That's a Thing? -- Part 2

I wrote a post a couple months ago called, “That’s a Thing?” about things we were surprised to learn about our new life in Mexico.  I’m sure it’s no surprise since writing that post we’ve come across many other “things” so I think this topic may need to be a recurring one! 

More things we didn’t know are things:

• Apparently pointing in your spouse’s face is considered an angry gesture… Like, “You’re in trouble, mister!”  I found that out after I pointed in Ty’s face when I was trying to get him to admit to something when we were hanging out with some new Mexican friends… They explained when a wife points at her husband that usually means they’re in an argument, but because I was laughing/smiling/teasing Ty (duh) when I pointed at him, they understood that we were just playing around… Kinda funny, but it made me realize that I need to be more careful with gestures we see as “normal” so I don’t unintentionally offend anyone (more than I usually do.)

• Eggs are not refrigerated here.  When you buy them in the store they’re just in a normal aisle…not in the refrigerated section.  And if you buy them at one of the little tiendas in town, they’re usually just in a stack behind the counter and you tell the cashier how many you want and he puts them in a little bag for you.  You can buy just one egg if you want to.  For the first month or so, we were still storing eggs in our fridge when we brought them home, but Ty now insists on keeping them out on the counter like a real Mexican. 

•  You know how you go to Fred Meyer or Safeway and there’s a bakery section?  And you can buy donuts or artisan bread or whatever?  Well, US bakeries have NOTHING on Mexico.  Here the bakery sections in large grocery stores (WalMart, Mega, Chedraui) are glorious, carb-filled playgrounds that I’d like to eat my way through.  There are trays and trays of the tastiest-looking pastries you’ve ever seen, bins full of freshly-baked bread, cakes, donuts, homemade ding dongs (!!!) croissants, bagels, cookies, cupcakes, muffins, everything.  After you do a fair amount of drooling, you grab a big, silver tray and a pair of tongs and you load up the tray with all of the things you’ll regret eating later, and then you take your tray up to the nice lady at the counter and she bags up your stuff and prints out a barcode sticker with the price (just like when you go to the deli counter and buy meat or salads or whatever) and then you put your pastry bag in your cart and whine at your husband to hurry up with the rest of the shopping because you have every intention of eating a donut as soon as you get in the car.  Also, donuts are basically like 10 cents here, so…I’m screwed.

• There are these little flying bugs (about an inch long) here that have NEON green eyes that GLOW IN THE DARK.  I wish that was an exaggeration, but it’s 100% true.  The first time we saw one, we were in bed in pitch blackness and we saw the bug’s eyes flying straight at us like a shooting star.  Ty let out a girly shriek and swatted him outta the air, causing him to smack into the concrete wall and fall to the floor.  As he was dying, we watched his creepy headlights go dim until they were all the way “off.”  Um, no thank you.

• While we’re on the subject of bugs, flies come in 4 sizes here, in case you were wondering.  There are little flies that like to follow the dogs around (gross), then there’s your standard black house fly like we’re all used to… And then there’s the grande fly that’s about the size of a nickel which causes you to go “Ugh!” while quickly shooing it away from your immediate area.  And then there’s the Big Nope Fly who is the size of a quarter and will cause you to slowly back out of whatever room he is currently occupying.  And if he wasn’t creepy enough already, he also has a giant, unicorn-like antennae on his forehead and sounds like a lawnmower when he buzzes past your ear at 20 miles per hour. 

• We received a couple pieces of mail from people in the states and based on the date stamp, it seems like it took about 5 weeks to get here.  Overall, the mail system is still a mystery to us though… Something that’s vastly different than back home are the utility bills here.  They aren’t mailed to you…someone literally comes around and sticks your water or electric bill into your gate or fence and you just have to hope you notice it, it doesn’t get blown away or rained on, etc.  After you get your water bill, you take it to the little city water office here in La Cruz to pay the balance.  To pay the electric bill, you drive to the CFE office in Bucerias and feed cash into an ATM-type machine.  Weird.

• Everything is a bottle opener in Mexico.  Everything.  We’ve have seen countless coke and beer bottles opened with machetes, other unopened bottles, shovels, candle holders, teeth, chairs, you name it…it’s a bottle opener.  The only time we’ve ever seen a Mexican use an actual opener…was to purposely use the wrong end of it to open a beer.  Much to everyone’s entertainment, Ty often tries to open bottles with random objects and usually fails miserably.  Our Mexican buddies get a good kick out of watching him try though… 

Welp, that's all I can think about right now... But stay tuned for the inevitable follow-up to my "That's a Thing?" series.  I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat!