Everything falling into place

We finally got a car!!!

After another full day of searching, we came across this cute 2009 Toyota Yaris Hatchback with very little mileage! It was a bit out of our original budget, but we soon realized we would have to modify our budget to get something reliable and cost effective. Hopefully, we will keep it in decent shape and be able to sell it at a decent price when we leave the island.
To celebrate, we spent today at the beach, just relaxing! We drove by our future apartment again and snagged a picture to show you:

At the front gate, you see the cute little patio area with lots of tropical plants and then you take some stairs and you can see the fence at the top near where the front door is. We can't wait to move in!

And to sign off tonight, here is a fun video we took while driving from our current house on the hill in Cupey:

Se gana algo, se pierde algo / Win Some, Lose Some

What a whirlwind of a week it has been! After finally settling on the Volvo, we showed it our landlords, the Kuilans, and they recommended we have it checked out by their trusty mechanic just down the road. While Ethan took care of that, I was headed to a lab safety training session at Centro Medico, aka the medical center. We have driven several times from our house to the medical center, so I was not worried I would get lost. I even gave myself 45 minutes to get there! But somehow, I managed to miss the exit! I was so mad at myself. Fortunately, I was able to get turned around and back on the highway and was only a few minutes late arriving. Sometimes when you are forced to figure something out, you learn better, so I'm starting to feel more confident about driving around San Juan despite the heavy traffic and lack of signage on the highways. They do have signs for exits and speed limits and whatnot, but sometimes they are either blocked by giant trees or there is no sign before the exit to let you know it is coming up! And before you know it, you've missed the exit and you have to turn around… and there is almost NEVER an easy way to turn around!

Anyway, I made it to the training session, and although all of it was in Spanish, I managed to figure out what was going on. It was only general lab safety anyway, so it was nothing new for me. After the training session, I headed back home and heard some disappointing news. The mechanic told Ethan that the coolant and oil were mixing in the engine of the Volvo and would need a head gasket replacement. So Ethan called the dealer and told him there was a problem and he just said, no worries, just bring it back. We weren't sure if that meant he would just give us our check back or if we had to trade it for another car or what. I was so distraught because we had spent so much time looking for this car, AND I had just filled it up with PREMIUM gasoline!!! Grrr… but Ethan was right, better off spending $40 on the gas than $1500+ on a new head gasket and who knows what else might be wrong with it… :-/

So, to take our minds off the car situation, we went to see some houses and apartments with Toni. We checked out some nice homes in Guaynabo, a well-respected suburb of San Juan. Most of the homes were in gated communities with parks and tennis courts, and some of them even had a pool! We really liked it there, but the homes were just a bit over our budget. We decided to consider 2 bedrooms instead of only 3 bedrooms since there seemed to be more space than we thought for our bikes and tools. They showed us a smaller 2 bedroom apartment, but it was just too small, then Toni thought of this cute apartment that we might like in Condado. Condado is another nice area, mostly filled with fancy hotels and restaurants right next to the beach. I never thought Ethan would want to live there because it would be too noisy and crowded. But we went to see it anyway. It was a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment but the bedrooms were spacious and there was also extra space in the laundry room and part of the 2^nd bedroom had lots of extra space for an office area. I was excited to see it. How fun would it be to live just three blocks from the beach!?!? As soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it. The front entrance is shared by only one other tenant, and it is adorned with beautiful tropical plants and charming patio furniture, perfect for relaxing and enjoying the fresh air. We walked up a flight of stairs to the front door and went inside. It was so cute! The first thing I noticed was the beautiful blue tile on the kitchen counters… que bonita! We wandered through the dining area and the living room which were adjacent to the kitchen. Just beyond the living room was the master bedroom… with tons of space! That connected to the newly remodeled bathroom which then led into the spare room… which seemed enormous! On the other end of the spare room was a nice area perfect for two desks where we could situate our offices. Off to the side of that space was the laundry room which had plenty of room for our bikes and tools. That then led back into the kitchen. It was the perfect place. And I couldn't believe we were so close to the beach! We decided to take it as soon as the current tenants moved out - mid-January… just in time for our things to arrive! Plus, the current tenant was moving back to the states and wasn't planning on taking any of the furniture… so it could all stay with the apartment! This deal was getting better and better by the minute! Now we wouldn't have to spend all our money buying new furniture. I was so glad we found this place… I can’t wait for all our guests to see our new home! It's about 10 minutes west from the airport and 5 minutes east of Old San Juan, depending on traffic of course! Here is a picture on google maps of the location:

After the house hunting, we had to take the Volvo back. L I really wanted to keep it but knew it would be a big hassle for us in the long run. But we were so incredibly lucky that the dealer took it back, no questions asked, and gave us our check back. Whew! But now, we still have to find a car…

So far, we've been lucky with some things but unlucky with other things… Now, onward with the car hunting!

Enfermo de los Carros / Sick of the Cars

It's only been 10 days since Maria and I landed in San Juan, but we are exhausted. We intended to start our lives here by searching for a car so we could turn in the rental we picked up at the airport. But then two days after our arrival, Maria caught a cold. Yes, a cold, in Puerto Rico. Two days after that, I caught the same cold.

So, managing through these colds, we were able to visit Maria's lab and say hello to everyone, get some paperwork done, and observe the amazingly congested traffic in San Juan. Traffic here is bad, really bad. Our current home is 13.4 km (8.3 mi) from Maria's lab, yet it takes at least 30 minutes to get there if you are lucky. No one signals when they turn, no one looks were they are going, and everyone's car looks like it's been in a demolition derby. Neither of us enjoy being in traffic so, although we enjoy the avocado and tangerine trees and the view of San Juan from our home, we decided we need to find a closer place. Luckily, our landlord/realtor extraordinaire, Toni, is on the case, and we have 3 appointments tomorrow! But we still needed to get a car. Here is a video of the drive from our house on the hill to the main road which leads to the highway  4X speed (coming soon).

Cars here are much more expensive than in the states. First, they charge the dealers/importers an excise tax, then a state tax on top of that, and then a municipal tax on top of that. It's kind of a bum deal because the local transit system is unreliable and doesn't cover much of the metro area. The politicians know that everyone needs a car and so they tax them to the max. Did I ever mention how much I love government? Anyway, we visited a few dealerships and quickly became disillusioned as dealer after dealer attempted to sell us cars that were literally falling apart. We didn't want to spend a lot, but we thought we were being realistic. So, we turned to Classificados Online, the Craigslist of Puerto Rico, if you will. We searched and found many cars in our price range that seemed pretty quality. Unfortunately relatively few sellers ever got back to us, likely due to their ads being abandoned or just not wanting to deal with people in English. We did get to check out a few cars, but even then they had issues, rattling noises, bald tires, missing jacks, and lots of scratches and dents. If you ever find yourself looking for a car in Puerto Rico, you are going to need to look past the scratches and dents, but we were not willing to settle for garbage.

So we took a small break from cars and focused on finding Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up some needed home supplies. Long story short, Google maps is only marginally helpful in Puerto Rico, do not trust it with your life. We had to take a break in our search for lunch at a nice little restaurant serving up local and Cuban favorites. While enjoying some some wonderful tostones (fried plantains), I bit right through one and into my fork. I heard a loud crunch and yeah, I chipped my tooth. Maria says it isn't bad, but I still don't like it. So, adding injury to illness, I was ready to give up but Maria, coming off of her cold, made sure I got back on track. After we found BB&B and got what we needed and made it home, we were able to get some much needed rest.

We were seriously considering just renting cars the rest of our time here, but made the decision to head to Caguas - a small town south of San Juan and only 10 minutes on the backroads from our house on the hill - and visit some more used car dealerships.

It was a hot day and I didn't want to get out of the car but many of the dealers just put a piece of paper in the window with the price written in small type. So naturally, Maria made me get out of the car and walk down the rows to see the prices. We managed to find a reasonably priced Suzuki Grand Vitara at the first place we stopped but we wanted to keep looking and told them we would come back. We drove all the way down into Caguas, a city seemingly made up of Car dealers and restaurants, and began our search on the other side of the road. About halfway back from our starting point, we found a Ford dealer that also sold used cars. There we meet our friendly salesman Ronaldo or "Ronnie." He was pleasant and seemed very honest after Maria asked about a Jeep Liberty and he told her that she didn't want it because that model has too many problems. Maybe he was keeping it for himself, but I tended to believe him because I would never drive a Jeep Liberty. We sweated our way around the lot (did I mention it was HOT?) and finally settled on a 2005 Volvo V50. It looked nice, but I don't know anything about Volvo's and neither does Maria. We took it for a spin and heard something funny... nothing! We were pleasantly surprised because every other car we looked at at that price were really just garbage. After the test drive, my first question to Ronnie was, "What's wrong with it?" He laughed at me and pointed again to the rear quarter panel where he earlier had explained an accident had occurred. So I had Maria test all the lights and just as I thought the turn signal and brake light on that side weren't working... then I saw the disconnected cable, plugged it in and voila!, the lights came on. So now I was seriously looking hard for what was wrong with this car. I checked the engine (not that I know that much) and the whole compartment was clean, I tried to pull the wheels off the car but they didn't go anywhere, the treads looked decent, the windows were fine. The only thing I could see was that the wipers needed to be replaced, and, of course, there were dents and dings and some sun damage to the paint but, from our experience, that was to be expected. I looked at Maria and we had only one move left, to make an offer. So we did. Ronnie asked his manager and to our surprise they took the offer. Now I got really skeptical but I didn't know what to do other than to buy it because it was the first time someone actually tried to sell us a reasonable car. So we bought it. And now we own our first Volvo!

Tomorrow I'm taking the car to our landlords' trusted garage to give it a once over. Here's to hoping we didn't get taken.