... not as much as we had hoped, to be honest. We encountered some issues that made our 1st two weeks a test of patience, perseverance, and intestinal fortitude (well, intestinal microbial defense, to be more precise) that I will spare you. But the experience also taught us that we would be wise to take this one step at a time, and to resist the temptation to impulsively dive into the deep end of the financial obligation pool.
So, we have concluded that retirement to San Miguel is not in our immediate future. We just aren't ready to live here full time with the traffic, noise, and poverty. Make no mistake, there is a tremendous attraction this lovely city hat pulls thousands of US immigrants, and hundreds of thousands of tourists, to its cobblestone streets, colonial churches, cafes, alleys, bistros, and roughly one bazillion art galleries. So, I'm sure we will be back, perhaps for 3 months at a time in order to get more time as a local, instead of a tourist, take Spanish lessons, and to decide whether this place is right for us.
As background, San Miguel is a lovely colonial town, about a 3 hour drive NW of Mexico City, in the high arid mountains of Central Mexico. At 6200', the air is dry and clear, with springlike weather the year round. Think of Sante Fe without the extreme heat or snow. And a LOT less expensive. My research indicates that the Cost of Living is about 50% less than Austin. The city is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and has been named by Conde Nast as the best cities in the world. The city has been a center for culture for centuries, as it was the crossroads of commerce between the nearby silver mines, where 30% of the worlds silver was produced, and the ports where the silver was exported to Spain. Google it, and you will immediately see its beauty, typified by the ever-present Parochia, the rich parochial church that got a disneyesque facelift in 1880).
This is our third trip. Our first trip was sort of, "well that was cool". Our second trip was "wow. we could live here for 1/2 what we would pay in the USA and enjoy the expat lifestyle!". Hence our third trip is "What would it to be like to live here?" In short, that's where I failed. I booked a couple of houses to rent that were reasonably priced, which is hard to do since the town probably reaches its occupancy limit at Christmas-New Years, and of course, we have Zorro, so that severely limited our choices. But the houses were nothing like the homes we saw with our realtor, so they didn't come close to approximating the life style we would enjoy as residents. Very limited views, smaller spaces, crowded downtown environment, etc. So the experiment was flawed. Thats my story. And I'm sticking to it!.
Tomorrow, I will share what has transpired, and what we learned. Then I will talk about the good, bad and ugly of San Miguel de Allende. But if you don't come back, remember this if you come to San Miguel: DON'T EAT THE SALAD!
(sorry for the lack of Photo's, Technical Difficulties!)
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