A bit spoiled....Victoria and I

This is the view I now look at everyday from my window; the Highway 7 and Wooddale Ave intersection is getting a face lift. A face lift that will take months. The pile of concrete is not the mountain range with volcanoettes (Harry's terminology) we used to view each day from our balcony, it is just a pile of concrete. The trees are not palm trees and being it is April in Minnesota, the trees have no leaves. The noise now are the trains, not the music that used to float in our windows, often until 4 a.m. I sometimes feel a bit lost rambling about our condo here, it feels three times as large as our condo was in San Jose. But I am adjusting.

Adjustment, how easily it comes. In some ways it feels like I never left. I am back into my old routines and realizing just how spoiled I really am. It is clear how much easier my life is now and clear how unattractive it is as well. My American hairdresser, Jennifer used to always say, "Life is hard here in Mexico." And she had the advantage of speaking the language fluently having been brought up my Mexican parents in the states. The material things I missed I can now obtain and obtaining has become my passion. I have made a point of eating everything I so missed eating; the healthy things like a McDonald's fish sandwich and hot cross buns from my favorite grocery store. The experience of rampant consumerism enfolds me. Finding what you want or think you have to have is not a problem now. The choices are endless. Not so in Mexico. There choices were finite.

In Mexico everyday one woke up to the sunshine, not during Hurricane season of course, but all the other days. Yesterday it was cool and rainy and cloudy. Now I jump into my little VW and hit the freeway to a shopping mall in no time flat. In Mexico I could be in the desert or on the beach in no time flat. It was a big event when the movie theatre in town had a movie on you really wanted to see. Here of course there are dozens of movies available you can see at all times of the day or night. Yesterday I went to see Young Victoria and had a good cry. I also went shopping yesterday for slacks; endless choices, endless places to shop. In San Jose, only one place for a chubby middle aged American woman to shop. No trouble now finding the latest People or New Yorker magazines either. Expensive but important luxuries I dearly missed every week. Finding these magazines was impossible in our little town. Today I am going to the video store to rent movies. That was not so easy in Mexico either. Never could figure out the Spanish translations of American movies and our DVD player never worked anyway. Now we are back to scores of television stations too. I got used to watching only CNN and Dancing with the Stars as our stations were very limited. There were always Canadian curling tournaments to watch. I did a lot of reading instead of staring at the tube. Everyday now our mailbox is filled with junk mail I have to clean out. In Mexico I had no mailbox.

Guess I really did need a good cry yesterday trying to deal with my adjustment process! Thanks Victoria. Just wish my life was as interesting as your life. I do think however we both were and are a bit spoiled. We have that in common at least.