I moved hotels yesterday, to a different area of San Juan, and was transported to a place in Belem, Para, Brasil, almost 40 years ago.
I had just turned eight years old. Mom and Caroline and I flew down from South Carolina to meet up with Dad in Brasil. He had been there for several months already, and was already thinking like a local: language, food, culture, pace, traffic; he had the rhythm down pat.
When the three of us arrived, Dad had some business to attend to for a couple of days, and so we stayed in Belem. The place we stayed was the Vitoria Regia (pronounced Vit-TOR-eeya HED-gee).
When I moved into my new hotel yesterday, my mind flashed back to the Vitoria Regia, and I just laughed.
If you want an accurate review of the hotel where we stayed, check it out here or here. The TripAdvisor reviews for my current hotel read much the same....
Vitoria Regia, which translates to the Queen Victoria, is a species of enormous lily pads that grow in Brasil and the adjacent British Guiana. I think that the intent was to name an enormous lilypad that was both fragile and strong after a strong leader.... and the intent of naming the hotel after the beautiful lilypad was to give a nice old world/new world vibe to the place.
Nope.
There are no descriptive terms to explain the Hotel VR, but to call it a dump. The bathrooms are communal (the website says the hotel offers private baths now - an improvement, but all the reviews say that the private baths are all non-functional, which I would imagine fails to improve it). The one bright spot I recall is the breakfast.
I was a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich kid, and I ate anything else under great protest. I had a particular revulsion of bananas, because of the brown spots. So when Dad tried to walk me through the difference between fresh bananas and what I was used to, I fought him. "But I don't like bananas," I said, with all of the whine in my voice that an eight-year-old can muster.
Eventually Dad won, and I reluctantly tried the banana. Dad watched me, and smiled when my eyes grew wide. "That is SO different!"
I ended up trying all kinds of new fruits that were offered as part of the continental fare. I simply could not get enough, and it opened my eyes to something new and strange and different. And very unexpected.
I also remember Dad introducing me to a man who was a US Navy diver, and being impressed with his stories, and especially with the pin he gave me. I still have it somewhere. The old salt and I got to talking about things, and he told me stories that I have long since forgotten, and I just reveled in the new experience of new smells, new tastes, new sights, and new people, most of which spoke a new language.
Later that day, we went to a Portuguese restaurant, which had the most amazing shrimp creole ever - teeming with tiny river shrimp that were served in a spicy sauce over rice.... Again, Dad convinced me to try a food with which I was unfamiliar, and again, I was blown away with how good the fare was.
I believe that day was the day that set me on the course of being an appreciator of local cuisine.
So when I checked in to a sketchy-looking hotel with dingy, tired sheets atop a sagging, low-quality mattress, and which looks to be in dire need of a deep cleaning, I start looking around for food to try. And my heart just starts to grin like a fool.
Place is not defined in my heart by the amenities, but by the people and the food. I am meeting nice people at every turn. I am eating great food at every hole-in-the-wall place and food truck I try. I feel fortunate just to be allowed entry into the society, in any small way, whatever nook I can occupy.
At the end of the week, my stay at the Sandy Beach Hotel will come to an end. When it does, I will probably not work too hard to extend my stay. Eventually, I will want a place with clean sheets, with mattresses that were bought sometime in this century, and maybe even one with a bar in the lower floor where I can watch the game.
I had just turned eight years old. Mom and Caroline and I flew down from South Carolina to meet up with Dad in Brasil. He had been there for several months already, and was already thinking like a local: language, food, culture, pace, traffic; he had the rhythm down pat.
When the three of us arrived, Dad had some business to attend to for a couple of days, and so we stayed in Belem. The place we stayed was the Vitoria Regia (pronounced Vit-TOR-eeya HED-gee).
When I moved into my new hotel yesterday, my mind flashed back to the Vitoria Regia, and I just laughed.
If you want an accurate review of the hotel where we stayed, check it out here or here. The TripAdvisor reviews for my current hotel read much the same....
 |
| Victoria Water Lily. Image stolen from here. |
Vitoria Regia, which translates to the Queen Victoria, is a species of enormous lily pads that grow in Brasil and the adjacent British Guiana. I think that the intent was to name an enormous lilypad that was both fragile and strong after a strong leader.... and the intent of naming the hotel after the beautiful lilypad was to give a nice old world/new world vibe to the place.
Nope.
There are no descriptive terms to explain the Hotel VR, but to call it a dump. The bathrooms are communal (the website says the hotel offers private baths now - an improvement, but all the reviews say that the private baths are all non-functional, which I would imagine fails to improve it). The one bright spot I recall is the breakfast.
I was a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich kid, and I ate anything else under great protest. I had a particular revulsion of bananas, because of the brown spots. So when Dad tried to walk me through the difference between fresh bananas and what I was used to, I fought him. "But I don't like bananas," I said, with all of the whine in my voice that an eight-year-old can muster.
Eventually Dad won, and I reluctantly tried the banana. Dad watched me, and smiled when my eyes grew wide. "That is SO different!"
I ended up trying all kinds of new fruits that were offered as part of the continental fare. I simply could not get enough, and it opened my eyes to something new and strange and different. And very unexpected.
I also remember Dad introducing me to a man who was a US Navy diver, and being impressed with his stories, and especially with the pin he gave me. I still have it somewhere. The old salt and I got to talking about things, and he told me stories that I have long since forgotten, and I just reveled in the new experience of new smells, new tastes, new sights, and new people, most of which spoke a new language.
Later that day, we went to a Portuguese restaurant, which had the most amazing shrimp creole ever - teeming with tiny river shrimp that were served in a spicy sauce over rice.... Again, Dad convinced me to try a food with which I was unfamiliar, and again, I was blown away with how good the fare was.
I believe that day was the day that set me on the course of being an appreciator of local cuisine.
So when I checked in to a sketchy-looking hotel with dingy, tired sheets atop a sagging, low-quality mattress, and which looks to be in dire need of a deep cleaning, I start looking around for food to try. And my heart just starts to grin like a fool.
 |
| Not all that bad. But not as good as it looks, either. |
Place is not defined in my heart by the amenities, but by the people and the food. I am meeting nice people at every turn. I am eating great food at every hole-in-the-wall place and food truck I try. I feel fortunate just to be allowed entry into the society, in any small way, whatever nook I can occupy.
At the end of the week, my stay at the Sandy Beach Hotel will come to an end. When it does, I will probably not work too hard to extend my stay. Eventually, I will want a place with clean sheets, with mattresses that were bought sometime in this century, and maybe even one with a bar in the lower floor where I can watch the game.
But until then, this Victoria Regia, inexplicably, will just make me smile.
