In less than 72 hours, Meghan and I will be on a plane, en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, excited and ready for a week of life in island paradise. Aside from the obvious need to escape the unforgiving grip of a nettlesome New York winter, this quest to the Caribbean marks my first overseas adventure as The Ubereater. Actually, upon setting foot in San Juan, I will shed my current identity for a more flamboyant, more free-spirited persona, known simply as El Ubereater.
Let it be known that unlike The Ubereater, El Ubereater revels in his innate desire to dance, quaff Pina Coladas, and methodically nurse his olive-colored Mediterranean skin to a mythical hue of golden brown that would make the likes of Xerxes and Zeus wonder about their manhood. Furthermore, they say that if you’re lucky, El Ubereater, in times of heightened inhibition, will inadvertently unbutton the top of his shirt to reveal a sexy wisp of chest hair manly enough to make Ricky Martin jealous (or more realistically turn him on – who knows with that guy). This is only what they say though.
Shirtless or not, this will be my second trip to San Juan in less than a year’s time, having made my way down to the Caribbean hot spot last April all by my lonesome. Needless to say, I am elated that this time around I will be able to share the beauty and charisma of this storied culture with someone special. And while I very much enjoyed the endless Mallorca’s, meaty Mofongo, and crazy amounts of Café con Leche, last Spring’s week-long stint in sun-soaked San Juan left much to be desired. In short, my culinary crusade was wrought with excess, yet void of any intrinsic value, helping me to realize that the cultural integrity, maritime beauty, and wizened whimsy of Old San Juan is a feast for the soul that is designed to feed two.
Lesson learned, I will soon be returning to San Juan, not as the woebegone wanderer of yesteryear, but as a sage man, of sound mind and an even stronger body. I will return as El Ubereater, on a mission to experience all that is edible in San Juan, this time the right way. So with Meghan by my side, I am eager to both reacquaint myself with this colorful cuisine, as well as fully reap the benefits of a culture brimming with the sort of richness, beauty, and serenity rivaled only by my comely company.
That said, before too long, I’ll be juggling the stress of being crammed into a window-seat in coach while tenuously taming Meghan’s fear of flying. (It’s safer to fly when hit by lightning. Did I get that right?) With any luck, calming thoughts of narrow cobble-stoned streets, pastel Spanish colonial architecture, and a giant swimming pool of milky Pina Colada will at least partially quench my thirst for rest and relaxation. And though the 4 hour journey will probably render me stiffer than John McCain on a rainy day in late August, upon touching down, I will rise up, shake out any newly formed Deep Vein Thromboses, and proudly set foot upon this hallowed soil the way Columbus did a half-century before me.
I wonder if his first words to the native Tainos were, “Man I could go for a mallorca!”
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