Whatchamacallit...eria

Zappateria, Lecheria, Gaspacheria, Tequileria, Tortilleria, Muebleria, Mariscoseria, Pasteleria, Panaderia, Dulceria, Ferreteria. Before Mexico, I was only familiar with cafeteria.

Uno y Uno

The majority of intersections in Centro don't have traffic lights. Instead, you'll see "Uno y Uno" signs at which cars are expected to go back & forth traffic one car at a time. Surprisingly, they make the flow of traffic pretty smooth. In our experience, most Morelian drivers are quite good about obeying these signs.

Fresh Corn Tortillas

When eating Mexican food back in Canada, it's pretty much all flour tortillas. The few times I had corn tortillas - they totally sucked. Dry & tasteless. Enter the tortilleria: a place that make fresh corn tortillas. They come out of this noisy contraption with conveyor belts & gears a crankin'. All I can say is "wow"! They taste great, the texture is soft & the price is dirt cheap. For 3 people, it costs about MXN$1 and by the time we eat them at dinner they're still warm! I never would have thought that corn tortillas could taste so good! Our favourite is Tortilleria Tere, which has been around since 1960. It's always busy busy busy. It's located on the southwest corner of Manuel Nuñiz and Nicholas Bravo.

XM Radio

Living in a land of Spanish speakers when you speak very little yourself is not easy & sometimes even lonely. Hearing English every once in awhile has become essential to our sanity! However, (in Morelia at least) you can't just turn on the radio and listen to your favourite music, sports score, news cast, etc. This is where satellite radio enters the picture. XM and Sirius satellite radio subscriptions are both available in Canada and USA for approx. C$15/month. Their coverage is technically supposed to be for just those two countries. If you call customer service at either provider neither will give you a definitive answer about receiving a signal in MX. They say something along the lines of "at this moment we do not offer service in Mexico". Granted, this IS true. You can't buy XM receivers in MX or even sign up for monthly service without a NA mailing address BUT you can sign up when in Canada or the US and then bring it down with you. This is because it's all about the satellite footprint (see pic). It is sooooooooo big that it covers half of MX & XM has no way of stopping you from receiving their signal once over the border. We have found that XM easily works in MX as far down as Morelia. While at home, the antenna must be pointed toward the south to get reception. In the car, we get reception in most situations. Urban areas with lots of tall buildings or areas with lots of tall trees or mountains will 'cause the signal to sometimes drop off. In any case, there has been no regret prepaying for a year's worth of feed.

Parking

Finding free parking in Morelia isn't too bad. Just be aware of afew things! Firstly, there are rarely any official "No Parking" signs. Instead the curbs are painted yellow. Unfortunately, the paint is usually all faded & chipped so really all you're left looking for is afew yellow specks. Also, watch out for resident posted "No Parking" (No Estasionarse) signs (like in the pic above). Especially within Centro, some people park their cars in little one car garages in the fronts of their houses. These are often closed in by big wooden doors or metal gates & most often there is a dip in the sidewalk's concrete. If you park in front of one of these entrances/exits the resident can call "the city" & you'll get a ticket & be towed. Towed to where I can not even begin to guess. Lastly, be prepared for afew scratches on you bumpers. Most of the parking is parallel parking. I am quite impressed with the average driver's ability to squeeze into the teeniest space free from any bumper taps but inevitably there are casualties.

Note: We found we were getting too many dings and scratches on our bumpers so we did eventually bite the bullet. We pay for monthly parking at a lot down the street from our house. It costs MNX$45o.00/month.

Skype you

Have lots of family and friends to stay in touch with via long distance? Well, if you have access to a computer with a microphone (if not, you can buy one at Office Depot for like MXN$50.00) you're in luck! Skype is something I've known about for a while but never utilized it until we moved. I have no idea how it works but it lets you use your computer as a telephone. If you have a vdo camera on your comp. you can even vdo conference instead! This is fun because I can hold up to the camera something I bought or they can see my new haircut, or sunglasses, etc. If your friend has also signed up for Skype you can talk for free. Seriously! FREE! If your friend is not hooked up with Skype though it's no problem. You can call their regular ol' landline telephone from your computer for a great rate. To Canada, we call for C$0.02/min. (& a C$0.06 connection fee). I think the US is the same pricing. You don't need to buy any software, it is free to sign up, you can pay for your calls with either a credit card or pay pal acct. & we have received little if any promotional emails from them. You can even have Skype forward your incoming calls to your landline phone! Once you go Skype you don`t go back.

Bug Infestation

Volkswagon's lone North American production unit is based in Puebla. In 2007 the plant pumped out 411,129 cars, trucks and buses. Two-thirds of those were for export to Europe, the U.S. and Canada. The rest stayed in Latin America.