Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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In case you haven't already guessed, there are lots of absentee homeowners on Vieques.
These folks come from all over, but most seem to hail from the East Coast of the U.S.,
with a particularly large cohort from the greater Boston, New York and D.C. areas. And
no, we're not all friends. But through the years we've gotten to know quite a few of them
almost by accident.
Some of them we've met simply by going about our business in the coffee bar, at the
hardware store, or at dinner. Others were introduced to us by mutual friends. And, believe
it or not, we've met quite a few in D.C.
The first of these, of course, was Michael's gym acquaintance who had introduced us
to Daniel, the property manager who'd ditched us when we confronted him about painting
our house the wrong color.
The gym guy was friendly enough when we ran into him but his partner decidedly
wasn't, and soon we found ourselves ducking behind columns when our paths crossed at
the San Juan airport.
Then there was the woman I met through work.
A colleague and I were paying a site visit to a fellow non-profit organization in D.C.
when the subject of Puerto Rico came up.
“Don't you have a house down there?” my co-worker prompted.
Yep.
“Where's your house?” asked one of our hosts.
“On Vieques.”
“Oh my God, one of our co-workers has a house there too,” she gasped, picking up the
phone and dialing an extension. “Diane, could you swing by the small conference room? I
have someone you need to meet.”
A puzzled-looking woman with curly blonde hair poked her head around the door thirty
seconds later.
“Yes?” she said, her eyes scanning our small group.
“Diane, meet Patrick. He has a house on Vieques.”
I stood up and shook her hand. She looked stunned, to say the least.
“Pretty soon,” she remarked wryly, “it'll be unusual to meet someone in D.C. who
doesn't own a house in Vieques.”
A few months later I heard about a fellow homeowner from the man who cuts my hair.
Getting a trim one day, I mentioned that we'd bought a place in Vieques.
“I've heard of that place,” he said.
The island had gotten lots of coverage in the wake of the Navy's departure so this didn't
strike me as particularly strange.
“Did you see the article in the Times ?” I asked.
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