pulled over.  I have often wondered what it takes to get pulled over because the driving here is so chaotic.

So far what I have learned, cops only seem to care about speeding if you are on a long stretch of road that has no stop lights.  What they really care about though is if your registration sticker is current.

About a month ago, I was pulled over for the sticker because it had just expired.  I drove by what would usually look like a speed trap in the states.  This however was a sticker trap.  Everyone that was pulled over, was pulled over for their sticker.  When I drove by, the police started waving.  Since I had really no idea what was going on at the time I just kept on driving.  Then a motor cycle cop starts putting on his helmet an starts coming after me.

In the States, well at least in Texas, when we get pulled over we try to move out of the way from the traffic to make it safer for the police, ourselves, and hopefully not cause as much traffic.  So I am sure the cop was a little surprised, because getting out of the way doesn’t happen here in Puerto Rico and that is exactly what I did.  The cop approached me cautiously with his hand on his gun and I can only assume that it was because I didn’t listen to their orders to stop earlier.

He quickly realized that I didn’t know Spanish and pointed to my sticker and then wanted to see my license.  I didn’t know that it had expired and acknowledged that I understood him.  He then asked where my casa was and told me in broken English to go there.  I found out later that I should consider myself lucky because usually if your sticker is out of date that the will tow your car automatically.

I have had a few emails come in asking me “Is it true that all houses in Puerto Rico have bars over the windows and doors?”

The answer is yes, and it is probably for the reason you would expect – crime.  But don’t take that wrong…  The crime isn’t all that bad; keep on reading.

Well it’s mainly because of air conditioning.  You see the people in Puerto Rico don’t use air conditioning like we do in the States.  In the States, when it’s warm, we will run our central AC all of the time.  In Puerto Rico, central AC is very rare.  Everyone just has window units.  Most of the time all windows are wide open letting the air circulate.

Also in times of heavy hurricanes and storms the electricity goes out.  With the loss of electricity, there is no way to keep cool.  Brief power outages are also fairly common.

Since people have their windows open at all times, bars on the windows and doors are used for security to prevent crime.  Think about it, one of the reasons we always have our AC going all of the time in the States is because we would not leave our windows and doors wide open.

When I first moved here, I did not think I would ever get used to not using my AC.  I never use it now unless guests come to visit.  All I use are fans that are scattered around my house.  What is the benefit to not using AC?  My electricity bill on average costs me about $50 a month (it cost more because my Puerto Rican girlfriend likes to run the AC when she can).  What did yours cost this month?

Well if all of the for sale signs wasn’t enough evidence for you, it looks like the whole credit mess is hitting Puerto Rico as well.  Banco Popular’s first quarter profit dropped 13 percent.  This made the stock go down to  $11.15.  The article goes on to say that the stock is a good value as Puerto Rico’s economy is expected to pick up.

I don’t know if I have that same view.  Ever since I have lived here in PR (2.5 years), I have always thought the economy was sliding even before the whole credit scare.  I expect the Puerto Rican economy to start falling.  The economy obviously isn’t near as strong as there are only 4 million people on the island.  Most money spent on the island leaves quickly because every store is now a US corporation.    So it takes a while to build up the local economy.