World's Worst Blogger

Like all my good intentions, the one to document my Mexican experience started out strong and then fizzled out. And now, here I am on my last night in San Miguel de Allende, with a zillion photos and experiences left unposted. Maybe once I'm back at work, imprisoned in my government-issued cubicle, I'll do some after-the-fact posting.

Meanwhile, here are the things I'll miss most about living in Mexico:

1. People -- Mexican people are, generally speaking, extremely nice, and kind, and helpful. They are (again speaking very generally) much nicer and less angry and stressed than Americans. People here often go out of their way to help out, much more so than Americans do. I will miss living with kind and affectionate and helpful people. Where else will the guy who picks up the laundry every week ever hug me goodbye?

2. Time -- The Mexican attitude towards time is (famously) very different than that of the U.S. It's not really true that everything runs late here -- for example, the local bus that runs past my house and goes to the center of town runs every 15 minutes like clockwork, which is a lot more than you can say about the buses in San Francisco. But here time is not equated with money the way it is in the U.S. People often take the time to enjoy things, to talk, to help out, or whatever, without expecting to get paid for it. There have been times, of course, when I've been sitting in my house at 3 p.m. waiting for the person who said he'd drop by in the morning, when I have wished for a more American attitude, but for the most part I love the attitude that time is for living your life in, not for sticking to a schedule.

3. Working with your hands -- There are a lot of manual laborers here. Labor is cheap, and machines are relatively expensive, which is pretty much the opposite of the U.S. This means that people get paid very little for doing some pretty lousy jobs, but it also means that people take the time to do things by hand that are beautiful to look at. So instead of covering windows and doorways and electric meters with plain iron bars, most of the ironwork is elaborate and beautiful and shaped liked birds or leaves or the sun. Most bathrooms and kitchens and stairways are covered with tiles. Artesanias are everywhere, made from wood and clay and tin and silver and copper and wool, one more beautiful than the next.

4. Colors -- Mexicans love brightly colored stuff, and so do I. The walls of the houses are painted red and yellow and orange and green and blue. Papel picado hangs in the streets and in restaurants and stores. The colors are beautiful and impossible to describe in words.

5. Food -- Despite the fact that they don't have any decent Chinese food here, I will miss the food. The fresh-squeezed orange juice, the carrots and tomatoes and limes that have more flavor than they do in the U.S., the gorditas and elotes and tortillas and arrachera and mole and aguas frescas. And my favorite restaurants -- the Jamaican Soul Food restaurant with the incredible ginger tamarindo chicken and Cafe Iberico which has great tapas (especially the Pimientos de Padron) and the little flour tortilla place on Mesones and Ten Ten Pie's grilled fish.

There's more, a lot more, that I will miss, but that'll do for starters.