North America

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Shopping Locally

It was a very late night and a ridiculously early morning. By 12:30, I was falling asleep at my desk. Instead of taking a nap, I went for a walk to get some sun. I made it back to “downtown” Chuburńa de Hidalgo, which was bustling at that hour. There was brisk business being done at the market even with the construction going on and I was lured in by a rack of sandals.

I have the bad habit of being barefoot all day if it’s safe to do so, regardless of the type of material I’m walking on. Here it’s just tile and more tile and cement — my feet are sore. I’ve been wanting to pick up a very specific type of sandal in a foamy material. The name brand types are pricey, the cheap ones are really inexpensive, and then there are mid-range models. That’s what I wanted and I haven’t had much luck the few times I’ve been out and about.

The shopkeeper had quite a variety of styles and sandals and he had me try on a bunch until we figured out my Mexican size (somewhere between a 40 and a 42). I came to the rather amusing realisation that my “tiny” feet for my stature by US and Canadian standards are actually quite large here. Nothing was fitting right until he pulled out a foamy material sandal that was like sinking my foot into a cloud. Absolutely perfect. Bliss even. I wasn’t crazy about the mint green and they were a bit dirty, but they were going to be garden sandals anyway. And then, he said, “Oh, I have another pair in pink…” My house sandals! 🙂

The price was $65 per pair and when I asked him the price for two, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said $130. I gave him a squinty look and said, “But I’m buying two…”  He hemmed and hawed and finally knocked off $10. 🙂

Here they are. I can’t believe I found exactly what I wanted so close to home!

I’ve been wearing the pink ones all afternoon and they are making such a difference. I’m reminded of just how sore I was working at the store in Campbell River until I stopped caring about the dress code and put on my hiking boots.

After buying the sandals, I went to pick up half chicken for lunch. I’m still struggling with the fridge (more below) and preferring to shop daily. At $75, a half chicken is good value as it gives me two meals. The owner started to bag up my meal and asked if I’d bought my sandals in centro. I replied, “No, at the market here. It’s important to shop in your neighbourhood.” She gave me a huge grin at that and added extra bags of rice and coleslaw to my bag!

I came in and enjoyed my lunch. I’m getting used to the Yucatecan-style rice and coleslaw and find that the two mixed together is really quite nice. The coleslaw is made with the juice of sour orange, a staple here. Once I identified that still relatively new-to-me flavour, I found the coleslaw more palatable on its own, but it is really sour!

The fridge is cycling between being a good temperature and being way too cold and freezing everything. A very nice guy on a fridge forum had me troubleshoot a few things and he’s pretty much convinced at this point that I just need to get a thermometre and be more patient as I play with the settings as it can take a full 24 hours for a slight change on a dial to take effect. So far, I haven’t lost anything, but I obviously want to be 100% confident that the fridge is fine before I really fill it. It is such a nice model with a lot of neat features that I don’t want to give up on it. I do think I wouldn’t have trouble making my money back on it as it would make a really good beer fridge, but I can’t afford to replace it right now until I sell it and I don’t want to sell it because I have so much in the freezer. Anyway, in the meantime, I make it a point to shake my almond milk several times a day to make sure it’s still liquid in the morning!

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Days For Dreaming About the Taco Faery

I didn’t do much yesterday since I was in work mode, including having a long client meeting via Skype at 3:30.

At about 5:00, I went out to my neighbourhood’s “downtown” to see what was open around that time — very little! I did see that our central market is under construction/renovation so it should be a much more pleasant place to shop than the one in Centro. It looks quite large too.

I popped into the Super Aki to see if anything would look good for dinner. I picked up a couple of potatoes, onions, and carrots, then went to the meat counter. The butcher was putting out pork “milanesa” (very thin filets very popular in Yucatecan cuisine) that looked very fresh so I asked for two, which came to 17 pesos. Add in my veggies and dinner and lunch for today cost me about 2CAD total! I forgot how much cheaper it can be to shop at the little neighbourhood stores!

I came in, made dinner, scrubbed the kitchen down (something that needs to be done at least once daily due to bugs and mould from the humid climate — living here is making me a much better housekeeper!), and then crashed hard. I actually hadn’t sleep too badly the night before, definitely my best night since I got here, but the lack of sleep has been catching up with me!

Today is more of the same since I have a really big project due in the morning. Early afternoon, a lady came by to pick up those curtains I wasn’t able to return. I only lost 60 pesos, or 4CAD. I can live with that!

I then did some chores to help digest my lunch, including washing some washcloths and unmentionables. My laundry room is amazing… Sure, it’s not pretty, but…

…I have a built-in scrub board!

I don’t know how I lived all those years of washing laundry by hand without having such a thing!

I washed the clothes in my big blue plastic tub, scrubbed on the board, rinsed under the tap, wrung out, and then placed on my clothes drying rack outside.

Before I bring in a washing machine, I want to do a big scrub of that room as it’s only been surface cleaned and then it will be a room I will be happy to spend time in. It’s incredible how few houses I’ve been in in the last few years have space to really work on your laundry, especially scrub out stains. I can’t wait to get myself a few bars of Zote soap (a great stain remover) and to finally be able again to do laundry properly!

Before I got back to work, I had my first tea break since I moved in! Use the good stuff daily, okay? Don’t let it just gather dust waiting for “some day.”

By 6:00, I knew I was in over my head with my current hearing transcription and it was going to be a LATE night. I took a deep breath and called the nearby taco joint to order for delivery an “order” of al pastor meat, which they claimed is enough for about five tacos. I had no trouble placing the order (I’m starting to sense a theme — will the wonder that I’m comfortable using the phone now ever wear off?!)  and hung up feeling hopeful that the taco faery would find me.

Thirty minutes later she (actually he…) did! I had to laugh at the squinty look the delivery guy gave me when he handed me $20 of the $30 owed for change from my $100 note. I had fully intended to give him $10 and was glad for the confirmation that that was a fair tip. My total with tip and delivery (actually not sure if there’s a surcharge for that) was $80, which is just over 5CAD!

They had heeded my request for all the toppings, even including fresh pineapple, but there were none of the salsas and limes I’d asked for. I was bummed for a second before remembering that I have tons of limes and my two favourite salsas (green and avocado) on hand at all times! I am having such a hard time adapting to the local culture… 😀

I had this left over after I’d eaten four tacos (six tortillas between them)!

That will be an amazing breakfast and possibly lunch tomorrow. 🙂

Now, back to that hearing. Why, why, why do these folks not think to rustle their paper away from the microphone?!

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Cultural Norms

My first Monday wasn’t productive work-wise, but I got some other things done. I really need a solid night of sleep. 🙁

The propane delivery folks came by in the early afternoon and were super efficient! I bought $700 worth — about 60L. I doubt that even made a dent in the capacity of the tank, but I didn’t have a few thousand pesos to drop on this today! I’m always amazed by how not scared of heights Mexicans are and how much they trust their ladders! I’m sad that I was so surprised that half of the two-person team was female.

I may have walked backwards into a ginormous cactus to take this picture and still be picking spines out of my arms and shoulders.

Tank partially filled, I was given a proper electronic bill printed from the back of the truck and which I paid in cash. Then, I had no trouble lighting the water heater (it really does help to have propane…). After letting the water run a bit, I had hot water in the bathrooms, but not in the kitchen. My landlady says she never used hot water in the kitchen and checked with her husband, only to confirm that the kitchen is not plumbed for hot water.

This isn’t shocking because I learned in Maz that it’s the cultural norm here to wash dishes in cold water and that it is just as hygienic. I did that in Maz, but never really got used to it. I’ll keep using my kettle for the time being, but, who knows, maybe in a few months I’ll be in a mood to following the plumbing and see if I can determine the complexity of getting hot water to the kitchen…

The rooster situation has reached a crisis point as there are more and it sounds like several neighbours now have them. I was woken for a solid hour last night listening to headache-inducing concerto and am at my breaking point.

I can just see some lurkers going, “Oh, look at the stupid expat not able to adapt to life in Mexico.” Well, roosters on rural Isla were one thing. Roosters in the city are another. My landlady completely agrees with me that they are unacceptable and has assured me that I am not being an intolerant expat. Proof? Mérida has bylaws against roosters in the city. If the roosters aren’t gone in a few days, she’s going to town hall!

The city noises, especially the constant music playing, don’t bother me at all. The neighbours had a party Friday night and their music just became white noise that lulled me to sleep. Soon as the roosters are dealt with, I’ll be able to sleep well here. Right now, it’s about on par with the zeds I was getting in Chelem, which are just enough to function, but not enough to perform at peak efficiency. Hopefully, this will get sorted because work is picking up again!

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Sunday Evening In Centro

I thought I had three easy jobs to do today, but they took forever. I couldn’t believe it was 3:00 by the time I could go do something fun! Much as I am keen to start exploring my neighbourhood, there was a craft and book fair at Plaza Grande downtown that I wanted to check out and which I knew was going on until late so it didn’t matter if I was heading out as many things were closing. I decided to take the bus to Walmart to return my useless curtains and then walk from there.

A bus was slow to come since it’s Sunday, but I finally headed south. The Walmart associate was very friendly and kind, but informed me that I couldn’t return the curtains since they were on the liquidation rack — something that was not marked! 🙁 I figured I could probably sell them on the garage sale site, but now I had to lug them around. Dang!

Off I went down Paseo de Montejo, the part of Mérida I discovered when I was here last February and which made me fall in love with this city. I love strolling down this boulevard!

This ad made me think of me:

My house: Haven. My home: the world.

Need to check out this Korean place at some point since it’s a cuisine I’m not familiar with. There is enough of a Korean population here that this is likely decent.

There was a really lovely exhibit showing off Canada as a remarkable travel destination (although I had to laugh that most of the photos showed off cold Canada!).

This is what they used to represent SK?! LOL

CN Tower in Toronto!

Palais des congrès, Montreal:

Ottawa Tulip Festival:

Every province and territory was represented, showing the diversity of the immense country that Canada is. Nicely done campaign!

I had the northern streets of Centro all to myself. What a lovely evening for a stroll — so cool and quiet.

Things got busier as I went further south on Calle 56. I stopped at an ice cream shop that I will never go to again for three reasons. 1) They have “pastel” ice cream, which is vanilla full of chunks of super chocolately cake that is even better than cookies and cream; 2) Their “chico” (small) is my idea of “extra grande;” 3) It was only $20. 😀 Yes, it was wonderful. 🙂

I made it as far south as the Lucas de Galvez Mercado. Oh, that area of Mérida — the market and the streets around it — is nasty. It still reeks of urine and is absolutely filthy. The mercado was closing, but enough was open to remind me that I really have little interest in shopping there for pleasure and that I can’t wait to see what our little market here in Chuburná de Hidalgo is like. Add the Maz mercado as another thing I miss from that city.

I cut across to Calle 60 and came up to Plaza Grande, where the party was in full swing, super “bassy” music and all.

I wandered around in a bit of a spiral, hoping to find a few skirts (the ones I came across were too flimsy), and then focused on books.

I picked up these three books of Yucatecan, Sinaloan, and Mayan legends for only $50!

And these beauties for $120:

I have a very similar pair in blue that are round with a daisy and which I picked up in Mazatlán. I adore them, but they don’t go with many of my clothes. I’ll wear these more often. Bonus, they’ll remind me of three cities I love — Mérida where I bought them, and Amsterdam and Ottawa for their tulips!

I was pretty tired by that point and the music was getting to me, so I headed behind the cathedral, where a bus that I could take was picking up passengers. After a brief wait, we were on our way. It was a terrifying ride and I was sure that we were going to get in an accident. The woman sitting next to me repeatedly making the sign of the cross and muttering Psalm 23 did not inspire confidence. I finally asked to be let off quite a bit earlier than I needed to be, but decided I had sufficiently tested fate!

(Oh, look at that, I just very likely sold the curtains for a tiny bit less than I paid for them — yay!)

Tomorrow, it’s back to the grind, although I don’t have tons of work to do. I’m expecting a gas delivery, so it will be a home day unless they are here early. I still have work to do in the kitchen before I can call stage one of setting up the house done and that will be a priority so that I can start easing into a routine.

The house is feeling really comfortable. Parts are still quite a bit echoey, but it really doesn’t feel as huge as I expected it to. The bit that startles me the most for some odd reason is the upstairs landing, which is really another room. But I’m not anywhere near ready to set up my painting studio yet since I have other financial priorities. When I’m ready, though, it will be an amazing place to create.

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A Day of Firsts

I didn’t sleep well again last night, sighs. I’m really hoping that if I can get my room completely dark I’ll at least not getting woken up right at six by daylight creeping in….

First order of business was work, then I put together a shopping list of odd bits I needed. It became evident that hitting up a Walmart might not be a bad idea. I decided to wear my grey and white striped dress that I probably haven’t worn since Mazatlán and which is fabulous in this climate, made from some sort of microfiber that breathes and looks quite “luxe.” I’ve been wearing slummy clothes most of the summer so it’s nice to break out the pretty things. When I was at the house in Chelem, I didn’t want to wear anything Puppy might ruin and as the summer wound down, I was doing grubby work in town so it didn’t make sense to dress up.

Around eleven, I hopped on a bus toward Centro to go to the Walmart at Paseo de Montejo (their “Centro” location).

I wanted to get off no further south than the Convention Centre, but kept passing signs saying buses can’t stop on that stretch of 62. When we passed Avenida Colon, I finally got up and asked the driver to please let me off as soon as he could. It ended up being about a block or two further south, which was fine. I doubled back to the Colon and then shot over to Walmart. Crossing Paseo de Montejo at that corner is something I remember from last year and it’s just as much sport this year!

Walmart had a lot that was on my list, but not everything. I wasn’t desperate for anything so if I didn’t like what they had of something, I held off.

One thing I did find that I am inordinately pleased with is a rack for my shower so I don’t have to store everything on the floor. I found some wire racks to hang from the shower head that were just about useless — only enough room for one bottle. This one had room for at least two bottles and the picture showed a loofah and razor hanging from the bottom section, two things I needed storage for as well (as evidenced by this picture!). There’s also room for my pumice. Best part? This rack was the cheapest option at only $75, $50 less than the wire racks!

Another thing I was looking for was another cutting board so I can have one for meat and one for veg. I got all of these for only about $70 and the label even showed examples of how the colours can be associated to a specific food. They are also non-skid and will work great on my tile counters.

I found a stopper for my kitchen sink and am pleased that it fit. I guess those things are universal. Now, I can wash dishes in the sink and use the basin for rinsing, or vice-versa.

I also picked up blackout curtains in a brand I have in Miranda, but, spoiler, they are NOT blackout curtains. 🙁 I’m so disappointed and will return them.

The grocery section was quite nice and I picked up a few things there as well. I was amused that one block of Philadelphia cream cheese was $29, but I could get two and a very nice container for $50… I also picked up this loaf of bread, curious as to whether the spots were olive, chocolate, or raisins:

I paid for my purchases with my debit card and asked if I could make a withdrawal. I didn’t even know if such a thing is possible in Mexico the way it is in Canada, but what the heck. The man asked how much I wanted to withdraw and I said $500. So far, so good as the max was $2,000. He then held up the card and said, “This is a Mexican debit card. Right? Not a foreign credit card?” I confirmed that it was a Mexican debit card. “Okay! No problem!” So far, there are only perks to having a Mexican bank account!

I came out with my mound of shopping and decided to treat myself to an Oreo McFlurry at the McDonald’s desserts-only counter. They only had one size (ginormous) and they put fudge in it. So good, but definitely lunch!

After that, I decided to try Uber again, adding “cash” as an additional payment option when I was once again unable to get a car. That did the trick! After a few minutes, I got a call from the driver. Turns out I didn’t place my map pin exactly right and he thought I was somewhere down Pérez-Ponce, oops! I was able to tell him I was at the corner of Pérez-Ponce and Paseo de Montejo in front of the stairs to Walmart and that was clear.

The driver helped me put my shopping in the trunk and off we went. I’d done some research and knew to sit up front since Uber is not quite legal here and drivers don’t want to make it obvious that they are with Uber. He tried to speak to me in English, but I stuck to Spanish and he was happy to not only converse in Spanish, but also corrected me the whole way home. That sounds terrible, but it was so helpful!!! The trip cost me $40. Taxi service here is notable for being terrible and expensive. I got an estimate from a cab for the same trip and it was almost double!

One thing of note in our conversation that I’ve been meaning to mention is that Mexicans aren’t shy about asking how much rent I pay. To be honest, I’m always embarrassed to answer because my rent is really high for a single person here.

I got in just as I received a text message from TelCel that I needed to top up. I used their new app, which I linked to my Mexican PayPal account (linked to my Mexican bank account!), and was able to top up in just a few steps. It was so much more convenient than going to Oxxo and I got 500MB of free data for trying out the app!

The electrician texted shortly thereafter to say he was incoming. He got in and did the work quickly, but my UPS is still unhappy. I had him reverse the polarity, just in case, but that didn’t help. He didn’t have a working multimetre, outlet testers aren’t a thing here, and I was stupid and left all that stuff back in Canada so we had to leave it at that. I’m going to pick up a multimetre and see if I can get an outlet tester online. We both suspect that it’s a low or high voltage issue. At any rate, my Macbook Air charges fine in the outlet so I’m still way ahead of where I was when I didn’t have a three-prong outlet by my desk. He insisted on charging me $100 less ($600 total including materials) because the job wasn’t a success and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think he knows I’ll likely have more work for him in the future.

So all that to say, really didn’t do a great job of checking out the wiring in the house before renting. Visually, it looked fine and well finished, but there are issues right to the junction box at the street. Anyway, everything but the UPS seems to work fine and folks who lived in the house previously had no issues. I’m just going to make it a point not to buy myself any super expensive electronics!

It was about five when he left and I was famished. I remembered seeing a taco joint a short ways down Calle 60 and decided to walk there on the off chance that it might be odd and open for business at about 5:30PM.

It was… And while they weren’t fully up and running (they had to cook a portion of al pastor meat on the grill for me), there were Mexicans eating there at that hour. I asked for two al pastor tacos and while I really wanted Nestea, asked for more “Mexican” jamaica (hibiscus) tea, which I’m not fond of. They were out of jamaica so I got my Nestea. 🙂

They were so good! I should have just gone ahead and order a few more. Next time, I will get an “orden” to go or even delivery, which is enough fixings for about five tacos. I asked for my tacos “con todo” after the server came to ask me once if I wanted onion and then came back to ask about cilantro.

I was surprised that there was a creamy sauce option to put on them. It was a bit like tzatziki, which, now that I think about it, makes sense for these tacos modelled on gyros/donair/shawarma. There was also lime, green and red sauces, and guacamole.

I doubt I’m going to find a closer taco joint with better hours so I really want to break the ice on getting delivery since their food is so good and cheap (al pastor tacos are only $11 each!!!). They don’t do Whatsapp and their store is VERY noisy so I’m worried I might have troubling giving them my address. To be determined…

It’s been another long day and I am exhausted and a bit footsore. I have some easy work to do tomorrow, then my priority will be getting my desk set up. I’m now back to thinking about painting, having noticed that the movers did more damage than I realised (they tied it down with rope, which rubbed off some of the finish). But that can wait as long as I deal with the structural issues.

Oh, my landlady just called as I was about to hit publish to see how things are and I complained about the water heater. Her husband is coming in the morning. Here’s to hoping I can take a hot shower tomorrow. It’s chilly here at night! I actually regretted going out without a shawl or something to get my tacos!