Why are we in Guadalajara, Mexico (after Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru)? The city was never on our bucket list, but mostly we wanted to continue practicing our Spanish in a big Spanish-speaking city (4 million) with a perfect climate. Plus, we have visited Mexico City several times, which we enjoyed but is much bigger (8 million), and we wanted to try another Mexican city.

In GDL (as it is abbreviated by locals) the days are sunny, often with rain in the late afternoon, and warm (but not too warm) evenings. Very similar to Medellin, Colombia where we started our travels 11 months ago. Since we arrived, Marc has been wearing shorts every day and because we are at a lower altitude than in Cusco and Cuenca I am not wearing my winter coat anymore. Heaven!

We have only been here for two weeks–so, this isn’t an in-depth review. Just a quick breakdown of our first impressions of the city.

Guadalajara’s charms are scattered throughout its neighborhoods. Centro Histórico has beautiful and picturesque colonial buildings.

A more modern area is Chapultepec which has fashionable restaurants, coffeehouses, and nightclubs. Many evenings dancers and arts and crafts vendors set up along the park boulevard that runs the entire 12-blocks of the Chapultepec avenue creating a lively and enjoyable walk.

Tlaquepaque is the home of artisans, with a quaint village atmosphere. It is one of Mexico’s pueblo magicos (magic towns with a special beauty or cultural attraction) and home to many artisans. We spent a few hours here wandering along the avenue, browsing boutique shops and artisan stalls.

Andares is a beautiful mall with all the stores expected in an expensive U.S. mall including Best Buy, Starbucks, Brooks Brothers, H. Stern, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Fendi, and a Mac Store.

So far, we find Guadalajara to be very pleasant and we enjoy walking around the nice Colonia’s, ordering coffee from one of the many cafes, and grabbing a beer and tacos at a great taqueria. We love Mexican food and have tried one of the local favorites-torta ahogada (chili sauce-drowned pork sandwich)- it was really good.

A typical drink is called Tejuino which is made from fermented corn dough, lemon, salt, and lemon-shaved ice. Marc liked it; I liked the lemon-flavored shaved ice part of it.

What have we been doing since we arrived? The first few days after moving to a new city we are always busy. There’s so much to do including figuring out where to buy food, transportation, telecommunications, picking up items not furnished by the Airbnb apartment, and then trying to do a few fun things like exploring our new surroundings.

This is our 9^th Airbnb apartment since we began traveling. We usually book a place online for two weeks and then when we arrive in the city, decide what neighborhood we like. We look for apartments and visit a few of them in person before booking one for 2-3 months.

The apartment we chose before coming here is not quite as it was depicted in the Airbnb listing, but they never are. It’s a little bit darker and more dated, a little more basic, a little older and rougher around the edges, but has suited us fine for 14 days. Since we only had this apartment for two weeks, we have looked at several apartments and have booked a better one for the next two months. Es Bueno!!! It has a lot of advantages, and a few disadvantages, but overall, we think it’s going to be great.

Here are the benefits of the apartment we are in for 14 days:

It’s very centrally located. We can leave our building and immediately have hundreds of food options at our fingertips. There is a washer and dryer on the roof terrace. And it’s easy to get an Uber because we are near a main street. We have no air conditioning or heat, but we have two fans, so we are comfortable.

As in many of the cities we have visited, we can’t drink the water, so we are buying big jugs of water and we are soaking our fruits and veggies in a special disinfectant solution before eating them.

So, how are we feeling about Mexico so far?

It’s colorful, the grocery stores are clean, it appears safe, it’s warm (80 degrees with blue skies), it’s noisy with buses, dogs, music and anything else that makes noise and it has a great standard of living for the price. We think we’ll like it here.