First Impressions

• Windwalk's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from San Diego

Trip Start Oct 01, 2009 Trip End Nov 30, 2009

  San Diego, California
Friday, October 16, 2009

Many folks have asked us about our impressions of the USA after living in Mexico.  Since Facebook only allows 2 line posts, and it would be too long for Amigas, I figured I'd go ahead and write a blog here.  It's not really a travel blog, since we don't plan on going anywhere else right now.  But for what it's worth, here it is.

Overall, we are very excited to be back in the USA.  When we left over 3 years ago we were fed up with many things about the USA, but right now it's hard to remember what some of those things were (apart from Bush and his politics, and obviously that's over and done with!)  In fact, at the moment we're enjoying some of the very things we used to scoff at -- like fast food places.  I used to say I was proud of the fact that I'd managed to live in the USA for over 15 years and never eat at any fast food "restaurant" (I have a hard time using that word for fast food joints.)  But we are finding that used appropriately -- i.e. when you're driving in the middle of nowhere and that's all there is, or when you have to eat all your meals out and don't want to break the bank-- they can be real life-savers (Taco Bell's 89 cent bean burrito comes to mind!)

While I'm on the subject of food, we are thoroughly enjoying getting reacquainted with old favorites -- like Kashi Good Friends cereal, fresh tofu, and of course everything that Trader Joes has to offer.  We've always enjoyed Fresh Choice -- called Soup Plantation in Southern California for its excellent fresh salad bar.  We are discovering better-than-average fast food places like Pick-Up-Stix which offer fresh stir-fried veggies/chicken with brown rice and we love the fact that we have a choice of Vietnamese restaurants in our neighborhood. Also, since we've had to rely on using external sources to get online for the last few days (because of work in our house), starting our days with breakfast at Starbucks isn't just a guilty pleasure as they provide free wi-fi. 

But OK, apart from food, what else?  Well Southern California is of course different from anywhere else, even northern California.  You are surrounded by the beautiful people -- tanned, fit, healthy, outdoors types.  We are less than a 5 minute drive from a reservoir with a 5 mile loop for folks to walk, run, bike and you really get to see those folks there.  Overall we've been impressed by how friendly and helpful everyone is.  Perhaps it's just the fact that we actually understand what they're saying but we couldn't help but notice that even though they might be screwing us over (we had to get over $1000 worth of work done on our car that we think was warranted) at least they do it with a friendly, cheerful face.

We have been mostly very impressed by the customer-service.  One of the first things we bought was a TV.  But when we hooked it up to the cable, certain channels had no sound.  So we called the cable guy -- he came within half an hour, was extremely helpful and friendly, though ultimately he discovered that all these particular TVs have a fatal flaw that means they're going to be recalled so we had to take it back to the store.  At the store they bent over backwards to accommodate us and to make it up to us that they were selling new TVs that shouldn't be sold. On the other end of the scale, we were unimpressed with the service we got at Sears where we bought a new set of tires -- after assuring us we could come in without an appointment and that we'd only have to wait an hour, we ended up having to wait three hours because they didn't tell us they only had one person doing that particular job.  This wasn't the first time we noticed a major outfit seems to be understaffed -- we also had to wait for our rental car longer than expected because their office had "resized" their staffing needs. 

Overall do we see signs of a weak or depressed economy?  Yes and no.  Yes, in that when we left the States the commercials on TV tended to focus on "you deserve to pamper yourself" and now they all focus on, "this will help you save money."  No, in the sense that in this particular area all the stores, restaurants, etc, seem to be doing just fine, folks are working, shopping, etc.

So I just asked Carol what her impressions are.  She said, "it's clean!"  That's true, the roads seem amazingly clean, as do public restrooms and public areas in general.  Of course it's totally unfair to compare a major metropolis like San Diego with a rural area like Lake Chapala, but that's where we were living so that's where we make our comparisons.  We remember finding Mexico City very clean too in comparison to Lakeside.  I used to walk Sparkle every morning to the lake which looked so sparkling in the distance, but the shore was always covered with trash, bottles, diapers, plastic bags, cow dung, horse poop, used toilet paper (no, not by the horses and cows) etc. etc.  In contrast, the reservoir by our house is pristine.

And of course, the freeways here are amazing -- 8 and 10 lanes of fast flowing traffic.  So far we haven't run into any traffic jams and are getting to know our way around pretty easily.  We feel very lucky to be living on the one hand so near a major freeway, and also near several malls so that every store and restaurant we could want is within a five minute drive, yet on the other hand, we are in a very quiet community so that at night we can still hear the crickets, just as we could in Mexico.

As we did in Mexico, as soon as we moved in, we started having work done on our house.  We really had to as it desperately needed new paint and new floors.  The work has taken longer than expected, but that seems to be partly because they are doing a very thorough job.  We can't post pictures yet (who knows where the heck the camera is?  who knows where the heck anything is?  everything is under plastic covers.)

Many of our friends in Mexico wondered if we would be shocked by prices here.  So far, I don't think we've found things to be more than we expected.  Of course, we don't eat in high-end restaurants, or have expensive tastes, but many things don't seem to be that much more than when we left three and a half years ago.  A pleasant surprise is that the salaries being offered for the jobs I'm looking at are much higher than they would be in Sacramento and almost double what I saw in Florida, so that will be good news for my social security.  I just got offered a job on Friday which I will probably take (mental health with older adults.) 

If we were on a fixed income and trying to make it go as far as it does in Mexico, obviously we couldn't.  But we found we were jaded by some of the so-called bargains.  When we had the house in Mexico painted, we were amazed at how affordable it was.  But the painters weren't experts and we weren't happy with a lot of what they did, which needed redoing a short time later.  Here we are paying more but feel that the (Serbian) guys really know what they're doing and are using good quality materials.  Same with the food thing --  yes, it costs more here, but we'd rather eat out less often at places where the food is excellent, than eat out as often as we liked in Lakeside but rarely find food worth eating.

OK, that's it for now. You'll notice there's a slightly rose-colored tinge to this blog, I admit we're in the honeymoon phase! 

Feel free to ask questions and I'll reply .

Share