Friends, we made it! We had the movers moving our stuff into the storage unit on Thursday and Friday until 7:00 pm. Not by choice, I can tell you. We handed over the keys to the new owners at 4:00. They seem like nice people and the Mrs. likes gardening, Rene, Judith, and Helen will have a new BFF.
We left PDX this am at 6:00am. The plane was an hour late due to a light bulb outage. We arrived in DFW too late to make our flight to Queretaro, so we are sitting in the airport until 8:00, a seven hour delay. We will get into San Miguel around midnight. Oh boy!
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Three More Days
More packing today, more giving stuff away. Just three more days in the house: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Fly out to San Miguel on Saturday morning for a month.
We talked to a rental agent in SMA and may have found a two bedroom-two bath multi-level casita for $700 a month near the Jardin. It's cute, Mexican motif, and needing some TLC.
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There's nervousness and excitement. Will we like it there? We've burned our bridge here by selling the house. Whoa Mama! We are really going to do this!
We talked to a rental agent in SMA and may have found a two bedroom-two bath multi-level casita for $700 a month near the Jardin. It's cute, Mexican motif, and needing some TLC.
There's nervousness and excitement. Will we like it there? We've burned our bridge here by selling the house. Whoa Mama! We are really going to do this!
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Trying to Beat the Winter Blues, More Americans Moving to Latin America
Cotacachi Volcano Ecuador
"The warmer weather. The beaches. The lower cost of living. The many options for health care coverage. And the proximity to the United States.
"Those are among the top reasons that Americans increasingly are looking south of the border to retire, or for those not yet ready to comb gray hair, to start a new mid-life chapter. They are particularly appealing during the winter months, when large swaths of the country are dealing with nasty snow storms and sub-zero temperatures, so says Elizabeth Llorente at elizabeth.llorente@foxnewslatino.com or https://twitter.com/Liz_Llorente
Everyday Life In Mazatlan by a Happy ExPat
I was wowed when I first visited Mazatlan. My friend Darryl printed up T-shirts that said, "I've fallen in love with Mazatlan." Here's Dave who comments on living in Mazatlan from Retire Abroad! MEXICO:
Hola Barbie,
I have been living in Mazatlan for about 8 months now and I am living in Playa Sur in el centro. The city is very beautiful and has much to offer an American retiree.
The delicious fresh fruit and vegetables at very inexpensive prices are a bonus. I often shop at Fruiteria Emma in the Juarez colonia for amazing prices.
Difficult for me are the lack of some common American foods (grits). As many different ways as they have here for elota (corn) they do not have grits. A giant Sams club and a new Costco across the street from Sams will have many gourmet products and some American foods.
I use satellite radio (Sirius) for stock market, news, sports and NPR. The signal is excellent here. They will merge with XM radio in the next few months for even more options. I brought with me nearly 300 DVDS of US movies as the Mexico DVDS are area 4 (not compatable with US area 1 DVD players).
The local newspaper “Noroeste” is excellent at 8 pesos a copy, but you need to be able to read Mexican. I say Mexican because it is not Spanish. It uses Aztec words like cacahuate (peanut) guajalote (turkey) elote (corn) ejote (green beans) Guadalupe (lupita) achote (savory sauce) guajillo, molcalete, etc. Also the level of slang words is huge and only the locals understand the slang.
Voy a casarme con Angelica en Noviembre en Club Nautica, cerca del Faro (Translated: I will be marrying Angelica in November at Club Nautica by the lighthouse).
Buena suerte amiga!
Sincerely, Dave
Hola Barbie,
I have been living in Mazatlan for about 8 months now and I am living in Playa Sur in el centro. The city is very beautiful and has much to offer an American retiree.
The delicious fresh fruit and vegetables at very inexpensive prices are a bonus. I often shop at Fruiteria Emma in the Juarez colonia for amazing prices.
Difficult for me are the lack of some common American foods (grits). As many different ways as they have here for elota (corn) they do not have grits. A giant Sams club and a new Costco across the street from Sams will have many gourmet products and some American foods.
I use satellite radio (Sirius) for stock market, news, sports and NPR. The signal is excellent here. They will merge with XM radio in the next few months for even more options. I brought with me nearly 300 DVDS of US movies as the Mexico DVDS are area 4 (not compatable with US area 1 DVD players).
The local newspaper “Noroeste” is excellent at 8 pesos a copy, but you need to be able to read Mexican. I say Mexican because it is not Spanish. It uses Aztec words like cacahuate (peanut) guajalote (turkey) elote (corn) ejote (green beans) Guadalupe (lupita) achote (savory sauce) guajillo, molcalete, etc. Also the level of slang words is huge and only the locals understand the slang.
Voy a casarme con Angelica en Noviembre en Club Nautica, cerca del Faro (Translated: I will be marrying Angelica in November at Club Nautica by the lighthouse).
Buena suerte amiga!
Sincerely, Dave
Monday, January 26, 2015
Mexico Has Seven of the World’s 100 Best Hotels
A survey of more than 75,000 Condé Nast Traveler readers placed seven Mexican hotels in the world’s top 100.
Mexico’s top hotel (#15 in the rankings) was the Viceroy Rivera Maya hotel, in Playa del Carmen (Quintana Roo). It was joined in the top 100 by Rancho La Puerta in Tecate (Baja California), St. Regis Punta Mita Resort (Nayarit), Las Alcobas hotel (Mexico City), Hotel Matilda in San Miguel de Allende (Guanajuato), Hotel Esperanza in Cabo San Lucas (Baja California Sur) and the Excellence Playa Mujeres (Quintana Roo).
In related news, Grupo Posadas is investing one billion dollars over the next three years to open 49 new hotels, many of them in the firm’s Fiesta Americana chain. Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the hotel spectrum, Motel 6, the “McDonald’s of the hotel industry”, which has 1,200 locations in the USA and Canada, is opening 30 hotels in Mexico within the next three years.
The operator of the Motel 6 chain, G6 Hospitality, will introduce both its brands: Motel 6 and Estudio 6 (designed for extended stays) during its first foray into Latin America. The first of the new hotels will open in Salamanca (Guanajuato) in late-2015, with additional locations to follow, including Mexico City, Monterrey and several resort destinations.
Less Than A Week
Today is Monday. We leave at 6:00 am Saturday for San Miguel! The last of the packing is close. The movers come Thursday for the last of the furniture for storage. I was a little down yesterday. It seemed everything was taking too long and the house was filled with too many people picking up stuff or just dropping by to say they will miss us, "We wish you well. We think you are very brave."
We get a shocked expression when we tell them we are moving to San Miguel, yet we've never been to the city. But, we tell them, we have friends who live there and they all love it.
You are very brave, they say, hope you don't lose your head. Yes they think we are crazy to leave the US for such a violent place. The topper: we went to Qdoba last night. The cashier was a Mexican-American named Yolanda. We tried a little Spanish on her and she was shocked to hear us tell her we were moving to Mexico. :)
What does "Cabrón" mean in Mexican Spanish?
Luis Fernando Mata Licón, being Northern Mexican since I was born. "...it's kind of hard to explain what "Cabrón" means, we Mexicans love to use the same bad word and give it a lot of meanings just as the word "Chingar" and all it's derivatives. And "Cabrón" is one of those words that has a lot of meanings.
Definitely is an insult, you would never say "Cabrón" in front of a child, no matter the circumstances. But it isn't always something bad, it also can mean something very good. For example:
"Soy bien cabrón programando" - I'm fucking good at programming.
But it also means something bad: "Esta bien cabrón el asunto" - The situation is very fucked.
It can also be a person: "El cabrón se escapo" - The fucker escaped.
As a name I think people would think about the third scenario, so if you were planning to name it fucker then you choose the right word.
I asked to the people on my office and they all say "Cabrón" is a gray word, it depends a lot of the context in order to say if it means something good or something bad, but we all agreed that it is a bad word but isn't the worst of Mexican Spanish.
So, say hello to Cabrón!
Definitely is an insult, you would never say "Cabrón" in front of a child, no matter the circumstances. But it isn't always something bad, it also can mean something very good. For example:
"Soy bien cabrón programando" - I'm fucking good at programming.
But it also means something bad: "Esta bien cabrón el asunto" - The situation is very fucked.
It can also be a person: "El cabrón se escapo" - The fucker escaped.
As a name I think people would think about the third scenario, so if you were planning to name it fucker then you choose the right word.
I asked to the people on my office and they all say "Cabrón" is a gray word, it depends a lot of the context in order to say if it means something good or something bad, but we all agreed that it is a bad word but isn't the worst of Mexican Spanish.
So, say hello to Cabrón!
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