Life is sometimes stranger than fiction!  Sometimes we get into situations where if we were anywhere else, we might just be scared.  But we were not!

There is a house next door to ours.  We look over our wall and see the upper half of the house.  A few months ago we met the owner and a friend of his.  They are 40-ish.  Juan's family owns the house and he generally takes care of it.  But due to a variety of circumstances, he was unable to do much for about 3 or 4 years.  That ended a few months ago.  We met he and his friend when they came to work on the house.  They were here for a few days and then went back to Guadalajara.

Once in a while we would hear from Juan that he would be coming soon.  But he never materialized until day before yesterday.  Then that evening, he sent a text message that he was outside our gate and could we come and talk to him.
It turns out that by accident (obviously) he locked one of the doors of his house, and then the other door he was going to use to go in and get his keys and money and stuff, shut on it's own accord, locking him out.  He said he was on his way to pick up a pizza because it had been a long time since he'd had anything to eat.

It was 10 p.m.  We did everything we could think of --- asking down at the security gate if anyone had a saw we could borrow.  We went over to a construction site where a worker was staying but he was totally out of it.  We called who we could think of, but everyone here goes to bed fairly early. 

So we did the only decent thing --- we invited him to spend the night at our house.  Lucky for us he is truly a great guy.  He came in the house and immediately said he wanted to call his sister and let her know he was alright and that he was staying with us.

He hadn't had any dinner, so we rustled up some bacon and scrambled eggs with toast.  All in all it was totally odd, but a whole lot of fun.  He speaks English and, of course Spanish.  So when he couldn't think of the word he'd speak Spanish, and when we couldn't think of the word in Spanish, we'd speak English.  We laughed and had a good time.  We talked about places and family, travels and friends.  Turns out he's a professional illustrator, his mother is an artist and paints, and so we discussed that too!

Finally, around midnight, we called it a day and went to bed.  Our neighbor in the apartment above us came home the next day (she was one we had called, thinking she was upstairs) and she said "so.....did we have a sleepover last night?" and chuckled.  Well, yes we did, of sorts. Nice to have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms! ha ha ha

                     That's definitely one way to get to know your neighbor!

When I arrived in Uruguay from the United States I immediately did all the paperwork to become a legal permanent resident with hopes to gain citizenship one day.  But we didn't do that.  We changed our minds for various reasons.

Instead we moved to Mexico.  We are technically tourists by definition.  When you come to Mexico you can enter the country and stay for 180 days.  This is referred to as a tourist visa and there is no application process for US Citizens or Uruguayan residents (which we were). 

We are just now completing 180 days, so we are going to leave Mexico and stay out of the country for a couple of days and return for another 180 days for me, and hopefully, my partner will get her temporary resident visa good for a year and renewable. Later on, for reasons I'm not going to go into right now, I will apply for my temporary resident visa.  We plan to live here as long as possible.  I do not plan to become a Mexican citizen at this time.

However, both the United States and Mexico allow a person to have dual citizenship.  I have no plans to renounce my American citizenship.  Renunciation is an entirely other subject.  It is very serious and irreversible.  I, personally, and like so many others here in Mexico and in the United States, am not happy with my home country right now.  But I do not have any plans to renounce my citizenship.

There is no perfect place on the face of the earth.  There is no 100% safe place on the face of the earth.  So you have to pick carefully where you think it is most appropriate for you to live for all the reasons that mean something to you.  We are here in Mexico not running from anywhere or anyone, but because the cost of living, the climate, the people, and the closeness to the United States were all contributing factors for us.  You have to make the decision based on your own set of "factors".

That is exactly what we've done!  At this time we are very happy with that decision and hope we can enjoy this beautiful country with it's wonderful people and awesome culture, it's fabulous weather and terrific food, for a long time to come.