So, we have now been living in Mazatlan for about a year and a half. We are definately still loving it and have not regretted this decision for a moment. The people here are warm and gracious and we genuinely feel part of the community. Things are diffrent, for sure, in some ways good, some ways bad, but David and I both feel the quality of our lives have overall improved. There is a slower pace, for example, I am currently on Day Three of Satellite Hookup Watch. Things like that do not really bother me, though. We have lived the last 15 years in a place where the 'request for service call' always ended with, "There will be a technician in your part of the county the end of next week, will someone be home between Wednesday 9 am and Saturday 3 pm?". In other ways, service is exemplary. We had a toilet problem about a year ago. I won't go into details, but let's just say I would have moved and left everything behind rather than to have dealt with it myself. I got a number to a plumber who came highly reccomended, and he was at the house within 30 minutes. It probably took him an hour or so to fix it. He then, very nervously, was telling me what a mess it was and because of that he was charging me more than his normal fee. The "more than normal fee" came to a total of 200 pesos (that would be about 20 USD). I tipped him. The abundance of inexpensive, fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood year round has us spoiled. I have about four spots in town where the price for a kilo(2.2 lbs) of jumbo shrimp consistently runs around 45 pesos(4.50 USD). I like that my house gets cleaned from top to bottom twice a week for 300 pesos. I like never having to pump my own gas, wash my vehicle, or load my groceries. Color me rotten. Two things that I can say I was somewhat nervous about, because of reputations, were healthcare and police, not neccesarily in that order. Knock on wood, I have only been pulled over here in Mazatlan twice, both times for speeding. Anyone that knows me, knows that if I go six months without a speeding ticket, I obviously was never behind the wheel during that period. Each time, I was let go with a warning and one was even a federale and they are famous for ticketing their own grandmothers. As far as the healthcare situation goes, I had an emergency appendectomy last October here at the Sharp Hospital. We got to the emergency room about 11 pm, saw the doctor, had the labwork done and was talking to the specialist by 1 am. I was waking up and recovering in my nice big private room by 6 am. Menus every meal (and good food!), four nights in a private room with american TV, handsome doctors, cleanliness and efficency that would make alot of US hospitals blush, PR ladies checking in with me twice a day to see if I needed anything. All this came to a grand total, which, by the way, was on ONE sheet of paper, of 35000 pesos (yuppers, that's 3500 USD!). Crazy. Anyway, I have two goals for the next year of living here, improve my spanish ALOT and to post here more often. We'll see how it goes!
