Hola Tijuana – Home For Six Months.

For the last couple of years John and I lived without unpacking our luggage. We have had some great adventures and experiences, but I missed so much things like actually having clothes on hangers! We had a plan to live in Asia for a year and a half, but suddenly the situation changed and we found ourselves agreeing to spend six months in Tijuana, Mexico. In the end, it is another new adventure and who cares where if we have a place to unpack!

Do you think we had the time to google much about the place or to make a well thought out decision? No, not really!

We said yes and here we are in our new apartment wondering how many avocados and what kind of chillies to buy in the market today. Now we are starting to learn more about this unique place. It is a border city with the USA, officially one of the busiest land border crossings in the world, where we can physically see the famous Mexican wall running along the edge of the city.

The first thing that we did was a little bit of shopping – we bought hangers! After that we unpacked everything with smiles! It is funny that John was talking all the time about how he would like to be able to choose what to wear each day from the wardrobe and now when he can he is still wearing the same clothes, actually I am doing the same.

We don’t remember when the last time was that we were buying toilet paper or looking for where to buy a mop, and damn it is very hard to find a normal mop here! All of them look, I would say, in a bit of an African style and far away from the comfy nice ones in every supermarket in Europe, but after some investigation we did get one. Yesterday I was looking at some expat group on Facebook and found out that we were not the only ones searching for a ‘normal’ mop.

Actually we need to be careful with shopping in general, it is much easier to stick with the most basic needs instead of buying too many exciting things, why? Because it costs less and then you don’t need to worry about shipping things to the next location or feeling sad that you can’t pick them up with you.

Now we have a nice apartment, even if sometimes when it rains the water comes in 😀 We don’t mind that because we don’t have things on the floor! This is our new home and we like it in all possible conditions. Our neighborhood is in the downtown so it is not super busy with traffic and there are many little restaurants, shops, markets around and with a walking distance we can reach the places we need.

As Christmas is coming to ‘town’ we already made our ‘Polaroid Christmas tree’ and got some lights. At the same time as being a little bit festive, the pictures make the apartment more personal.

It will take a little time to get to know Tijuana better, but we have half a year to explore and for now we truly like it here. My favorite place is the local market where we can buy different known and unknown fruits and vegetables. They are so cheap here! So, already it is easy to find Mexican flavours filling our kitchen. Avocados, limes, coriander, tacos, nachos, salsa!

Our apartment also comes with access to a gym so we are actually making an effort to get a bit fitter and healthier. John even stated to drink smoothies in the mornings with different flavors, even if he complains about chia seeds. The most beautiful one is made with cactus fruit – the pink one!

There are many stories about this city and its mafia cartels and I promise we will write more about this place and our new adventures here!