Moving - again

Our casita.

We have moved more in the past 3 months than we have in the past 23 years. We were lucky to find fabulous renters for our house in Linden Hills - the only catch was that they wanted to move in before we were planning to move out. Then we got lucky again, when a friend offered us his duplex on 50th and Lyndale for the 6 weeks that we would be homeless in Minneapolis.

We were planning to rent the "perfect" place in Oaxaca - 4 bedrooms, right by the aquaduct in El Centro, for a reasonable price. It was too good to be true - seriously! In July, we found out the house had sold and was no longer available. We found another great place but it wasn't available until November, so we made arrangements to stay with Maria and Manuel, whom we'd stayed with before, for the month of October.

The bedroom at M&M's served as an office, too.

With all the fabulous tiles in Mexico,
why this?

Room with a view - the kitchen looked
onto the common patio.

"Lechuga" used to wait outside our door
when she was hungry!

Enrique, María, and Randy before the race.

Maria and Manuel's place had some issues: bedroom+bathroom+kitchen = a lot of togetherness :); our bedroom was directly on a street that didn't seem particulary busy until you were lying in bed, listening to the cars, motorcycles, passers-by, etc.; the guest renting the unit across the patio who coughed chronically and whose smoke drifted into our place. But it was in a great location and Maria and Manuel had us doing things we may not have done otherwise, like participating in a 5K that their son organized, visiting their event center, and learning how to get a water tank on to the azotea (roof terrace).

Our new place is a little further away from the action but offers the amenities that come with a neighborhood - the shopkeepers ask your name, you recognize your neighbors and things are a bit quieter. Wait, scratch that last part. We are next door to a dance studio (remember, no zoning laws in this truly free country) and if you've ever taken a dance class you will remember that a few bars of a song are played, then repeated...repeated...repeated...Drowned out only by the dogs barking. And the birds. And the guy in the tamale truck (thank God 10:00 p.m. is last call). Someone commented to us that Mexicans have a "different relationship with noise" than Americans do. So, as part of the immersion, we're embracing the music and the dogs and we're considering running out for a tamale next time he comes down our street.

We can seat more than 2 people now.

We have a living room.

The kitchen.

Happy to have an oven - even if the only temperature setting is 400.

A bathroom with a separate shower.

While Sarah was searching for a place to rent on various websites, she found that the places advertised on English-speaking sites (and offered, usually, by North Americans) looked so "Mexican" with bright colors, lots of artwork, beautiful tiles, while the places on Spanish-speaking sites were very sparsely furnished, typically with a big, black sofa set and TV in the living room and very little else. The prices reflected the difference and in the end we went with a Casa Gringa. We have to admit, we're quite happy to have the ameneties (like a bathroom that doesn't become the shower) and to be surrounded by the beauty of our new casita. Yup, quite happy.