• Central Mexican food like Pozole, Fried “Drowned” Tacos and Tinga
• Fresh, hot, handmade corn tortillas
• Our garden which blooms year round with camellias, hibiscus, bougainvillea, geraniums, calla lilies, day lilies, iris, azaleas, white fuchsia, a cactus garden, a hot pepper bush and peach and black walnut trees.
• The 15 foot commute from the bedroom to our home office
• A $3 haircut at the barbers (6 houses away)
• We can go days without using the car
• All our Mexican friends and almost everything we need is within walking distance
• The corner store at the end of our street that carries everything from Ajax to zucchini…and will get anything we request within a few days
• The smell of coffee and chocolate from the nearby Nestle factory
• $5 dollar 5-star movie theaters
• Perfect running weather 360 days of the year
• Mexican driving (the excitement and freedom of driving where there are fundamentally no rules...like being able to turn left from the right lane of a 6 lane road if you decide that's where you need to go)
• Hiking in the mountains all around our city
  
  
• Capulin* season and hiking up onto the wildflower covered fields on the side of the volcano to pick them (*capulines are a variety of wild cherry - click here for photo)
• The following fruits in season: granada china (sweet passion fruit), mangos a-go-go, tunas (prickly pears).
• The variety of our state (Estado de Mexico) which offers tropical, desert, alpine and big city all within an hour of our house
• Mexican pueblos where time seems to have stopped; men still ride horses and women do wash at the local water hole
• Bazaar Sabado; a wonderful art festival every single saturday
• Being able to walk out our front door and be in Mexico
  
  
• The amazing beauty, variety, history and cultural depth of Mexico
• Being excused for nearly any mistake simply because we’re foreigners
• Our Mexican friends, coworkers and teammates

What We Will Not Miss about Mexico

• Intestinal parasites and amoebas
• Not being able to eat lettuce and other leafy vegetables unless we hand wash each 'n every leaf and then let it soak in anti-bacterial solution (the same with fresh strawberries)
• Having our electricity go out on a semi-regular basis, invariably right as we’re trying to finish something urgent on the computer
  
• Pollution and smog...lot's of smog
  
  
• The average temperature in our bedroom being 60 degrees (no heat in houses)
• Loud music and fireworks all night, especially on the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Day of the Dead
• The five month dry season where everything is brown and dusty and the five month rainy season where our shoes grow mold
• Having to pay for parking…everywhere
• Being taught old wives tales as fact
• Traffic lanes so narrow that our side-view mirrors get hit
• Inadequate, irrelevant and unhelpful signage on roads and buildings (the road to Toluca is labeled “Shortcut to Morelia”)
• Mexican driving (everyone else being able to drive the speed and way they like)
  
  
• Wanton felling of trees along the streets
• Streets being closed because someone has set up a tent in the middle of it for a party
• Streets with no lane lines painted on them
• Speedbumps (even on interstates) and potholes everywhere
• The random missing manhole cover (surprise! your axel is broken)
• Expensive toll roads (and when we say expensive we’re talking $8 for a 12 mile drive)
• Trash men who expect us to lift our garbage up into the truck and then give them a tip
• Sewage flowing down the street when the sewers overflow during the rainy season (sometimes it actually shoots up out of the holes in the manhole covers and looks like a fountain)
• Getting stuck in traffic behind a diesel belching bus that stops every 50 ft. to pick someone up or let them off
• No Dr. Pepper, Wendy’s, or thick steaks
• Being looked at funny because we’re foreigners
• Our friends having to make international travel plans to have coffee with us