Claire

One of the most asked questions since we have been here is, "How is Claire?" Well, Claire is great! It took a couple of days for her to figure out that this is our new home and that we will be staying here for awhile, but now when we say home, she asks, "Our Ferndale home or our Mexico home?"

She loves playing with all of her new toys from Christmas and her new rice box. We also have been coming up with a few craft projects. It's just hard because when I find a craft to do, we don't always have the materials and finding them can be a wild goose chase. She absolutely loves painting and that can keep her busy for quite a while! I was trying to figure out what to do with her numerous paintings. I hated throwing them away, but didn't really want to keep them all either. So we created an Eric Carle-esque picture using several pieces of her art. I cut out the pieces and she glued them on the paper. This week we also found a birthday present for Grammy, but didn't have wrapping paper to wrap it with so we made our own. This was a great project as it took almost an hour to paint the paper! After it dried, she got to put stickers on it and I have never been happier for an excuse to use stickers. I get tired of wearing them on my clothes! She also recently has learned how to use scissors and she loves cutting up paper.

Overall, she doesn't seem very affected by the move. I would love to see her playing with more kids, but we need to find them first. I'm glad she can be outside more because she truly loves it. Our backyard here is very similar to home and she loves just running around.

I'm interested to see how she does with our upcoming trip back home in March. Hopefully, it doesn't confuse her and she is excited to come back "home".

Loving the House?

I have almost been here for a month and I have to say that I am starting to feel as if I am under house arrest! We have one car (a manual nonetheless, which I cannot and will not drive on these extremely steep hills) and Dave is working longer hours here. I am used to him getting home quite early from work, but here it is customary that people get home between 7 and 8. Dave has been getting home before that on most nights, but by the time he gets home and we eat dinner, there's not a lot of time to go out and do anything with Claire's bedtime.

I am let out on the weekends, but an 11 hour day with a two and a half year old can be ______ (fill in the blank). Once in a while we head out after Dave gets home, but then we (Dave and I) forgo dinner and are usually crabby! And there really is no such thing as fast food around where we live. We have a Mr. Sushi and that is about it.

I am also worried about Claire because before we left Michigan, she was a VERY social child. Now, there is no interactions with other children. There is a playgroup that meets every Monday, but remember, I don't have a car. It is quite a distance away so taking a taxi might not be the best idea either, although I am starting to think that we may just have to do that at least once a month. I have tried to work on preschool activities for her, but with just one child, it is hard to get motivated to make lesson plans and to accomplish many preschool activities, since preschool is mostly about socialization!

We have done a lot of painting and the rice box has really come to be a favorite in the last couple of days. She loves her Playdough and books, but there really is only so many books you can read in a day (especially with a limited supply and no library). Unfortunately, even taking a walk around here is not very feasible. Our house is at the bottom of a huge hill and by the time we walk up to the top, Claire (and I) are so exhausted, that is as far as we get! Then Claire insisted that I carry her back home. There are also very few sidewalks to use. Most people are parked on them or they are under construction. Not to mention the main reason that I don't like taking a walk, the cars drive SO fast and crazy!

We are working on getting a car, but it is a slow process here. First of all, they do not lease to people it seems. They lease to companies and Dave is trying to work with the leasing company that gets cars for BASF, but this is not a guarantee. Second, they do not sell too many used cars around here. Most people drive their cars until they die. Lastly, it is not like we have $15,000 laying around to buy a new car. Dave went today to see if we can open a bank account here in Mexico and then hopefully, also get a loan, but again, no guarantees. I do hope we get a car soon, but I also hope I feel comfortable driving around on these crazy streets. Until then, I will be here, in the house, with my two year old, twiddling our thumbs! :)

Needless to say, we are hoping to get a car in the future. We are looking into leasing because it is the optimal

Cooking, Food, and a New Discovery

Cooking here hasn't been an easy task. First of all, I am used to Dave cooking! He used to get out of work at 3 so he had time to stop at the store, if we needed something, and still get home with plenty of time to start dinner.

Second, we had to start our kitchen staples from scratch because the only food we could bring had to be stuffed into our suitcases and there wasn't a lot of room for it. That means we had to repurchase all of our seasonings and spices, along with everything else that you keep in your pantry. Many times I would go to make something, only to realize that I was missing an ingredient or two, and without a car to run to the store, I had to change my plans.

Third, finding foods that we are used to using wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be either. Things that you would think would be readily available, like corn meal, is non-existent here. Also, the word vegetarian is not in their vocabulary so there are no veggie burgers, chicken nuggets, etc. Dave tried to explain to the people at his work that I was vegetarian and they just didn't get it. A few other items that you can't find here are Crisco (they have shortening, but it's not the same), baking powder, real baking soda, and flavored "milk" creams. The majority of cream sold here is the powder variety.

Fourth, we now live at about 8000 ft., which is higher than Denver. Cooking at this altitude is a lot different than cooking at home. It takes longer for water to boil and, yet, the water evaporates at a quicker speed. Also, baking here is a whole new experience. Even following
the high altitude directions does not correct the issue. When I made Dave's birthday cake, I added the extra egg and more flour as directed, but the cake still spilled over the sides and was not as moist as it should have been.

Fifth, the converting! It gets really annoying trying to convert everything, but some, you just can't convert so you just have to guess. Grams to teaspoons or tablespoons, milliliters to cups, Celsius to Fahrenheit. It turns one meal, into an online searching game that just leaves me frustrated! In other words, cooking here has been a small feat...for me. :)

On Saturday morning, I was checking my email and I had an email with the latest posts from the Newcomers Group. I was looking over the posts and one caught my eye. It read, 'looking for rice flour'. It wasn't so much the post, but the response that got me yelling up the stairs to Dave. One person responded that their was an American grocery store, Aladino's, in Interlomas. I told Dave that no matter what, we were going to go find it after the zoo that day. We did some looking online at maps and at their Facebook page to find their exact location.

So after the zoo, our first stop was a Sanborns. This is an extended version of Barnes and Noble. The have books, newspapers, magazines, music, cafe, and other gifts. We used our Tom Tom to navigate us to the nearest Sanborns, which happened to be in the area Polanco. Traffic is crazy down there (not like it isn't everywhere) so once Dave found a spot, he parked and ran to find the store, while Claire and I sat in the car. Claire reminded me that she has a Map at home in her Backpack and it could tell us which way to go, but she left it at home. (We realize that Dora has taken over our lives!)

With our new Guia Roji book of maps ($245 pesos), we headed off to the Interlomas area in hopes of finding Aladino's. We found a shopping center on the map and plugged it into Tom Tom and just prayed that the store was near the shopping center. We found our destination and, low and behold, across the street from this fantastic mall, was what we were looking for!

We parked in the mall parking garage and walked across the street. The store itself seems to be in a newer development, with some of the stores not even completed. We walked in and right away, I felt at home. The first thing I found was Nestle Toll House milk chocolate chips. I haven't been able to find these in any of the stores we have been too. Claire immediately grabbed them out of my hands and plunked them into the cart. Then I took a glance at the price, $95 pesos, or around $7 a bag. I almost died! I had just bought the same item at Target before Christmas for $2.50! They stayed in the cart for comfort, but later went back on the shelf, as even though I love the milk chocolate chips, I could live with semi-sweet. (By the way, we found milk chocolate chips at a new Wal-Mart on Sunday!)

They an aisle of baking supplies; pans, food coloring, sugars, baking tools. Then I found the Aunt Jemima Corn Meal, Arm and Hammer, and Calumet brands on an end cap. Now Mexico does have baking soda, but according to my new friend, Susan, it is just not the same. I like to cook with what I know because I HATE wasting food and really hate it when things don't turn out right. Now the ironic thing that many people can't understand is that Mexico stores do not carry corn meal. They have corn flour, not corn meal. My only guess is that it seems that many Mexicans do not bake. They normally just buy their breads and sweets at the grocery or other specialty store. I, on the other hand, have been craving corn bread since I got here! So those immediately went into the cart.

We continued through the store and mostly went through sticker shock. Next was the cereal, which was also around $7 a box, and it was mostly the sugary kind anyways. The stores here carry Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, and a pretty good variety, definitely not the long aisle like what we are used to at Meijer, but cereal was not on the top priority list. They also had an aisle of "real" chips. I say real because Dave bought a bag of Doritos before I got to Mexico and when we opened them there was a noticeable difference. The chips were thinner, spicier, and just not the same as the Doritos at home. Again, good to know that these chips were here, but not on the priorities list.

The next stop was the canned and jarred aisle. Here they had Manwich, pickles, dressings, and other familiar names. This is also where we ran into the only other customers in the store with a, "Hi, How are you guys?" Yes, in English. Another American family trying to decide what was the most important things that they needed at home. We also came across the Crisco in this aisle. Now, again, Mexico apparently has shortening, but it more dry and doesn't hold up as well. These were all items that were going to be on my mother-in-law's list when she comes in 17 days, but not anymore!

Coming to the end of that aisle was the most beautiful site I have seen yet in Mexico. A little green box in the freezer section labeled Morningstar Farms! Veggies burgers, sausage patties, and meal starter crumbles. We had brought as many of these as we could in a small cooler inside our suitcase, but since Dave contacted the company to see if they distribute to Mexico and the answer was no, they have been under ration. Being a vegetarian for over 15 years, people often ask me what I eat. It's very simple. I eat all the things that everyone else eats; tacos, sloppy joes, burgers, chicken nuggets, meatloaf. I just need some help from my friends in the little green box to make some of those possible. At this point, seeing the vegetarian food was too much for me and I teared up a little. Coming to a foreign place is one thing, you adjust the best you can, but seeing familiar foods and brands, made my day.

The last aisle had seasoning packets like Hidden Valley Ranch and Lawry's Brand packets for Enchilada sauce (another thing that I haven't been able to figure out in the stores). They also had International Delight cream, shampoos, and cans of drinks like Country Time Lemonade. Now these are not things that we would normally buy when going out shopping, but that day, they made it into our cart. In all, our grocery list consisted of corn meal, baking soda, baking powder, Crisco, veggie burgers, veggie crumbles, Hidden Valley Ranch dressing packet, yeast, enchiladas sauce packet, French Vanilla International Delight, and Country Time Lemonade. Some of these items we purchased two of so we could pass them on to Susan and her family. It was a hefty price tag in the end, but knowing that these items were there was priceless.

Also, another positive about the day was the area. Not only was there a really nice mall there, but we also got our Costco shopping done and noticed a Best Buy and other great stores all in the same vicinity.

Zoologico de Chapultepec

Saturday morning we decided to get up and head down to the Mexico City Zoo. It opens at nine and we got there around 9:30. We parked in the Anthropology Museum parking lot, which is right across the street. A safe and easy place to park and cost less than $5, so it was pretty reasonable.

The walk to get to the zoo was a bit far, but a pretty and nice walk through the Bosque de Chapultepec. Here the vendors were setting up there stalls. People were also starting to rent the paddle boats to roam out on the lake.

We got to the entrance of the zoo and we were so early that they weren't even selling maps yet. So we set off on our own and followed the signs to the pandas. The Mexico City Zoo is the second zoo that has successfully bred pandas, besides China. Another problem with getting to the zoo so early was that not all the animals were out in their habitats yet. Only one panda was out. What was interesting was that it seemed as though they grow a portion of the bamboo at the zoo. A worker was cutting some down, I can only assume to feed to the pandas.

We walked through two sections of the zoo and then decided it was time to take a brake, have something to eat and then finish up the zoo. By this time, the information desk was open so Dave went and grabbed a map for 5 pesos (less than $0.50 US). We ordered a Dominoes Pizza, but seeing as it was going to take ten minutes, and we were starving, we also ordered fries from McDonald's. We scoped out the rest of the zoo while eating and Claire couldn't wait to see the elephants, since we do not have them at the Detroit Zoo.

After lunch, we headed off to find the bathrooms and the elephants. We came across the bathrooms and had to pay 4 pesos to go in. The bathrooms were very clean and well-maintained. I think many people think of Mexico as a dirty country, but all the bathrooms that I have gone into here have been very clean and they have hand sanitizer everywhere, in fact, we had to put some on before we could even enter the zoo.

So with lunch and potty breaks taken care of, our little navigator told us to head to the elephants. Dave and I thought we were lost for awhile because we couldn't find them, but then realized that their exhibit was there, just empty. We tried to ignore Claire in hopes that she would forget about the elephants with everything else to see, but we finally had to break it to her that there were none at the zoo.

The last part of the zoo we went through was the bird area. They have a large human birdcage that you can walk into where the birds fly around free. As it was getting late in the day and we were all getting tired, we opted out of that part and looked for the exit, but not before we stopped and got a McDonald's ice cream cone for Claire!

Before going to the zoo, I looked up a few websites that had information on it and found some reviews too. Half of the reviews were really good, but the other half said that the zoo smelled, the habitats were sad and pathetic, and the animals were treated poorly. I must say, that I didn't agree with these reviews. Of course, not all of the exhibits were as large as they should be, but they all were very clean (as was the rest of the zoo) and most animals were eating fresh fruits, veggies, and we saw one zookeeper feeding some of the smaller monkeys a slice of bread. There were two areas were smelly; the ducks and I can't remember the other animal, but both ARE stinky animals and I didn't expect it not to smell.

We left the zoo and took the long walk through the vendors, which were in full swing at this point. The bad reviews also complained about these vendors, but they didn't harass us as we walked past, like the reviews said. It was just amazing to see SO many vendors and they were mostly selling the same things - balloons, puffed snacks, toys, candy, Mexican wrestling masks, drinks, and hats. We made it back to the car and shed a few layers of clothes seeing as when we got to the zoo, it was probably in the low 60's, but when we left, it was closer to 80. Overall, a good trip for all.

The Rest of the Weekend and a Continuation of Dave's Birthday

Saturday morning we unpacked a little more and then headed to Home Depot to get a few more household items. It seems like we are starting all over from scratch with this house. We still needed a broom, mop, bucket. Things that I already have at home, but now have to repurchase here because they would've weighed too much to bring. (I found out that Susan and her family got to pack up a large moving truck with all their house belongings, including their grill, outdoor furniture and everything! There house also was not furnished, but it sure would've been nice to not have to worry how much "weight" we got to bring.)

After Home Depot, I took Dave to the mall that Susan and I went to the day before. We walked around a bit more, checked out the view, and grabbed a Starbucks. This is also when we walked all through 'Idea', the IKEA ripoff, and got a few more organizational items. It's nice to know that we have a store like that around! It was getting past naptime so we headed home. On our way home, we saw a market right below the mall. It was super crowded, but good to know that it is there every Saturday and if we get there early enough, it shouldn't be too crowded.

After nap, Dave and Claire finally went to El Globo and then to the park in the neighborhood. While they were gone, I quickly unpacked some more, baked a chocolate cake, and hung up decorations to celebrate Dave's birthday. He was surprised (and so was Claire) when they returned. We had leftover sushi and desserts. Claire got a cupcake (she only ate the frosting off the top), and Dave and I shared tiramisu and a chocolate dessert with raspberries on top. Delicious!

The rest of the weekend, we spent unpacking and doing a little more grocery shopping. We got it all put away though by the end of Sunday and it feels so nice to have most of our belongings from home!

Dave's Birthday!

Well, I am about a week behind on blogging, but I will try to keep up from here on out. When Claire and I got home from the Newcomers Meeting, Dave was already home and sorting through boxes! Yes, the shipment did end up coming at the end of the second week. What a great relief!

We started right away with getting all of Claire's toys and clothes out. She was so excited to see all of her things again and so were we! After two weeks of Mr. Potato Head, tea party, and Legos, we couldn't be happier to see all of her toys!

We started unpacking some boxes and got through pretty much all of Claire's stuff and the kitchen boxes. Then we decided to get ready to go out for Dave's birthday! We were going to go get Mr. Sushi and some desserts from El Globo, a bakery nearby that sells a lot of different delicious pastries and breads. We got dressed (I actually put on some makeup) and then the lights went out.

In true, Friday night fashion! I couldn't believe that for two Friday nights in a row, we had no electricity. We thought, oh well, we are leaving anyways, but when we got out to the car, we realized that we couldn't go anywhere because the car was inside the gate that is powered by electricity! Now, I thought, "There has to be a way to get out of the gate, even if there is no electricity", but Dave couldn't figure it out. Now, in his defense, it was raining and it was getting dark and the flashlight just wasn't helping enough. (Yes, we bought a rechargeable flashlight after last Friday's outage and an extra candle!)

So back inside we went. Claire had already eaten so I used the charged computer to let her watch part of Shrek. She was already exhausted from the long day and her short 30 minute nap so she was ready for bed early anyways. She went to bed and Dave ordered Mr. Sushi over the phone.

So Dave and I had a romantic candlelight dinner eating California rolls, Mango rolls, Miso soup, and Tuna (for Dave). Afterwards, we pulled a couple of our Costco chocolate chip cookies out of the freezer and had dessert. Then we headed upstairs to watch Arrested Development on our portable DVD player. Not exactly the way we had planned the evening, butWell, I am about a week behind on blogging, but I will try to keep up from here on out. When Claire and I got home from the Newcomers Meeting, Dave was already home and sorting through boxes! Yes, the shipment did end up coming at the end of the second week. What a great relief!

We started right away with getting all of Claire's toys and clothes out. She was so excited to see all of her things again and so were we! After two weeks of Mr. Potato Head, tea party, and Legos, we couldn't be happier to see all of her toys!

We started unpacking some boxes and got through pretty much all of Claire's stuff and the kitchen boxes. Then we decided to get ready to go out for Dave's birthday! We were going to go get Mr. Sushi and some desserts from El Globo, a bakery nearby that sells a lot of different delicious pastries and breads. We got dressed (I actually put on some makeup) and then the lights went out.

In true, Friday night fashion! I couldn't believe that for two Friday nights in a row, we had no electricity. We thought, oh well, we are leaving anyways, but when we got out to the car, we realized that we couldn't go anywhere because the car was inside the gate that is powered by electricity! Now, I thought, "There has to be a way to get out of the gate, even if there is no electricity", but Dave couldn't figure it out. Now, in his defense, it was raining and it was getting dark and the flashlight just wasn't helping enough. (Yes, we bought a rechargeable flashlight after last Friday's outage and an extra candle!)

So back inside we went. Claire had already eaten so I used the charged computer to let her watch part of Shrek. She was already exhausted from the long day and her short 30 minute nap so she was ready for bed early anyways. She went to bed and Dave ordered Mr. Sushi over the phone.

So Dave and I had a romantic candlelight dinner eating California rolls, Mango rolls, Miso soup, and Tuna (for Dave). Afterwards, we pulled a couple of our Costco chocolate chip cookies out of the freezer and had dessert. Then we headed upstairs to watch Arrested Development on our portable DVD player. Not exactly the way we had planned the evening, but we had the rest of the weekend.

Newcomers Group

So last Friday, Susan picked Claire and I up at 8:15 to head to the newcomers meeting that was at 9:30. Even though it is not "far" in miles, with traffic, this trip can take over an hour. It was interesting to see a new part of Mexico that I hadn't seen yet (past the grocery stores) and it was even nicer that Susan was driving her automatic, instead of Dave in our manual!

We arrived to the meeting and it was not exactly what I expected. I signed in and paid my dues for the year and took a look around. It is held in a church common room and there are tables set up all around the room. Some people are selling stuff, some are helping out a cause, and some are handing out information. There weren't a ton of tables filled, but the ones that I checked out were the animal rescue group (of course), the girl scout table (which was selling some sort of "treats", but they were not the true girl scout cookies), and a woman who was selling French children boutique clothing. There was also a table set up for the oatmeal that I brought in per the group's request for a local hospital.

The center of the room was set up with smaller circular tables for you to sit at. Susan, Claire and I chose a table and grabbed a snack. Susan introduced me to some of the woman that she knew and some that she just met. There definitely seemed to be cliques, but I didn't expect anything less than that. There are always going to be people who tend to gravitate to certain people.

The meeting started after about a half hour of mingling. Again, not the meeting that I am used to sitting through! They started with announcements, then a woman from a local charity spoke. This charity helps children who are in abusive homes. They give them a place to stay, go to school, and get some counseling. They have a teacher on staff and she talked about how a nutritionist is now coming to help them balance the meals for the children. All of their food is donated so for a while, if they received sausage, that is what they would have for days. Now they are trying to get a variety of foods donated. Of course, in the middle of this woman's presentation, Claire had to go to the bathroom so we left (the front of the room), found the bathrooms and then headed back. By the time we returned, they were going to play Bingo for charity. Susan and I opted to skip out of this and instead headed to the English used bookstore that they have on the premises.

Susan found some books for her girls and, of course, Claire couldn't leave without a few, even though the children's selection wasn't the greatest. We left with a Zoo Book on otters, The Lion King, and a Duck Tales book!

After the meeting, we started heading back and stopped at a mall to have some lunch. This mall is much better than the other one that is close to us. Mostly because of the variety of stores that they have and the unbelievable view! It sits up high on this mountain and you can see really far (as long as the smog isn't too bad!). This is has a Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, pet store, kid's play store (think Jungle Java meets Creative Arts Studio all on a smaller scale), Idea (an IKEA rip-off), and a fabric store. It also has a ton of restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen, Chili's, Shakey's, an Argentine, Mexican, and Italian restaurant, which is where we chose to eat.

The restaurant (Italianna's) wasn't very busy and in true Italian restaurant fashion, gives you bread to snack on while you are looking over the menu and waiting for your meal. What's awesome about the bread though is they give you oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in, which is the way we eat it at home! Yum! We both ordered four cheese pizzas and chatted more about the differences between the States and Mexico. By the time we left, Claire was just a second away from meltdown. Time to get home! She fell asleep on the short ride home and never got a longer nap because when we got home, Dave was there and so was our shipment!

New Friends

Before coming to Mexico, I had talked to my mother-in-law's good friend, Carol. She and her husband have done many international assignments - Mexico (twice), Sweden, and Italy. Through Carol, I learned about the "Newcomers Group of Mexico City". It is a group for new arrivals and long time residents to help people meet other English speaking families through social and charitable activities. I had perused their website many times prior to arriving here, but as soon as I got here, I decided to join up.

Right away, they set me up with their Yahoo group. Through this, I put out a message letting them know that I was new and where I lived. Within a few hours, I received two emails from people that live in my area, Susan and Ginger.

On a side note, many people thought that I would be living in an "American" neighborhood and had preconceived notions that I was going to be surrounded by Americans. In actuality, there are around 300 people signed up for the newcomers group and there are 23 million + people in Mexico City! So not a large number in comparison. Also, I found out that there are even fewer people that live in our area because the majority of the newcomers live in the downtown area of Mexico City. When you tell people where you live, they give you a quizzical look and say, "Where?", similar to when I tell people that the majority of my family lives in Burnips.

So the first email I received was from Susan. She also comes from Michigan! Her husband works for Ford and she lives down the road from us! It doesn't get more exciting than that! She has two daughters aged 10 and 13, who go to a British school called Greengates. The most ironic thing is that Susan and her family live in one of the homes we looked at and it was our number one choice! I can't remember the number of the house in the blog (I want to say #12), but it is the one with the fish tank in the wall. Susan and I emailed back and forth a bit and she said she would be happy to take me and Claire to the Newcomers meeting on Friday, Jan. 15th.

Ginger, the other person who emailed me that day, also lives in the vicinity. She lives right across the street from Superama. This is Ginger's second stay in Mexico. She was here before for four years back in 1998. She is married to a Mexican man and they have two boys aged 3 and 2 months. Ginger called me and we talked for an hour about just about everything. She is a great resource to know and speaks fluent Spanish. I felt very lucky to have found these two woman within the first two weeks of living here!

Claire Antics

So I mentioned the pet stores briefly, but a funny story came about from our trip to the pet store. When looking at the snakes, I didn't want Claire to be scared of them so I said, "Look at that snake. He looks nice." So after visiting the pet store, we made a new pact with Claire and told her that if she stays in her new bed for 7 days, she can get a fish. A few (sleepy) days later, we were reminding her of her reward when she through a curve ball at us. She declared she wanted the snake. I told her we couldn't bring the snake home too because he would eat the fish. Very matter of factly, she stated that we could just leave the fish at the pet store. Let me reassure you, we are NOT getting a snake!

We still haven't gotten our shipment from home so we are very limited with what we have to play with. We have Legos (that were Daddy's old ones), a tea party set, and Mr. Potato Head that Dave bought down here at Costco before Christmas. Despite the lack of toys to play with, Claire has been great about using her imagination and getting through the days much better than I can say for myself. The other day, she was sitting at the table coloring or something, and she decided to take off her socks, put them on her hands, and call herself 'Swiper' from Dora. This went on for the next hour. At one point, she handed me one of her Carebears, then came back up, snatched the bear, and said, "You're too late!"

Everyone has been wondering how Claire is adjusting, and I think she is adjusting just fine. She misses people from home and talks about them all the time. She colors pictures for everyone constantly and loves to look at everyone's pictures on Facebook! Other than that, she loves being able to go outside, even though we haven't gone outside a ton because of the cold and rain, it is still more than we would at home (at least with Mommy!). She likes the open space in the house and watering the plants.

Video Tour

Finally! This took an hour to upload, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of the layout of our house.

Video Tour

Pictures of the House

Picture 1: kitchen = no heaters at all
Picture 2: A view from the front door. Trying to show the openness of the house and how it goes all the way up. You can also see into the kitchen.
Picture 3: The formal living room and gas fireplace.
Picture 4: The door leads into the kitchen, but I was trying to show the little electric heater that is suppose to heat up the downstairs. Behind me is the formal dining room, to the left is the bar and the open ceiling to the skylight.
Picture 5: Bar to the right, formal dining room to the left, TV room behind me, and formal living room straight ahead.
Picture 6: TV room where the little gas stove is. This is where we spend the majority of our time.

One thing to notice is that the floors are all cold, marble tile. Also, the windows are not typical of those in the US. They are one pane and there is a gap under the front door. We need one of those bean filled draft keepers! :)

Weather/Heat

So I have been trying to explain the heat situation all week to everyone back home. I will try again with some video and pictures in this blog.

Everyone keeps saying, "At least it's not 0 degrees there!" and although it is not 0 degrees here, it is not "warm" like everyone seems to think. The high temperature since I have been here has been around 63 degrees. At night, the temperature gets down to around 30-40 degrees. Mexico City is in the middle of the country and has a very high elevation. (We are four hours from any coastline.) Where we live, Sayavedra is even higher into the mountains than Mexico City, so I am guessing that we are a few degrees cooler than the temperature there.

So, yes, the temperature outside isn't awful. It would be like a cool spring day, but it is not the outside weather that matters, it is the temperature inside.

Our house has very spacious rooms, marble tile floor, many windows and the floor plan (that you'll see from the video) is completely open. In other words, there are no "floors", but instead you can see all the way to the top of the house from the lowest point in the house.

The way they heat homes here is very minimal. They don't have furnaces, or at least we don't have one. We have two gas fireplace/stoves, some electric wall units, and other radiator units spread throughout the house. Some of these are not even worth turning on as it is futile to try to heat the house with them. We also turn the gas stoves off at night because we do not want to waste the propane or let them run nonstop.

The average temperature in the room where the gas stove is runs from 17-19 degrees Celsius which is equivalent to 62-66 degrees Fahrenheit. I am not sure the temperature of the rest of the house because there are no thermostats, but this room is the most closed off compared to the rest of the house, and therefore, I am guessing gets the warmest. Most homes (well, at least mine) keep there thermostats at 68 degrees on average and when I am cold, I kick it up to 70. Here it can take the entire day (or at least morning) to get to 66 degrees inside. I must also mention that there are no heaters in the bathrooms, which makes it very difficult to get out of the shower!

So, as I am not trying to complain, but rather explain why it (or at least I) am so cold and can't seem to get rid of my darn runny/stuffy nose. In Michigan, I hated going outside because it's so cold, but here I hate going outside because when you come in, you can't warm up! January is the coldest month on average and I do hope that when it gets warmer, the house will also warm up, but for right now, I just feel like I am on a never ending, bad camping trip (and I hate camping)! I hope I explained this a little better, but I also hope that I haven't deterred anyone from coming to visit us! It's got to warm up soon! :)

More Shopping - Costco

Off to Costco today! The Costco in Mexico is pretty much the same as the Costco in the US. Usually when we got to Costco in the US, we just buy milk, eggs, bread, and fruit. Our trips there aren't very expensive, but in Mexico, the most American items are mostly at Costco. Plus, we needed some major household items.

We walked up and down every aisle, except the middle aisles with the clothes and media. Our biggest purchases were wastebaskets and rugs. Other than that, just your usual groceries.

On the way home, we were driving up the hill to Sayavedra when a pack of five dogs came running across the road. Of course, my first instinct was...DEER, then I remembered that I was in Mexico! A few yards up the hill again, we saw another dog run across the road. These didn't look like mangy, wild dogs, but something tells me that they didn't have homes either. Very sad.

On our way back home, we drove through a different part of the neighborhood and we think we discovered a park! Our neighborhood is pretty large with 2000 families and the park isn't really close enough that we could walk, but just discovering a park nearby is huge! Now, it just needs to stop raining so we can go there!

Today was overall and uneventful day. I am still trying to get over this cold and runny/stuffy nose. Hopefully, the rain will stop soon and it will warm up so I can get over this sickness!

Tonight was a difficult night for Claire to go to bed though. After sleeping with us last night, she did not want to sleep in her own bed. She screamed and cried and being the stubborn little girl that she is, refused to lay down on her pillow. She lost TV privileges tomorrow and I don't know if that is going to be harder on us or her. Finally, around 9:15 (an hour after putting her to bed), she was tired enough to lay on her pillow! Her goal is to go to bed cooperatively and stay in her bed for a week so she can get a goldfish!

Power Outage

So it's Friday night, we are waiting for Dave to get home after being stuck inside the house for ten hours. Claire has eaten her dinner already because it was taking Dave extra long to get home due to the rain (apparently, rain is to Mexico as snow is to Michigan) and the fact that he had to stop by Superama to set up an appointment for the propane company to come out (because they never came back this week like they said).

I was just finishing up our dinner when the lights went out. Of course, my first thoughts were, "I'm not using that much power that I shut everything down, am I?", then thoughts from the movie Scream popped into my mind. Frustrated and tired of answering Claire's statement of, "turn the lights back on Mommy" about ten times, I called Dave. He was at Superama dealing with the propane company. He was also suppose to pick up milk at the store, which I told him to forget about and get home! It was about 6:15 pm and we were on borrowed daylight.

So earlier in the week it was no propane, which meant heat, stove, and hot water. Now, we were dealing with no electricity, which meant no phone, lights, and also heat in the bedrooms (as those run on electricity). Thank goodness in my packing frenzy before we left, I packed a small LED flashlight, otherwise the house would have been lit up by the illumination of our cell phones!

Dave got home and let me know that it was the entire neighborhood that was without power, which squashed the two previous thoughts of overusing power and mass murderers. Still frustrated nonetheless, we ate a semi-cold dinner by hanging the flashlight from the chandelier. It was suppose to be Family Movie Night, but without electricity and no idea when it would be back on, we weren't thrilled about using the computer battery so early in the evening, so we decided to head out to the mall.

The mall is pretty close and it is fairly new. A few common stores that are inside were Athlete's Foot, Nike, and Osh Kosh. Since Christmas is such a huge deal here, the decorations were still up and that made Claire happy, but confused at the same time because she was wondering when we were having Christmas again.

Most of the stores in the mall are the usual clothing stores so not much for Claire (or I at the moment) to look at, but we did check out the movie theater and a few pet stores, which they have two inside the mall!?!

The pet stores were quite similar to those in the US with rabbits, ferrets, a ton of birds and fish, mice, snakes, spiders, lizards, and dogs. The one unusual thing though was that there were no cats. They sold all the usual pet foods and supplies, including cat food.

On a side note: Back when we were potty training Claire, we told her that when she was potty trained, we would get her a fish. Well, with the move, we thought we better wait until we got to Mexico and that would be a good pet to have here. Looking at the prices of the everything was a little bit of a shock. For a critter cage fish set-up, the price was $30. No filter, but it did come with the rocks, decorations, etc. Even a regular small fish bowl was around $20. (I kept thinking about all the critter cages that I had at school for the science kits!) A gold fish was around $6.00, albeit they were of a heftier variety. That being said, we are still not sure on the verdict of getting a fish.

The largest store in the mall is called Liverpool. It would be equivalent to Sears in the US with selling a little bit of EVERYTHING! This is where Dave bought our dryer. When he purchased the dryer, he got a giftcard for $80, but of course, we left that at home!

Throughout the mall I kept seeing advertisements for Krispy Kreme, which is funny because I had just been thinking about doughnuts earlier in the day and I never eat them. So, now I was on a mission to find Krispy Kreme! We had walked throughout the entire mall and had pretty much given up. We went back into Liverpool to look through the store and there it was!!! The bad thing is that the store was just about to close so all the regular doughnuts were gone! Not to leave without getting at least one doughnut we settled on the one of two flavors of chocolate frosting with white sugar cream in the middle. Not my favorite, but Claire was pretty happy with it.

It was time to head back home and the whole time I was crossing my fingers and toes that the electricity was back on, but getting to the gate of the development, it was clear that it wasn't. We all came inside, got pajamas on, brushed our teeth, and crawled into our bed to watch a little bit of Finding Nemo before falling asleep. I wasn't about to leave Claire in her room without the power on for many reasons, but one was that not knowing when it was going to come back on and not knowing what lights were on and where. I didn't want her waking up in the middle of the night because her room was flooded with light.

We all fell asleep for awhile, but around 2, I woke up and couldn't fall asleep. There is something about complete and utter darkness that is unsettling to me. I am used to the street lights that are on outside our window and being in a strange place with nothing but darkness left me sitting awake listening for strange noises.

Hearing Dave stirring, I told him I couldn't sleep so he offered to go get my Ipod so I could play some games. Ironically, while he was in the kitchen getting it, the lights came on. He was able to get all the lights turned off and with my street lights outside peeking in and my Ipod, I finally fell asleep an hour later.

I don't know how often this happens. Dave said it has happened once before on a Sunday afternoon for about 5 minutes, but he has also been at work most days so he may not even have known that the lights were out. All I know, is that after a long week getting used to a new place and things, troubles with heat and propane and lights, I am glad they are back on for this rainy Saturday.

Superama - New Food Experience

On Wednesday night, Dave's friend, Fernando, his wife, Rosie, and their daughter, Erin, came over to our house to welcome us to Mexico. Fernando lived in the US for two years while working at BASF with Dave. I was able to meet them once at one of Drag Day's gigs.

We showed them the house and discussed our trip here and talked about doctors, schools, etc. Then they took us to Superama. Dave had been to Superama before (and it is the closest store to our house, but Wal-Mart and Commercial Mexicana are both just a few more kilometers). He didn't like it the first time he had been there because the store is small and it was crowded. Dave was trying to look at all it had to offer and he said it was too congested for him at that time.

Going through with Fernando and Rosie though was very different though. Although the store is small and more busy than Wal-Mart, it felt like we were the only ones in the store. I hope they weren't embarrassed with showing us around as we were definitely foreigners. It was just so nice to have Spanish speaking people with us!

I had a lot of questions with the produce, although it is not THAT much different than in the US. The few things that I did notice that were different were cactus and these little orange fruits that I have never seen in the US. Rosie said they are a traditional fruit to have around Christmas although she is not a fan. Fernando said that they make a punch at Christmas time and these are usually in them.

As I was curious about the cactus, Fernando said we should get some and he would cook it up for us. He also got some pumpkin flowers to also try.

We continued through the store and another big discussion came with cheeses. Mexicans have a lot of different kinds of cheeses! Superama especially has a large variety of them. I think we got three different types that night. My biggest problem with their cheeses is that they are not all pasteurized. I have already broken enough rules with this pregnancy it seems that I am not willing to try an unpasteurized cheese. Thankfully, we did find a goat cheese that was and the other cheeses were of a mozzarella/provolone type.

The last thing I wanted to find out at this store was how to buy bread. They had nice loaves sitting out, but I didn't see any bags nearby and the bread almost looked like decoration sitting there! Well, you need to go over to the counter and get tongs and a tray to put the bread on, then you bring it back to the counter and someone bags it, weighs it, and puts the price on it. I suppose if I had stood there long enough, I would have seen someone do this, but having some added guidance made it so much easier.

One thing else to note about the store...January 6th is Day of the Kings. For this day, everyone buys a special loaf of bread in the shape of a large oval. It is somewhat sweet and had cherries on top. They had at least 50 boxes of this bread and it was the end of the day! Dave said that the price of the biggest box was 250 pesos (or $20). Inside this bread is a charm of a baby and whomever finds it must have a party at their house on February 2nd with tamales. Also, kids get more presents on this night from the Kings. Claire did not, her presents will come with the shipment!

Back to our house we went. Fernando cooked up the cactus (which you saute in a pan until it isn't slimy), pumpkin flower/cheese tortillas, and just cheese tortillas. We had three different kinds of cheese for dinner. One for the cactus (a sort of fresh mozzarella), a white cheese with the pumpkin flower, and manchela (another white cheese) in the tortillas. Thank goodness we also cooked up some battered fish too, otherwise I think I would've been still hungry after they left!

I tried the cactus first. It wasn't spit out gross, but definitely an acquired taste. I thought the consistency was similar to asparagus/green beans, but more slimy. I can't really describe the flavor, except that it was a bit bitter. The pumpkin flower was next on my plate and that wasn't too bad. I think the hardest thing to get over with that is the texture of eating flowers. Of course, all this was somewhat masked with salsa and sour cream.

We had a great time with Fernando and Rosie, but they had to leave because Erin (who is almost 2) was, understandably, getting fussy and Claire needed to get to bed too! I am very thankful for the insight they gave us, even though it seemed so obsolete to them. More importantly, it was just nice to have company!

Address

Here are the addresses. I don't know if what you send will get here. The people from our cultural training were very pessimistic about sending things, especially new things. If anyone is willing to try it though, it would be much appreciated! Even a letter would be great!

The home address is:
David Haverland
Castillo de Pisa No. 44, manzana 100 lote 28
Colonia Condado de Sayavedra
Municipio: Atizapan de Zaragoza
Estado de Mexico
52938
Mexico

The address at Dave's work is:
BASF Mexicana, S.A. de C.V. / División Coatings
Attn: David Haverland
AV. 1, #9 PARQUE IND CARTAGENA
Tultitlan, MX 54900
Mexico

Our First Shopping Trip - Wal-mart

One of the biggest chains in Mexico is Wal-mart. Fortunately for us, there is a brand new mall going in close by and there is a Wal-mart in it. Getting there directly from our house is another story. It is quite bizarre to me that they just do not have a turn around to get into the mall. You have to go a few kilometers past the mall, get off at another exit and turn around to come back toward the mall. An added five minutes easily.

Like I said, the Walmart is in a mall on the second floor. As you round the escalator to go up to Walmart, there is a pet store with puppies and kittens. I couldn't help but stop and want to take them all home. Not only because they were absolutely adorable, but also because they all were in cages with grates and nothing to lay on. It made me so sad to see them in this way. There was a beautiful German Shepherd, a Westie, and some other breeds that I am not sure of. I believe before too long, we may have a new family member to take care of! It must be able to ride in a carry-on in the plane though.

Anyways, back to Wal-mart...Claire is at the point where she refuses to ride in the cart all the time, so the next option at Wal-mart was to let her use her own mini shopping cart. As this was her first attempt at driving a cart, I didn't expect much, but she was terrible! She ran into everything and almost everyone, of course, using the word "crash" and laughing. There is a parent handle on the mini cart and I told her I had to hang on to it so she didn't lose me, but she was not thrilled about it. Neither was I considering she kept running me into the shelves, but I felt it was a necessity for the other shoppers! She also has a bad habit of picking up everything off the shelf, including eggs (to check them). By the end of this trip, I finally curbed her of this by just having her point to the things she was interested in. Let's hope that lasts!

There were quite a few familiar brands at Wal-mart; Heinz, French's mustard, Kraft Mac and Cheese and Parmesan cheese, Cheerios to name a few. The hard things for me to purchase were fruits/veggies and milk products. I wasn't sure what all the fruits were and they didn't "look" as nice as we are used to in the States. We did purchase strawberries, bananas, limes, lettuce, onions, sweet potatoes, pineapple, and a mango. They also had frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, peas, and other vegetables. We got many staples including sugar, flour, Ruffles :)!

Overall, we spent $100, which I thought was pretty good considering that we bought quite a few groceries and other household items. It was a productive shopping trip and, everyone is so worried about safety here, but Wal-mart was very safe!

Day One

Well, I woke up with high hopes of feeling refreshed and ready to start unpacking and making this place our "home", but all of that was squashed by an overwhelming headache, stuffy nose, and no voice. In other words, I felt like crap! I got up and started to move around to get Claire breakfast and put things away, but I was quickly aware that I needed to head back to bed, which I did for about two hours of solid sleep.

When I woke up, I thought again, that I would feel better and I would be ready to get moving...wrong! I ate something for lunch and meandered around the house trying to be productive again. Some repairmen stopped by to fix the heater in the back room and were using some aerosol spray which added to my headache so off I went again to bed for a few more hours.

I really don't remember the last time I felt so awful. I usually refuse to use the word sick, instead I might say that I am feeling a little under the weather, but this time I wasn't going to deny it, I was sick.

I woke up again and knowing that we needed to go to the store, I sucked it up and headed to Walmart with Dave and Claire. I was really tempted to stay home, but I wanted some say as to the things he was going to buy and I didn't want to miss the first shopping trip with Claire.

When we got back home from shopping, we made dinner (spaghetti, peas, and garlic bread). Then we got Claire to bed and watched Desperate Housewives on Slingbox, while I chatted with Shelly, Nicole, and Marnie on Facebook! After that, I knew that I had overdone it again, so, yep, we went to bed at 9:30, hoping and wishing that I would feel much better in the morning.

Travel Day

We woke up at 6 am after going to bed around 12:30. (The entire previous day was spent packing our 4 suitcases, 3 carry-ons, and 3 personal carry-ons.) Dave's dad was coming at 7 to take us to the airport. When I woke up Claire, she asked if it was time to go to Mexico! She was in a good mood considering that I had to wake her up and she usually sleeps at least until 7. A quick bowl of cereal for her, showers for us, shoved whatever else we could fit into the suitcases, and we were off.

Dave's dad picked us up in the Terrain and it was full to the brim. He could barely see out the back. I was already worried about us getting through three airports with all this luggage.

We arrived at the Detroit airport (a cold 7 degrees outside) and checked the 4 pieces of luggage to be shipped to Monterrey, Mexico. Then quick good-byes and off we went through security.

Claire did extremely well through this part and didn't even give us the usually "Why?" assault. She just took off her shoes and coat and followed all the directions. We decided to make her wear her monkey backpack that has a parent handle for easy wrangling and I am glad we did. We waited for our first flight, me with the luggage, and Dave and Claire wandering through the airport. Dave got us lunch before we boarded (at 10:10 am), sandwiches for us and a bean burrito from Taco Bell for Claire. (What else do you eat before heading to Mexico?)

I thought Claire would be really excited about the airplane takeoff, but she was too short to see out the window and didn't even know we were flying in the air. All she cared about was when she could use the Ipod! The first hour and a half went by pretty smoothly. Claire ate an oatmeal packet that we brought (thanks Marnie for the awesome suggestion). Then I decided that it was naptime, the only problem was that I had to get the Ipod away from her. She tried using her yelling voice to create drama and, of course, drive me crazy, but finally it passed and I got her to sit with me. After twisting and turning for at least 20 minutes and me glaring at Dave who got to sit by himself on the otherside of the aisle, she fell asleep for the rest of the flight!

We got to Monterrey and had to go through immigration and customs, then had to reclaim our luggage to transfer over to AeroMexico. All of this actually went smoothly, considering the amount of walking that we had to do and the number of times Claire asked if she could have her sucker yet. Finally, we rechecked our luggage and sat waiting for our next flight for two and half hours. Thanks to the internet site 'Slingbox', Dave and Claire were able to watch Olivia and Handy Manny to keep her busy while I tried to get a little bit of sleep. This is the point in the trip when I felt the worst with a headache, runny nose, and just exhausted!

We got on the next plane and I was awarded a seat by myself since there were only three seats across. Too bad this flight was only an hour and forty minutes! Even though this plane was small, it was nice because they check your large carry-ons at the steps of the plane (yes, I had to walk up steps to get on this plane!), so all we had to worry about were our personal carry-ons and Claire. The funny thing is that some man took Claire from me and carried her to the plane. I don't know which one of us was more weary, but we went with the flow and it wasn't a big deal.

We got to Monterrey at which point I was ready to fall over. It was 7:15 Mexico time (8:15 pm Michigan). We got a taxi and by looking at it I was afraid we were never going to get all the luggage into the car and that we were destined to use two taxis, especially after seeing Dave's dad's SUV that morning, but somehow it all fit and we took off for our new home. For some reason, there was a lot of traffic on the toll road and it took us an hour and forty five minutes to get home. Claire fell asleep after about an hour into the car ride, which helped, but by this time, I was so miserable that I thought I was going to throw up in the car and all the way I just kept saying, "we've got to be getting closer." My nose was so stuffy and runny and we had run out of Kleenex at this point. The next best thing I had to use was a pair of Claire's underwear that were in my coat pocket because we put her in a Pull-up at the Detroit airport before we boarded the plane. Note to self: bring a hanky for the next travel day!

We arrived to 44 Castillo de Pisa at 9 pm and it was raining. I got Claire inside and laid her on the couch. She was so tired that she stayed sleeping for about ten more minutes. Just enough time for us to get all the luggage into the house and call home to let everyone know that we had arrived. The house was freezing because the heat had been off for two weeks so Dave had to go outside (yes, outside in the rain) to turn on the propane. We turned on every room heater we could find, made some dinner (Easy Mac and Veggie Chicken Nuggets), and all went to bed in our room, Claire included. Thank goodness there is an electric blanket on our bed, unfortunately it only has one setting: hot!

No one seems to quite understand about the weather in Mexico. Everyone keeps saying at least it's not 0 degrees outside like Michigan! No it's about 61 degrees here right now, but at least at home, I could have my home temperature at 68 degrees. Here, it took two days for the house to reach 64 degrees. It reminds me of a bad camping trip where you just can't get warm. Not to mention that today the propane went out so we are starting back at square zero. I am really looking forward to our shipment to come since we have our amazing space heater packed. I only wish Dave had made it more clear that we should've packed our second heater!