That Time I Moved My Family to Mexico

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Last Updated on June 10, 2020 by Natalie

Today is my first full day of living in Mexico. While making breakfast (cereal, so maybe I should say “gathering” breakfast), a guy rode a lawnmower down the street. Then, he came back again. He eventually did four or five swipes down the street.

Is he mowing the street? I wonder.

The dust was flying around, so I’m guessing he was cleaning the street. With a lawnmower.  Welcome to Mexico! Welcome to new things that will eventually make sense!

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Check out these YA travel books that heavily influenced my desire to become an expat.

It was a challenging couple of weeks, filled with confusion and constant metaphorical storms.  I figured I’d sleep when we arrived.

As the rooster crows

It is hotter here than the climate I came from. Even though we are having warmer temperatures in Ohio than usual, it cools down really fast at night. Here in Queretaro area, it also cools down at night, but our upstairs still feels pretty hot. So, we’ve slept with the sliding door to our balcony open (side note: I finally live in a place with a balcony!)

I woke up frequently because my new bed is really uncomfortable. This wasn’t helped by the rooster who started crowing in the middle of the night. I came from a house in the country in Ohio to live in a neighborhood in a city. This rooster lives closer to me here than any did in Ohio. It makes me laugh.

Day 2

There are two playgrounds in our neighborhood. My kids currently prefer the “far” one. The close one  is around 150 feet from our house. I told them we could go to the one they like. But first, I needed to tell our guards that I was expecting a visitor. Since my phone isn’t set up yet, I didn’t know if they’d let our visitor in. On the way, I ran into an expat that I’d met briefly on my first visit to Mexico.

I enlisted her help. She took care of the explanations. Oddly enough, the guards remembered exactly where I lived. I don’t know if we stand out, being obvious foreigners, or if it was due to the shenanigans from the day before.

Shenanigan 1: we have a garage door opener that opens our neighborhood gates. On our first solo drive, we pressed the wrong button. To their credit, I didn’t see the guards even crack a smile. I’d have laughed my ass off. In fact, I did! Silly Americans!

Later, I realized that the guards in our neighborhood are really good at their jobs. Knowing who lives there and even knowing the frequent guests are part of what they do.

Things are different

I knew they would be. It’s part of the experience. To see just how different life is somewhere else. And also how similar. In Mexico, you tip almost everyone. I paid the plumber and another guy $18 to carry the washing machine to the third floor and hook it up. My relocation person suggested I tip them 50 pesos, since carrying it upstairs isn’t really their job.

The washing machine is so important because we are running out of clean clothing! So, I happily paid and tipped them. There is no way I could’ve carried it up by myself.

I run my first load of laundry and I realize I don’t have clothespins for hanging wet items on our rooftop clothesline (it’s so glorious). Also, we didn’t buy a dryer. I hang them anyway and hope the wind doesn’t send our skivvies flying through our rather nice neighborhood (it didn’t).

More on tipping: at the stores, there are parking lot attendants who stop traffic while you back out and take care of your carts. You are supposed to tip around 5 pesos every time. I always tip 10 pesos.

Driving is scary

I haven’t attempted driving yet and I only know how to get to Walmart (where I got scammed on day 4, but that’s a story for another day).

Anyway, it’s fun and scary, sometimes all at once. I am most definitely out of my comfort zone. I sought this, so I can grow as a person. It’s a little uncomfortable.

We ran into a longtime expat and I asked him about the guy riding the lawnmower. It turns out that he really was mowing the street, because grass sometimes grows in the cracks.

Have you ever moved or spent a significant amount of time outside your home country?

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