Puerto Rican is a language!?

The picture I posted is the view from my apartment window here in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pretty sweet, huh? It's called Isla Verde, the area where I'm staying and its strip of beach.

So in honor of me being in Puerto Rico on vacation now, I thought I'd tell a funny story:

My grandparents and everyone on my Dad's side live in Puerto Rico, and we visit them every year during the summer. But during the rest of the year, for our birthdays, mi abuela (grandma) always sends us checks.

Recently, our bank told us that they couldn't process her checks anymore, because they were from Puerto Rico and from a Puerto Rican bank. This is absolutely ridiculous, because Puerto Rico is a territory of the US! Why won't you process American checks??

So when my mom got her birthday check from mi abuela, and the bank wouldn't process it, she was on the phone with them trying to figure out why.

As she's talking to the bank teller, the woman responds, "Well we can't process the check, because it's written in Puerto Rican."

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

My mom just paused and said, "Umm, well the check is written in SPANISH, yes."

We just couldn't believe any of this. First of all: PUERTO RICAN!? Seriously? Second of all, Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world, and this bank teller was from Northern Virginia, so don't tell me she hadn't heard Spanish before. We all know Northern Virginia has its abundance of hispanics.

It's not like the check was that hard to read too. It was from el Banco Popular. Hmmm, I wonder what that means in English? And the amount was for "cuarenta dolares" and if she didn't have the simple motivation to look up "cuarenta" or ask a friend that easy question, the amount is written right there for her in the box! $40!

It's really not that difficult.

Puerto Rican!? Oh goodness...

And that's my two cents.