MexConnect.com Forums: General: Living, Working, Retiring: Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved to Mexico?: Page 2

Forums > General > Living, Working, Retiring

1 2 3 View All

Hound Dog

May 10, 2009, 5:33 AM

Post #26 of 60 (3289 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Ustlach] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

I have to depend on a statement from my bank once a month delivered by a guy a motor scooter who just pitches it in the general direction of my house. I start watching for it just about this time of month, and if I am lucky, I find it out there somewhere. What do I miss in Mexico? I miss reliable mail service, among many, many other things.

Well. Ustlach:

I am pleased to inform you that if you bank with Bancomer which has branches just about everywhere in Mexico, you can and should print out your monthly statement from your free on-line account. Once I went on line, the bank stopped sending statements to mt home altogether. You can not only get your monthly statement on line but the statements for the past year plus daily activity reports. If you wish you can also transer funds among your own accounts and the accounts of others but we have elected to forego that service. Bancomer also pays our telephone and electricity biils free of charge and we have never had a problem with either service both of which are paid like clockwork,

One does not need a checking account down here if one is retired. We have a savings account only and when we need to pay for a service provider such as our property managers in Chiapas or Jalisco, we simply deposit funds into their respective accounts as is commonly done down here. We could even do that on line if we wanted to but I draw the line there and just visit my local branch or any branch in Mexico.

johanson

May 10, 2009, 10:15 AM

Post #27 of 60 (3266 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Gringal] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved t

Can't Post | Private Reply

I love Mexico and what I mention here, probably doesn't matter to many of you. But the one thing I miss in Mexico is high speed internet. Mexico's average internet speeds are so slow that they aren't even mentioned as one of the top ten countries speed wise in North America. I have the slowest package offered by Comcast.net in Seattle. Look at my speeds [URL=http://www.speedtest.net]

Prodigy's highest residential speed package is advertized as up to 2 meg down by 0.256 megs up but you typically get slightly less than that, you know

Look at the numbers Comcast's slowest internet speed is some 18 times faster downloading and 36 times faster uploading than Prodigy's fastest "home" speed

(This post was edited by johanson on May 10, 2009, 10:25 AM)

Rolly

May 10, 2009, 10:23 AM

Post #28 of 60 (3264 views)

Shortcut

Re: [johanson] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

In terms of megs/$, we pay more than anyone in the world.

Rolly Pirate

La Isla

May 10, 2009, 10:33 AM

Post #29 of 60 (3256 views)

Shortcut

Re: [johanson] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

Thanks for this post, johanson. Now I understand why even with the "high-speed" internet paquete I recently signed up for with Telmex, it still seems to take forever to get onto my favorite websites!

Papirex

May 10, 2009, 9:21 PM

Post #30 of 60 (3216 views)

Shortcut

Re: [johanson] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

http://www.speedtest.net/result/470838657.png

This is the results I get for Cablemas high speed in Cuernavaca. Not blazing speeds, but a very few years ago all we could get in México was dial-up Internet connections. Everyone was asking who had the fastest and most reliable dial-up. I count my blessings now. When high speed Internet was first becoming available in Cuernavaca, it was not available in our fraccionamiento. I was stuck with dial-up for a few years.

When we moved to an area that had high speed, the only speeds available was 128 or 256 MB up and down, I chose the 256 speed.. Within the first year the provider had a special discount price of just $3 US Dollars to go up to 512 down and 256 up, I opted for that. In the next 4 years they provided no cost upgrades first to 1000 MB down and still 256 up, the next year to 1500 down, the year after that to 2000 down, and the next year to 2500 down, the upload speed remains at 256. I am presently paying $320 Pesos per month (US$ 24.42 Dlls) for my high speed Internet service in addition to our cable TV service With some premium channels including some English language news channels, for a total monthly bill of $917 Pesos (US$ 70 Dlls)

I do get much faster test results using the Speakeasy tester particularly if I choose to test the speeds to the server in Seattle.

I don't know how accurate any of the testing services may be, but I always get faster results when checking my speeds to a server in The US.

It would be nice to get faster service, but all I have to do is look back 8 years and I am happy with what we have now. In retirement I am not sending or receiving anything that is time critical anymore anyway.

Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

tashby

May 11, 2009, 9:12 PM

Post #31 of 60 (3182 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Gringal] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved t

Can't Post | Private Reply

"Other than your favorite foods, what is the hardest thing to give up when you moved to Mexico?"

No contest. Common ground. With people.

Unless you have a previously built-in network of peeps living in Mexico, you get to start allllllll over again.

(This post was edited by tashby on May 11, 2009, 9:15 PM)

Anonimo

May 12, 2009, 5:12 AM

Post #32 of 60 (3164 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Gringal] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved t

Can't Post | Private Reply

The better-than-average Public Library system of Little Rock, AR.
I don't miss the often abominable Central Arkansas summer weather.

Saludos,
Anonimo

RickS

May 12, 2009, 9:25 AM

Post #33 of 60 (3125 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Anonimo] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved t

Can't Post | Private Reply

or the sleet and ice that sometimes accompanies the winter?

Anonimo

May 13, 2009, 6:03 AM

Post #34 of 60 (3072 views)

Shortcut

Re: [RickS] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved t

Can't Post | Private Reply

In Reply To

or the sleet and ice that sometimes accompanies the winter?

Thanks for that memor. I'd expunged it from my recollections.

Saludos,
Anonimo

Ustlach

May 13, 2009, 12:44 PM

Post #35 of 60 (3027 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Hound Dog] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

When Rolly mentioned that he had online access to a Banamex account at one time I decided to investigate.

Six hours later and after only three trips back and forth to the Banamex office I was signed up for online service. I printed off the requirements for getting an online account from the Banamex website. But it still took three trips to Banamex and back home to get the all the actual documents they require. Apparently they can only tell you about them one document at a time.

I tried it out today and it works. It is a little clumbsy and it is not free ($10 per month...I hope that means pesos...why can't get they get their own symbol for their currency?) but it works.

I signed up on my final visit to the Banamex office for the facility to pay some of my utility bills online, as well. That will require yet another doo-dad and/or password, but it might end up saving me some time and exposure to the heat and traffic. I hope there is not yet another charge for that.

I have some exploring to do. I see that I will not be able to download transactions to my MS Money program like I can from virtually every other account I have NoB. I will be interested to see if I can print a monthly statement like some of you can.

Thanks for the advice and information.

Marlene

May 13, 2009, 2:18 PM

Post #36 of 60 (3007 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Ustlach] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

Quote

($10 per month...I hope that means pesos...why can't get they get their own symbol for their currency?)

I think you may be surprised to learn where the currency symbol originated.

Hound Dog

May 13, 2009, 2:58 PM

Post #37 of 60 (2995 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Ustlach] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

I tried it out today and it works. It is a little clumbsy and it is not free ($10 per month...I hope that means pesos...why can't get they get their own symbol for their currency?) but it works.

Ustlach:

I know you are trying to be funny but just to whom do you think the symbol "$" belongs? Does the U-S. have a patent on this symbol? This is not a very funny wisecrack in Mexico although I´m sure you meant no harm. Thread lightly down here.

While I don´t mean in any way to compare your thoughtless (and I hope meant to be amusing) remark with what my wife witnessed this afternoon when she was in the relatively new Walmart in Ajijic visiting the fish counter, it is important for all of us who are guests here and have not bothered to learn the local language and customs to remember that we are the ones who are the guests in the home of others who have no responsibility to adjust to our language and customs or currency symbols. This American woman accompanied by another American woman ordered salmon skinned and cut in a particular fashion and she gave her order in English without any attempt whatsoever to speak Spanish. When the salmon order was brought to her prepared as best the clerk understood she ordered it in a foreign language and it was not precisley as she desired, she turned to her American friend and loudly declared, "This man is an idiot" so loudly and rudely she could be heard half way across the store. She would never have dared to treat a clerk at the fish counter at am American store in such an offensive manner.

Once again, I´m not comparing your offhanded remark with this crude woman´s obnoxious behavior but we all owe it to our hosts to act civily at all times. My wife is not an American but she told me that at that point she was humiliated to be a foreigner living at Lakeside and thus associated by locals with this nasty creature.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on May 13, 2009, 3:27 PM)

La Isla

May 13, 2009, 3:00 PM

Post #38 of 60 (2993 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Marlene] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

OK, Marlene, I´ll bite - what is the origin of the $ symbol?

tonyburton / Moderator

May 13, 2009, 3:04 PM

Post #39 of 60 (2989 views)

Shortcut

Re: [La Isla] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

for a quick summary, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign

RickS

May 13, 2009, 3:17 PM

Post #40 of 60 (2987 views)

Shortcut

Re: [La Isla] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

Take your choice... there seem to be many hypotheses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign

(That Tony has a faster keyboard than I!)

(This post was edited by RickS on May 13, 2009, 3:19 PM)

La Isla

May 13, 2009, 3:30 PM

Post #41 of 60 (2982 views)

Shortcut

Re: [tonyburton] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you move

Can't Post | Private Reply

It looks like the $ originated in New Spain, where it was used to represent the peso in documents, and was later adopted by the fledgling United States of America to designate their currency, the dollar. Hmmm, so apart from tomatoes, corn, tequila and other staples of our diet, we can also thank Mexico for this useful symbol!

tonyburton / Moderator

May 13, 2009, 4:18 PM

Post #42 of 60 (2972 views)

Shortcut

Re: [La Isla] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you move

Can't Post | Private Reply

and the turkey see http://www.mexconnect.com/...originated-in-mexico
and even (almost certainly) Thanksgiving - see http://historicaltextarchive.com/...rticle&artid=736

Brigitte Ordoquy

May 13, 2009, 4:22 PM

Post #43 of 60 (2968 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Hound Dog] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

This is a Dawg; not a Brigitte Ordoquy post. Damn - why doesn`t that harradin sign off after posting?

Thread lightly down here.

The Dawg meant "tread" lightly down here. A comical error and worthy of a guffaw and mindless temporary feeling of superiority among the pseudo-intellectual Republicans hereabouts but you must understand that Dawg has a marginal education at best so beating him at the word game is akin to comparing BabaWawa with Elmer Fudd.

Other points I will make here since I have lost the capacity to edit my original post:

The American woman who acted so rudely to the fishmonger at Walmart not only proclaimed him an idiot but rudely threw the package back at him and, therefore, incurred no financial burden for the salmon she felt was improperly prepared. I suppose. since she had rejected the package and was not required to purchase same, a simple, civilized and softly spoken, "This is not as I intended to order it and I regret that my Spanish is such that I am unable to communicate effectively but I must reject this product." would have sufficed.

By the way - the epithet "idiot" is well understood in Spanish and is a most inflamatory insult. So, it must be that Spanish only speaking persons resident in Ajijic within earshot of this screeching American woman´s presence must have heard the following:

" Blah, blah,blah, idiota.blah, blah, blah!

What a nice introduction to American manners.

(This post was edited by Brigitte Ordoquy on May 13, 2009, 4:37 PM)

jerezano

May 14, 2009, 7:17 AM

Post #44 of 60 (2912 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Brigitte Ordoquy/ Origin of the $ sign. Any old folk out there?

Can't Post | Private Reply

Hello all,

There has to be someone out there besides me (82 years old now) who remembers when the US dollar sign always had two slashes. I can remember when the manual typewriters actually had that sign with two slashes on the dollar sign key. I can't remember if the electric machines, the Selectric, for example still had it or not, but as time went by and we started getting the computer with its keyboard that two slash sign disappeared.

Why did the dollar sign have two slashes? Simple. To distinguish it from the already existing peso sign which had only one. And that was way back when the USA was still a colony of England.

I looked at that wikipedia article referenced earlier, and for some reason that article never mentioned the two slash dollar sign being the accepted symbol for US currency, although it talked around the symbol as having developed.

So our poster above who wanted to know why Mexico didn't develop its own symbol for the peso is evidently a youngster who never encountered the two slash dollar sign. And yes, the USA did develop its own sign for the dollar but for convenience on a restricted keyboard or for some other reason abandoned it sometime around the 50's or perhaps a bit earlier or later.

Now let's get back to what we miss after moving to Mexico. As I stated earlier, despite all the inconveniences of a move to Mexico some 20 years ago and the necessary adjustments I have never missed anything from my previous life in the USA.

Hasta luego, jerezano.

(This post was edited by jerezano on May 14, 2009, 7:24 AM)

La Isla

May 14, 2009, 8:32 AM

Post #45 of 60 (2898 views)

Shortcut

Re: [jerezano] [Brigitte Ordoquy/ Origin of the $ sign. Any old folk out there?

Can't Post | Private Reply

Yes, jerezano, I remember the double-slash dollar sign, and I'm 20 years younger than you are! You should put in your two-cents worth of useful information, and edit that Wikipedia article.

Papirex

May 14, 2009, 10:01 AM

Post #46 of 60 (2884 views)

Shortcut

Re: [jerezano] [Brigitte Ordoquy/ Origin of the $ sign. Any old folk out there?

Can't Post | Private Reply

Yes, I remember that the double slash should be used for the Dollar sign. My Mexican wife always points out that if it has one slash, it denotes Pesos, and if it has two slashes, it denotes Dollars.

I use the single or double slash for the monetary indicator when I make a list of bills to be paid every month. I use the double slash to list the bills that I may pay online directly from my US credit union with Dollars. I use the single slash to indicate our local bills, electric, water, Telmex, cell phones, etc. that must be paid with Pesos.

I believe that the typewriter and computer manufacturers adopted the single slash for manufacturing convenience, and there is nothing we can do about it at this point.

The thing I miss the most here is efficiency in offices, particularly government offices. When we moved to México we changed our US residency address from Anchorage to our daughters house in Fairbanks, Alaska. My US Passport had come up for renewal shortly before we left and I had already changed our address on my new passport to the house in Fairbanks.

We needed new titles and registrations for two cars and one cargo trailer and two new drivers licenses with the Fairbanks address on them. All of the DMV offices in Alaska have live cameras in the lobbies so you may go online to see how busy they are. Mid morning is the best time to visit them.

On the morning that we went there, we had to stand in line behind 2 or 3 people, there were many clerks working so we were served in 2 or 3 minutes. I told the lady that was serving us that we were moving and we needed two new drivers licenses and new titles and registrations for our three vehicles. I gave her our existing titles and registration papers. She gave us forms she had already filled out and we signed them. She then sent us to the end of the counter where we handed over the forms and our old drivers licenses and had our pictures taken.

We walked back to the woman that was serving us and she was busy printing out our new titles and registrations. When she was finished, she put the state seal on each of them and I paid her. We walked back to get our new permanent drivers licenses which were ready. They were still warm from being laminated. Time elapsed for all of that – maybe twenty minutes. That kind of efficiency is unknown in México. (or California)

Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

Ustlach

May 14, 2009, 11:49 AM

Post #47 of 60 (2867 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Hound Dog] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

Yes, Hound Dog, I read "The Ugly American" a long time ago and have lived successfully and inoffensively in as many different cultures as you have, including France, Alabama, and Marin County.

I have always rather respected your opinion and advice. When you told me I should be embarrassed to refer to myself as a "gringo" and that I embarrassed the Mexicans I spoke to using that word, I promptly accepted that and immediately stopped using it in my online name and elsewhere. Despite seeing and hearing it in use all over the place in Mexico (my partner talks about "gringos" right in front of me, and it never seems to embarrass him or the people he is talking to, even with me present), including on Mexico TV, in the television show "G.E.M." (Gringo en Mexico), I am continuing to avoid its use, just in case you are right that Mexicans I talk to are going to be embarrassed by it.

It could well be that the Mexicans were using the $ symbol for the peso before the USA came along and began using it as well. However, you put that symbol out there in front of the eyes of virtually anyone in the world other than a Mexican and no one is going to think "peso." It means US dollars to virtually everyone in the world. But, I am in Mexico and I know how to behave as a guest in a foreign country. Especially when the $ symbol is being used in Mexico or in a Mexican context I think I am required, from now on, to take the symbol to mean "pesos."

What do the Canadians use? They call their currency "dollars," don't they? Don't they use "dollars" in Singapore, and possibly some other countries? If they also use the "$" then I have to accept that. Still, I think everyone else needs to accept the fact that to most people and in all non-specific contexts "$" means US dollars.

Ustlach

May 14, 2009, 12:02 PM

Post #48 of 60 (2864 views)

Shortcut

Re: [jerezano] [Brigitte Ordoquy/ Origin of the $ sign. Any old folk out there?

Can't Post | Private Reply

Jerezano,

I apologize for my part in taking this thread off topic. I have made a mess with this $ thing. And I do not mean to perpetuate my sin, but want to say that I have seen symbol written both ways, with one slash and with two, and I just assumed it was an optional thing. I cannot even remember the last time I hand-wrote a $ symbol but I am pretty sure I do it with two slashes. More importantly, whenever I am referring to pesos, and I cannot be positive about every time I have ever written about pesos, but I doubt I would ever use the $ symbol, with either one or two slashes, to mean pesos. I think I usually say MXP 1000. I might write $1000 MXP. But I would never write $1000 when I meant pesos.

And back to the thread...I have written before that I miss sidewalks and still do.

I also miss polite people who are conscious of others around them and who consciously acknowledge the presense, the existence of other people with their courteouness and polite consideration. It is not enough, for me, that Mexicans have built in atomic clocks and know the precise instant it is no longer "buenos dias" and becomes "buenas tardes." I miss people who respect my privacy and don't ask me how much money I make or how much I paid for my house, who don't endanger me in traffic and on the highway, who don't block the aisles in the groceries stores and ignore me while I wait patiently for them to give way.

I miss common courtesy, the social graces I learned in kindergarten, and common respect for my privacy, my peace and quiet in the wee hours of the night/morning when I need to sleep, my property, and my person.

yucatandreamer

May 14, 2009, 12:14 PM

Post #49 of 60 (2863 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Ustlach] Other than your favorite foods, what was the hardest thing to give up when you moved

Can't Post | Private Reply

Canadians use the $ sign and when talking about greenbacks say U.S. dollars. When in Canada we assume $ means our own dollars. Personally I have taken to clarifying all money $100. U.S. ,$100. CAD, $100. MXP. I only started doing this when writing on forums because it is confusing.

By the way I loved your account of the driving rules in Sonora. We have similar rules in Merida but you need to honk when you are running the red lights. Our driving test is parking your car on the left hand side of the road between two cones.

Hound Dog

May 14, 2009, 5:17 PM

Post #50 of 60 (2829 views)

Shortcut

Re: [Ustlach] [Brigitte Ordoquy/ Origin of the $ sign. Any old folk out there?

Can't Post | Private Reply

You´re OK in my book, Ustlach. I really don´t care what $ means as long as I have more than a few of those things.

Please do not think I was belittling your opinion. That was not my intent. I respect your points of view and appreciate your comments.

Bubba

1 2 3 View All