The Expanded Universe was always enjoyable to read, maybe not the greatest works of literature ever, but you got to see how life was progressing post-Return of the Jedi, you got to see how Luke, Leia, and Han’s family and friends lived and died.
There were some pretty good authors involved over the years too, like R. A. Salvatore, Timothy Zahn, Kevin J. Anderson, Michael Stackpole, Karen Travis, William C. Dietz, Kathy Tyers, among many others. If you read any other seriailized series like the D&D novels, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Star Trek, Warhammer, and all of the many others that exist, you will probably recognize some of the authors as writers in those series as well.
As for the Prequel books and other novels post cancelation of the Star Wars Expanded Universe there was some quality improvement per novel as the universe became more definitive and more in line with the cinematic universe.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan who read the EU books for around twenty years, I’ll say I miss the version of Star Wars they were building, it wasn’t always the heroes winning the day, there was plenty of heartbreak and betrayals to go around, but it was familiar and enjoyable.
Have you tried Duolingo? It’s a pretty good language learning app. Languages are hard to pick up but the more you immerse yourself into it the better you’ll do. Also there are a lot of speech to text language apps, those can help you until you’re more comfortable.
If you’re washing dishes offer to buy some coworkers some cervezas and work your way to friendship from there, it’s Puerto Rico, an American territory that has tons of American familial ties, there are bound to be some people that speak English, but don’t rely on English, befriend someone who understands English and then work towards a better grasp of the Espanol utilizing your new friend as help with learning by using their grasp of English to help grow your grasp of Espanol.
If you’re into marijuana there are always communities online that you can contact and find a smoke buddy or a dealer, even on an island like PR, Reddit used to be super helpful with this with their localized ‘trees’ and ‘ents’ subreddits, but alas Reddit isn’t as open and usable as it used to be thx to Spez’s attempts to become a Elon Musk tech bro clone.
I’m also a New Yorker, and I have family by marriage in PR, but since leaving NYC I’ve moved around a lot within the US, never really got a chance outside of the US, but these tips are based on some of my experiences making friends in New places. I’m generally a fairly successful social chameleon, I can adapt to most groups easily and make friends and enjoy myself, but my natural disposition is one of a loner, I’m not the type of person that enjoys popularity, I much prefer a smaller tighter group of Friends that I feel I can trust, my point is if I can do it anybody should be able to.
So when you’re in a new place you have to put yourself out there, and you have to do it cautiously and with your own personal safety in mind, and every place has dangers, you just gotta know how to spot them and avoid them, just because it’s “country” or a tropical Caribbean island doesn’t mean everybody is nice there.
Good luck, hope some of this helps.