Finance

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Operation: Devolución

Most other Quebecers I speak to who have seen how things are done in other provinces are quick to agree with me when I complain about how overburdensome procedures are, how apathetic is the civil service, and how corrupt the provincial government is in general. When I planned to move to Mexico and people would tell me how “bad” it was here in terms procedures being burdensome and corruption being rampant, I thought that there is no way Mexico could be as bad as Quebec.

Today, I continued to be proven correct on this point.

I was really unhappy at my last visit to INM when I was told I could not get my refund for their error until I got my new card, which is not happening until the end of this month or the beginning of next month. I resolved to go back ASAP to speak to a different person. I didn’t have time until today to do that because, you know, I’ve been working double overtime to compensate for that serious crimp in my cash flow.

Yesterday was a federal holiday so I had a feeling that INM might be very busy today. I decided to arrive around 10AM to let the initial opening throng get through, figuring that things would have slowed down a tad by that point, but still be sufficiently busy to put Operation: Devolución into action.

I was only about fourth in line despite the waiting room being very full — likely folks with appointments. I got to the head of the queue in probably no more than 10 minutes.

My first step was to get through the initial checkpoint, where you say what you want to do and then are funnelled to the correct window. INM wasn’t busy last time I came and I was not able to get by this point. When INM is hopping, this woman has to process a lot of people quickly and doesn’t really want to deal with them so I thought I might be able to slip through on a busy day.

She was busy today — the Cuban in front of me had an odd scenario and her phone would not stop ringing. After asking me three times what I wanted (“To speak with the lady at window 2 about a refund,”) she finally gave me a ticket to put me in line there. Step one was a success!

The lady at window 2 was not the lady I’d spoken to on the day I’d been advised about the steps to get a refund. In fact, not a single person I recognised was working today. I was very worried because I didn’t have a single piece of paper about the refund — everything was taken from me on that second to last visit.

I took a deep breath and recapped the situation for the agent. She said that I was misinformed by the front desk person last time (when I went to get an appointment for the fingerprints) and that I should have been funnelled to her window. *sighs* But better late than never, let’s get the ball rolling. She started to put my ID number into her computer when I had a niggle. “When I was here last time, I had to handwrite a letter asking for the refund, which the lady kept.”

The agent stopped typing, went, “AH!” and jumped out of her seat, returning momentarily with a huge binder marked “Refunds – Window 2.” She went through several bundles of papers in it and could not find my application for refund. My heart was pounding by this point, but as she was putting the papers away, I saw my picture on the last page of one of the packets! I pointed that out and she gave a sigh of relief. She went through the paperwork, checked my passport, and then passed me two pieces of paper to give to SAT, Mexican CRA/IRS, to request my refund.

That was as far as she could advise me. It was now up to me to go to a SAT office to see what they wanted so I could finally get my money back. I thanked her profusely and, clutching my precious documents, I hightailed it to Starbucks for a cold coffee to enjoy while looking up locations of SAT offices in Mérida.

I was delighted to see that there was one just north of home within easy walking distance since I knew I’d likely have to make a couple of visits. So I got on a bus and rode it about 1KM past my normal stop.

There was low-key checkpoint to get into the SAT office — I just had to open my purse for the guard on duty. I then went into a building that felt incredibly chaotic. There was so much activity — hundreds if not thousands of people waiting or being served at dozens of different “modules” and desks. I took a second to orientate myself and found an information desk. The lady there told me I had to register online and to wait for help at module 1, which was a computer lab where people were registering online for tax services and completing various types of returns (from what I could gather based on conversations I was overhearing).

I waited there 10 or 15 minutes and was finally sat down at a computer with no idea what to do. After a further 10 minutes and being told twice by an attendant that he was going to help me, he finally came to check what I wanted and took off for a further 10 minutes with my documents after I told him I don’t have an RFC (Mexican tax ID number).

He finally came back to say that this office isn’t used to dealing with this scenario — foreigner without an RFC needing a refund — but the centro office is. Since my Spanish was good enough for this gentleman to deal with me, his supervisor had given him permission to call the centro office for advice rather than just telling me to go there. I remain incredibly grateful for how kind and helpful just about every Mexican official I’ve dealt with has been.

So finally, the agent had an answer for me. He said I had to come back with a letter for SAT asking for the refund, but he had a template for me that I could reproduce in Word and just fill in the missing info (THANK YOU). I also have to bring my last bank statement (so that they know where to refund the money. They don’t want 50 billion copies, but they do want me to bring all my documents in PDF form on a USB key. And because I don’t have an RFC, I can’t make an appointment to come back on another day — so I have to face the massive queue and funnelling and massive queue again — but I was given the exact phrasing to tell the info desk so that I get funnelled to the correct place next time. As it turned out, I shouldn’t have been sent to module 1 and there was nothing for me to do on the computer.

I’m going to work late tonight and will hopefully have time to go back tomorrow first thing. Who knows how long it will take to actually get the money back into my account so I definitely don’t want to leave this to next week.

It’s been a Day, but a good one. I am eventually going to open a business here and so dealing with SAT at some point was an inevitability. It’s nice to have the ice broken in a context like this.

Now, on to work. But first, maybe a nap?!

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Two Months with a Mexican Bank Account

I was able to get a Mexican bank account with HSBC on September 27th. Frankly, I thought it was going to be a headache managing three bank accounts (two in Canada, one here), plus two PayPal accounts. So far, there’s been nothing but positives even if there is a lot of account juggling involved.

First of all, fees. HSBC only charges me about $40 ($35 + tax) per month for the account. The only other fee I’ve had so far was to do an initial cash deposit. So having the account is not a huge additional monthly expense.

Furthermore, I fund the account through transfers from PayPal. I have several semi-regular clients who pay me smallish amounts that I use for my Mexican budget. They pay directly into my PayPal account tied to my HSBC account. This way, I save one currency fee. Instead of having to go from USD to CAD to MXN, I go straight from USD to MXN. PayPal is less than transparent about currency fees so I have to do some digging to see how much I’m actually saving, but whatever it is, the amount will add up.

The hiccup is that I don’t yet trust that PayPal account. I’ve been getting some concerning messages about my transactions getting extra attention, probably because I have two PayPal accounts. This is because PayPal has to follow various banking laws around the world and can’t adequately serve a clientele that lives in different countries. They’re the ones who advised me to open the second account and are now being cagey about what’s up with those messages. It’s a shame — I’ve been using PayPal for a very long time and had nothing but praise for it, but it’s turning into one of those big corporations now where you can’t easily reach a real person.

So that’s why I only transfer in small amounts (less than 2,000 pesos). For anything really significant, I still send the money to my Scotiabank account to withdraw cash there. If a worst case scenario were to happen and I suddenly am no longer able to fund my HSBC account through PayPal, I’d go back to my old method of withdrawing cash at Scotiabank and then depositing it at HSBC for a reason that is explained below.

So what advantages do I get having a a Mexican bank account? I’ve identified a few so far and I’m sure more will come up.

The big one is I now have a debit card. Most stores here accept debit and that has been my preferred method of payment for decades because it makes it so much easier to keep track of my budget (no need to hang on to receipts — just check my statement at the end of the month).

I also don’t have to worry about carrying large amounts of cash, with both the fear of getting robbed or losing it and also of simply not having sufficient cash on hand when I need it. It happened once in Chelem that I was heading to Mérida when I realised that a) the fuel gauge was much lower than I remembered and b) I only had $200 on me. Instead of putting that $200 in the gas tank and then having to stop at a bank to get more cash and then go to another gas station, I was able to use my debit card to fill up.

The debit card also allows me to make online purchases. I have trouble with some sites (like TelCel) not consistently taking a foreign credit card, so that solves that issue.

(But TelCel has a new app now that lets you top up in a few much easier steps — if you have a PayPal account tied to a Mexican bank account!)

Another perk of having a debit card is that I can ask for a cash withdrawal at some store checkouts, saving me from having to find an ATM.

Unlike the Canadian Interac system, the debit card here works more like a credit card as it takes days for your transactions to post rather than having the money come straight out of your account. The amounts that are due to post are tallied up and except for upcoming PayPal withdrawals, your available balance is correct. So that’s not an issue for me.

The HSBC website is a bit of a pain to get through as it has three layers of security, but it works as expected. I have not been able to get into mobile banking and need to make a phone call to sort that out. This is going to have to be done because I can’t pay some things online without a code that I can only get from a functional mobile banking app.

Another useful feature of having the card is that people can make payments against it at many locations, including Oxxo convenience stores or right at HSBC. This is nowhere near as convenient as Canada’s Interac e-transfers, but it comes close. So whenever I start a business here, clients could, for example, pay me at an Oxxo or bank near them instead of coming to my house. Or let’s say I was selling something on the garage sale site but the buyer couldn’t come straight away to me or wanted me to deliver, they could pay me a deposit in advance.

Today, I discovered another perk of having my HSBC account. I went to pay my rent at a nearby branch and there was a long lineup for folks who weren’t clients of HSBC and no lineup for folks who are clients of HSBC. Being a client, I got out of there in record time!

Having a Mexican bank account was a huge piece of the puzzle that is slowly migrating myself over to Mexico and I definitely wouldn’t be without it now.

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Today Was a Long Day

I worked super late last night and only got about six hours of sleep before being back at it super early so that I could complete today’s most pressing work before going to Mérida, if it came to that.

In between work spurts, I dealt with an interesting email issue I’ve been having. I want to get an online account for Izzi, my ISP, but haven’t been able to because I never got their confirmation of my email address email. A couple of days ago, I tried again and this time went to Track Delivery in my cPanel and discovered that Izzi’s emails were marked at being a 9/10 spam score! Legit emails are generally a negative number and I have my spam tolerance set to 4. I added Izzi to my whitelist and again tried to get the confirmation email. This time, it was marked as delivered, but did not come to my inbox.

I contacted my webhost and they got back to me to say that due to some bug they haven’t identified, my Izzi emails were being redirected to another email account under my domain (ie. still belonging to me!). I went into it and there were the emails! Thankfully, clicking on the confirmation email from a different email account wasn’t an issue and I finally made it into my online account. There, I could see if I owed anything (No. As it turned out, the $600 I’d paid was for the first month, not an installation charge!) and if I input my debit card info, I can just pay my bill from the app with one tap. That sure sounds like less work than going to Oxxo or to the Izzi store. I’m having PayPal issues related to my Mexican card that are in the process of being sorted out and once they are, life here is just going to keep getting easier thanks to HSBC (and my landlady!).

By 1:30, I had not heard from the mechanic and I was kicking myself for having forgotten to get his number. The rental car was due back by 3:00, so I made the decision to go into town and see what was what.

Traffic coming into Mérida was appalling and I realised that I was a lot more patient since I wasn’t boiling. The truck AC is definitely getting looked at.

My mechanic (“Rod”) texted me as I was two blocks from home saying that he’d been sent the wrong part and the truck wouldn’t be ready until Monday. 🙁 I read the text at a red light, but waited to get home to reply. Just as I was doing so, Rod showed up, saying he’d been pulling away, but noticed that a car was parking right in front of my driveway and figured it was me. He gave me more details. I went through a similar thing with Miranda’s axle repair in that Ford has just very slightly changed some parts (augh) on newer models of some vehicles and the newer parts, of course, don’t fit the older vehicles. Rod said that he was super frustrated because he had taken everything off last night and gotten up early to put the new parts in, only to find that they didn’t fit right. By the time he figured out what was going on, it was too late to get the correct parts delivered as the part shop closed at noon. He tried a few other places before giving up. He says he can surely get the parts tomorrow and then have them in by noon Monday.

That meant that I need the car for another two days. *sighs* I called the rental company and they said there was no problem with keeping the car two more days. So that’s another $1,000 that I need to magic up out of somewhere. Thank goodness I can eat so cheaply here!

BTW, I am surprised by how much I love having a landline! Cell service in my house isn’t great (expected) and it’s noisy outside. I love that I can sit in a comfy chair in a well ventilated room and have a very clear conversation. I just need to figure out how to dial Mexican numbers, though (Canada and US are straightforward). Sometimes, the phone wants 10 digits, sometimes 7, and sometimes it wants 11. Must be related to the type of number I’m calling (landline, cell phone, “long distance”).

I had an appointment in Progreso between 4:00 and 5:00 (more on that below), so I decided to do some unpacking as best as I could with the storage solutions I have on hand. This way I’d feel like I’d made some progress and the trip hadn’t been for nothing. I also brought a small load from Chelem. It’s actually getting difficult now to find an actual load of stuff that I know for sure I won’t miss in the next couple of weeks.

I started in my master closet room, amused that it has a window I could open and fan I could turn on for ventilation! I hung up what needed to be hung up and sorted a few things to eventually get put into a dresser.

I then moved to the office and put away some of my books. It’s not home until I have my Harry Potter books on display. 🙂

The rest of the books will go upstairs with a bookcase (that I could not get up there on my own) as I think I will like the landing as a reading nook with my Poang chair.

I then started on the kitchen. One of the first things I found were my plastic wine glasses, so they went into the armoire in the living room with a rack for them. I think that now that I don’t have a house on wheels, maybe it’s time to get some proper ones? Then again, plastic is safer on tiles and these are pink!

I started to put a few things onto one of the bookcases in the kitchen.

Top shelf has the acrylic tumblers I picked up at Costco some weeks ago. Next to them are four really pretty mugs that I picked up for next to nothing (less than I would expect to pay for used mugs at a thrift store NOB!) at Chedraui one day, and then two cereal bowls. Below that is some ovenware and below that my Pyrex bowls. My trusty food processor and tortilla press won’t live up there forever, but are at least out of the way.

I didn’t do much with the deep armoire, just shoving into the bottom baking things and other bits that I won’t need often. I put my mandoline and a strainer in the huge drawer that I’m thrilled to have even if the rest of the cabinet feels like wasted space to me.

Once the faucet change is sorted and I can properly clean the counters, I’ll move the microwave to where it belongs and will keep my pots and pans where the microwave currently sits. Poco a poco and all that. 🙂

It’s really exciting to see a home emerging from this big echoey house. I really want to get my desk over there, but have given up on my movers and can’t afford anyone else at this point. So I will take it apart entirely to make it moveable on my own. I was really hoping to avoid that since the particle board is so fragile, but I’ll glue some of the parts together to make the desk more solid and it should last me a while longer.

I left around 4:00 and headed straight for Progreso. A couple of days ago, a woman posted that she was coming back from England and a few people jokingly asked for stuff, including one who wanted HP sauce. A man in Progreso said that he had a bottle for her, but she’d have to come get it. Neither had a car. It was clear the woman really wanted her sauce! I offered to pick it up and bring it to Mérida for her.

(In a funny case of things getting paid forward, I jokingly asked the English woman for Jaffa cakes and… I have an economy sized package of 36 incoming next week! Some people are so nice!)

Well, I am never going to Progreso again if I can avoid it. Its streets are an absolute disgrace and I had to drive through a dozen actual lakes in my rental car to get to the guy’s house. It was terrifying and I waited at many of the lakes for someone else in a low to the ground car to make it across safely before I went through. I remember from my last trips there that the lakes were no less terrifying in my truck! I was just trying to do a nice thing for someone and never expected my little side trip to be such an ordeal. 🙁

I finally made it back to almost terra firma (I had one huge lake left) and popped into Bodega to get some fried chicken for dinner, helped a grateful guy pick the best sliced cheese for his burgers (Lala — made with real milk!), and exhaustedly headed home to be greeted by a dog who was very sad at having had me go out two days in a row. We had a good play session and then we both had our dinners. I asked him at one point to please bring back the sandal he stole from me a few days ago and… he obliged, dropping it at my patio door while I was having dinner! I had such a laugh about that. He apparently buried it as it was covered in sand. I gave it a good rinse and hope it will still be usable when it dries.

Then, I went to work. If I could squeeze two hours of work out of myself tonight, then I could have a super lazy morning tomorrow and then spend the afternoon proofreading from the couch. I still have an hour to go and I have to give up since it’s a translation job that needs more brain cells than I have left. Zzzz.

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Chelem Chicken

Amusingly, my work flow went from RED ALERT to wondering if I’m ever going to sleep again in the space of about 12 hours. I’m booked through to the end of next week. Wow!

Since things have been so slow, I’ve been taking it easy and haven’t felt much pressure to go out and run errands. So of course I’ve ended up with just about no food in the house and the nearest restaurants being closed. Therefore, huge work day be damned, I had to run into Chelem today for emergency rations.

I’ve been here, what, five months now? And I have yet to manage to time a trip to Chelem with the sale of chickens. I’m either way too early and they’re not cooked or I’m way too late and if there are any left, I’m concerned about how long they’ve been there because they really don’t look fresh. Today, I was determined to be there around 1PM, a time during which I’ve ascertained there should be cooked and still fresh chickens available.

First, I went to Willy’s to get some cheese as well as food for Puppy. I had cash, but decided to try my new debit card. It worked!  Unlike with Canada’s Interac system, the money is not yet debited from your account. It works more like a credit card, where your available balance changes, but the amount has to post.

I don’t know yet if there is a fee for using the debit card. I’ve had fees for depositing cash into the account and a PayPal transfer so I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m really starting to wonder if I will actually save money having the Mexican account, but regardless, the practicality makes it worth having!

I then went to a chicken stand almost right by Willy’s and, sure enough, there was cooked non-scary chicken left. I asked for the price of half a chicken. The lady sized me up and said, “Half is $55. Whole is $95…” I grinned at her and said I’d take the whole one.

I watched as she bagged it up for me, then added baggies of rice, salsa, and a mushy white thing. When I got the bag, I fished out the white thing and poked it, completely confused as to what it might be. So I asked.

It was mashed potatoes.

I’m still laughing at the look on her face at my question. It says a lot about my diet and my expectations for food here to not have recognised the contents for what they are! Since I was obviously new to the world of mashed potatoes, she slipped a second baggie of them into my bag, saying that I would find them so delicious that I’d need a second one. 🙂

One final stop for water later, I was home (and amused that Puppy was way more interested in the water than the chicken!). I laid out my lunch and tucked in. The chicken was great, of course, and much meatier than other chickens I’ve bought in Mexico. The rice was like the rice I recently has in Mérida and must be the way it’s cooked in Yucatán. I don’t care much for it, to be honest. I didn’t sample her hot sauce, saving it for leftovers since I’d had hot sauce at breakfast and was still feeling it. As for the potatoes, they were very tasty indeed! It’s a rare day that I prefer spuds over rice!

Thanksgiving is on Monday, so I should have at least one leftover meal of the chicken and spuds with gravy, peas, and carrots. 🙂 I’ll miss the cranberry jelly, but I’d have to go into Mérida for that and that’s not happening until at least Saturday. But, hey, at least when I get to Mérida I can actually afford to go pick up a few pieces of furniture and get some paint mixed up! The tides of fortune do ebb and flow… 😀

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Spoiler: In Which I Get a Mexican Bank Account (and 21st Century Connectivity)

Yesterday was an absolutely insane work day. I woke up thinking I had at most two hours to do of typing only to receive an actual call from a client in a panic — one of her typists got in a bad accident and was out of commission, leaving a mountain of work that needed to be done. The amount of money I was offered to work a 14-hour day was worth it and, thankfully, the files were easy and mostly interesting. But even with how committed I was, there was really too much to do in one day and I was grateful to have a few hours to finish up this morning.

That done, just as I was about to head out, I got a text about the shelving I was going to go pick up — apparently the husband sold them under his wife’s nose. 🙁 She was quite upset and sent me pictures of other shelving she had for sale, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. At least she got me before I left and drove to the very south of Mérida!

Since I now had some extra time, I loaded a few more things into the truck, including the shelves for my bookcases so there will be less to move on furniture moving day (possibly this weekend).

I then headed to the house and got there around 11:30 after stopping at the bank. The maintenance man was there doing a final clean, which was really appreciated. I’ll still want to go over everything, but he did a lot of the heavy scrubbing for me, especially in the guest shower. This was his final visit to the house and I got his keys after. The house is all mine now! 🙂

Since I expected to not have internet and wanted to go to the internet office in person (since I had such a hard time understanding the rep on Saturday), I’d parked on the street instead of wrangling Moya into a parking bay. So imagine my delight that I had internet and phone service! I promptly did some downloads to test my internet and called my mother to test my phone (again, I can call Canada from both the cell and the landline at no extra cost).

I cannot believe how easy and fast it was to get my internet service! Yes, today is a week from when I had the techs come in, but remember that I haven’t been at the house. If I was actually living there, I would have known something was wrong by Thursday morning, called, and solved the problem straightaway.

Since 50Mbps was the last reasonably priced speed, after which costs went up exponentially, I decided to start with that. I was delighted that I just about get that speed with wifi:

I Facetimed with my parents later in the day using my phone to give them a virtual tour of the house and while the connection wasn’t perfect, I had service all over the property. Woohoo!

Compare that to my speeds in Chelem:

The connection in Chelem has been absolutely fine! Really! It’s very stable and except for a few outages and uploads being a tad painful, I’ve been satisfied. I mean, I can watch Netflix without buffering! But it really was great to download and upload in a blink while doing my tests in Mérida!

My landlady showed up around 1:00 and we did a final walkthrough. Then, she suggested that we go to the bank together in her car and that she would drop me off later. I said that I definitely wanted to go with her, but that I’d make my own way back since I was meeting very near the bank a guy selling a faucet.

We got to the bank, HSBC, at just shy of two and waited and waited. There was a gentleman ahead of me in line and by 2:10, I knew I wasn’t making my appointment at three. Well, imagine that the guy let me go ahead of him! He said he’d been waiting for 2.5 hours (OMG) and that an extra 30 minutes wasn’t going to kill him. I still can’t believe that.

The bank rep had to speak to his manager and a few other people before he could confirm that he could open the account for me on a residente temporal visa. The manager said that if I had my passport, migratory document, proof of residency, and an existing client right there to vouch for me, we could proceed. I did have to explain that my FMM (“tourist card”) had been changed for the residente temporal card.

I was a bit shocked, though, that even for their most basic account I had to deposit 2,500 pesos and was thankful I’d gotten some cash earlier or that would have been embarrassing. Other banks I looked at only wanted a 1,000 peso deposit. I was reassured that I would have access to those funds within 24 hours, but warned that if I don’t keep a 2,500 peso balance, I’ll have to pay 100 pesos per month in account fees instead of only 30 pesos. Business is slow right now, the current US-CAD exchange rate is killing me, and expenses are high, so I’ll take door number one please. 🙂

My account will be linkable with PayPal (for which I’ll need a separate Mexico account) and I’ll have online banking (including the ability to pay bills), and a debit card. Seems very similar to having an account in Canada. I do know that Mexican accounts tend to nickel and dime their clients, so I have to go over my account documents very carefully to make sure I understand all the fees.

While the mountain of virtual paperwork was being filled out, the faucet guy texted to let me know he was at the meeting point, a full 30 minutes early. I apologised to the bank man and my landlady and quickly dealt with that, telling the guy I’d probably be a few minutes late and begging him to wait. He said no problem.

Once all the paperwork was completed (and I’d convinced the guy that I don’t need to sign any IRS forms), I was handed my debit card and was able to encode it with my chosen PIN. That was pretty funny — the guy said to enter your “NIP” and then he caught himself and said, “I think you call it a PIN?” I replied, “Actually, I’m French-Canadian and do my banking in French, so it’s definitely a NIP!”

The meeting went very well, linguistically speaking. I sometimes had to ask for clarifications and my landlady had to translate (ie. repeat what was said in different words), but, really, I could have done this on my own if I’d had to.

Once everything was signed, it was 3:00 and I had to go to the teller window to deposit my 2,500 pesos. Thankfully, there was no wait for that! And I had another one of those lovely moments where someone was a bit brusque with me at the start of a transaction and then completely softened as he realised we could communicate.

Done, I was going to race off to the meeting point, but my landlady said that was ridiculous and to get in her car. En route, I texted the guy that, “I’ll be there in five minutes in a yellow car!” and he replied with, “I’m blind if I miss you then!” We pulled up and the guy was exactly where he said he’d be, in front of a hospital right by where I rented an apartment last February. That was fantastic because I knew where I was meeting him and how to get to a bus to get me home. So I thanked my landlady for her help and sent her on her way. She’s amazing. 🙂

The faucet appeared to be exactly what I wanted so I bought it. The guy bought the wrong model for his house so it’s brand new. Here it is:

It really looks strange — the faucet part is like what I imagine for a kitchen, but the handle is more for a bathroom. I really hope that it fits. If not, I’m sure I can sell it for what I paid for it and start over. 🙂 There are two covers for the holes in the sink where the existing taps are, so that reassures me. Anyway, I’ll see what my installer has to say and for 324 pesos (22 CAD) I think it was worth the gamble. It really feels nice and solid. (Edited to add: I just Googled how to tell a kitchen and bathroom faucet apart and the first link showed nearly exactly my model of faucet as being for a kitchen!)

I’d thought to hang around Centro for a bit, but it was an exceptionally hot day (you know the weather’s not normal when the locals are complaining!) and the faucet was heavy. I didn’t want to look for a bus, so I just went to the Hyatt on Calle 60 as I knew for sure I could get a bus there. Sure enough, the first bus that pulled up was definitely going to my part of town. It was only a 3.3KM ride and cost me 8 pesos (0.55CAD). At that price, it’s really not worth driving to centro and I plan to use the bus a lot, although I’ll probably use cabs to go to other parts of town. The bus system here really isn’t very good and the buses are in really dangerous condition anyway, so I’m not as keen to learn the bus routes as I was in Maz.

By the time I’d given my parents the virtual tour of the house, I really had to get going as Puppy was going to be needing his supper. I did stop at Chedraui for coffee and Costco for (almond) milk and a slice of pizza. I usually just get sauce and cheese, but they had a new flavour that I just had to try even if I had to wait five minutes. You see, my absolute favourite pizza topping for non-Italian pizza (what you find on this side of the pond at places like Dominos or Little Caesar) are red onion, pineapple, and sweet Italian sausage. You can’t get sweet Italian sausage here, but Costco came close, with their new pizza having red onion, pineapple, and… al pastor meat! OMG, it was so good. 🙂 I’m not crazy about the sauce on the Costco pizza (way too tomato paste-y), but as long as they’ve got the al pastor version, that’s where I’m getting my pizza fix. 🙂

I missed a rainstorm while I was in Costco and drove home in increasingly blue skies. Puppy was glad to see me!

Well, now that the challenges of renting a home, opening a bank account, and ordering internet service are behind me, it’s time for some new ones. Next on the list are healthcare coverage and a driver’s license!