"How in the freak do you keep warm up there?"
"Its not so bad. We heat the houses and dress really warm when we go out. Only your eyes show. It gets so that we recognize people just by the color of their eyes, the color of their parkas or the way they walk. But we like living up there because the neighbors are all so friendly. We all have to be. We depend on each other."
"But I would miss the city," I said.
"However," the Canadian lady continued, "we don't actually live above the Arctic Circle any more ." Aha! "After 25 years, our bones just got too old to endure all that cold." So. I'm not the only wimp at this table. I bet they moved to Thailand or something. "Now we live right outside of Banff National Park. Oh. So that whenever they get homesick they can go hug a glacier?
"How did you decide to re-locate there?"
"Well, we looked around or a while; lived in Thailand for a few years..." Double aha! "...then we started looking for a nice place in Canada -- a small town but one near a major airport in case we needed to travel." I feel ya. "Then we started going to cafes and eavesdropping on conversations with the locals, looking for people we could relate to. And we found this town that we love -- right near the Calgary airport."
that's the kind of information one should file away. Then if I ever decide to move to Iowa -- or Rwanda or Burma -- I'll remember that bit about the local cafes.
December 5: I got an e-mail from my Puerto Vallarta connection. "Meet me at 1 pm at the Que Pasa Cafe." Oh goody. Now I can start my eavesdropping campaign already. PV is near a major airport. But what about low-income housing? Is there any? The guy I'm meeting works for a local online magazine entitled The Insider's Guide to Vallarta at http://vallartainfo.com. He would know.
The bus that took me from the all-you-can-eat hotel to Puerto Vallarta (16 miles) passed a lot of farms, orchards and vegetable fields. Apparently they got a growing season like crazy here that lasts all year long. Botanically speaking, everything here is totally green. Flying over northern Mexico resembled flying over southern Afghanistan. But here? "Tropical paradise."
Our bus stopped in front of a Wal-Mart. "I've never seen such a gigantic one," said the American tourist sitting next to me. "The one in Carson City is huge, but this one is even bigger. And more crowded. I've never seen so many shoppers. But the products are the same -- even the baked goods are the same."
"And are the prices the same too?"
"Exactly the same." I guess NAFTA has been stocking Wal-Mart's shelves. NAFTA and China. If China sells thorough Wal-Marts like this throughout the world, then they won't need to depend on US markets. That's scary. Then they could easily stop buying up our debt markers and/or convert the ones they already have to euros or something. And if they did that, the US economy would be screwed. I may have some of the details wrong here but the bottom line is that our economy's health depends on China -- and now apparently upon the kindness of Sam's Club too.
In any case, I managed to change buses at the bull-fighting stadium and make it to the cafe on time without getting lost more than once. Damn, I'm good. "What about housing in Vallarta?" I asked my friend. "Is it cheap?"
"Some of it is. If you want to live in a little village further up the mountain, you could probably buy something for around $50,000." That's a hecka lot better than paying $700,000 for a two-bedroom house in Berkeley! "But if you want a nice new condo next to the beach, prepare to spend up to half a mil."
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