- Hello Tangerines, from Queretaro, Mexico!
If you're new here, my name is Maddie.
This is Jordan, together we are Tangerine Travels,
and we've been living all across the country,
for over three and a half years.
- In the past,
we've done two videos on why we live in Mexico,
and not in the US, but in today's video,
we're going to tell you how our feelings have
changed over the years.
- And what remains the same.
In one of the past videos on why we live
in Mexico and not in the US, I said,
I believe there is less focus on body image,
and looking a certain way in Mexico.
People in general are more free to own their body type,
- Like the way you look.
- Yeah, the way that you look,
people don't care as much about that as they do
in the US like,
I didn't feel like there's as much fat shaming,
and sort of some things like that.
And I got that impression because when you go out to the
beach, you notice that people who,
maybe aren't
beach body ready, don't come for me,
I'm just trying to like generalize there,
they're still wearing bikini's,
they're not trying to cover themselves up,
they're just having a good time enjoying life,
and not like paying so much attention to like, oh,
what if that person thinks that I look bad or whatever.
They're just out there having a good time.
Where I think my opinions have changed on this a lot,
is that people do very much care about their body image,
but in regards to clothes.
Generally speaking in many, especially the bigger
cities across Mexico,
- Yeah. So like Guadalajara, Queretaro, Mexico City,
the, like the population centers,
- Yeah.
- We really see people caring about how they look,
what they're wearing.
In general, people like to wear brand name, clothes,
and pretty well-manicured and things like that.
- Yeah. I've noticed like with guys here in Queretaro,
there's a lot that are, I think it's called metro-sexual.
So they are straightening their hair,
and jelling it back and manicuring their eyebrows,
and their nails and wearing jewelry, and like trying to
dress really nice just for day to day life.
So I think in that sense, many people do care.
I'm not saying this, this is a bad thing,
but they care how they're perceived.
And maybe that's a wealth thing.
They want to be perceived as doing well off in society,
or that they're more educated or something.
- Even still in today,
you'd go to the smaller towns,
you don't see any of this stuff.
- Yeah, not in beach towns either,
but definitely like the wealthier cities,
the bigger cities like you were saying,
that's the case.
- Previously, we said, one of the reasons why we live in
Mexico and not in the US, is because of the lower cost
of living here.
And since that video, prices have gone up a lot
in both countries.
- Thanks a lot pandemic,
inflation, money printing.
(laughs)
- But, despite prices going up in both countries,
I still think that it remains true,
that it's a much lower cost of living here overall,
depending on the city you're living in,
in Mexico, and the city you're living in,
in the US, it's probably going to be about one third
of the cost here.
But I think that could range from one quarter of the cost,
to a half of the price.
- And, you know, you were just talking,
we were just talking today about Uber Eats,
and that's a luxury that I totally indulge in way too often,
when I'm feeling too lazy to go get coffee, or like,
(cough)
- Almost every day.
(cough)
- Almost every day, it's pretty bad, pretty bad.
(laughs)
Pretty bad.
But we were talking about how it's so cheap,
like you can get Uber Eats every day if you want to be lazy
and do that, even though the prices are higher than
what you'd be paying in the restaurant,
and there's fees, and you have to leave a tip and all that,
it's still cheaper than going out to a restaurant in the
US even, or, and then that's not even speaking about
Uber Eats in, in the US and that cost,
cause you were recently back and you tried getting it.
- Yeah. I could not believe the fees!
In addition to the prices being higher than in the actual
restaurant, there was like a $5 delivery fee,
a $6 service fee, and then the driver was probably
expecting like a $5 tip.
- So before you've even paid for food,
it's probably more expensive than if both of us got
Uber Eats here in Mexico.
- Including tip and delivery.
- Including tip and fees.
(laughs)
- So yeah, things like that just shock us
going back to the US now.
- So that's for sure still a reason why
we live in Mexico, and not the US.
The cost of living is very, very affordable.
And we can have these luxuries, like Uber Eats,
and I'd probably be very sad going back to the US,
realizing that I could never do that again.
Unless I wanted to go broke.
(laughs)
And speaking about food in the US,
at the time when we made those two previous videos,
we still hadn't been able to go back again,
to visit friends and family,
and in case you don't know my story,
in a nutshell, I was dealing with so many health problems
back in the US,
one of which was that every single thing I put in my mouth,
like broccoli or cantaloupe, or like almost everything,
not even unhealthy stuff,
but just literally everything in the food pyramid,
was causing me a reaction of some kind or another,
like some type of inflammatory reaction.
And it was just really bad.
So when we came to Mexico,
I slowly started to reintroduce foods into my diet,
and it was a miracle.
I was able to eat normal foods again,
when I went back to the US though,
within about a week or ten days,
maybe I started noticing that all of those symptoms
were coming back.
So a huge reason why I still live in Mexico,
is because the food somehow is more natural,
or it just vibes better with my body,
unlike whatever the heck is going on with the
preservative infused GMO crap,
or whatever it is about the food in the US.
- If you want to live in Mexico,
I think the best thing you can do for yourself
is to start learning Spanish today.
Our favorite program for this is called Rocket Languages.
It's an awesome course, and a great value.
And if you would like to try it out,
you can go to TangerineSpanish.com.
That's our affiliate link,
and it will take you right to the website.
They have a 60 day money back guarantee.
So if you don't like it for whatever reason,
or if it's not for you, which I think it will be,
you can get your money back.
No questions asked,
again, that's TangerineSpanish.com,
previously, I was mentioning that
I'm personally a bit of a economics nerd,
and I don't like where the
US economy is headed.
It seems like no matter who's in charge every year,
the national debt increase,
and the yearly deficits increase,
and with my knowledge of history,
when a country has this much debt,
and the US is the most
indebted nation in the
history of the world, it doesn't end well.
So I think we're serving ourselves well,
to kind of internationalize ourselves.
I don't like where the US economy is headed,
or the US dollar is headed,
I was nervous about inflation,
and, today I think this is even more so the case,
the government is spending more money than
they ever have in the past,
running bigger deficits than they ever have.
Now, you have thirty trillion dollars
in official government debt,
but if the US government had to report like their income,
their balance sheet,
as if they were a publicly traded company,
adhering to generally accepted
accounting principles,
they would be saying they're
$150 trillion in debt,
but instead, they conveniently take this other
hundred and twenty trillion dollars,
and they don't actually call it
debt, they just call it unfunded liabilities.
So you have a government that's
a hundred and fifty trillion dollars in debt,
and this is according to the Congressional Budget Office,
not according to me, their own numbers.
And they're trying to pay for that debt with an annual
income of negative four trillion dollars a year.
So, how they're going to do that?
Good luck. I'm going to be somewhere else.
- If you're liking this video and want to see more about
Mexico and our life here,
be sure to hit that subscribe button.
We post a new video every Saturday morning.
Before we had said,
in Mexico, it is far less materialistic,
which we view as a good thing.
I'm sure most people would see that as a good thing,
whether it's because they don't have the money or not,
people are just not buying stuff all the time,
on unnecessary stuff.
I think that's only about 50% as true as we thought it was
at the time. And I'll explain.
So in the US,
people get so much stuff and they can,
because you can put it on a credit card, you can get a loan,
so you can buy a brand new car and a house, and that newest,
flat screen TV and all this other technology,
and like expensive purses and clothes.
You put it all on the credit card and you're just in debt,
but you have all those material items that you want.
Here in Mexico, people are still materialistic,
and it depends on the city, of course,
more or less in some places like you're in Queretaro,
I think is a little more materialistic than like,
a small beach town,
but people can only be as
materialistic as they have money for.
So they spend their money on those things that they want
the most, but they can't really put stuff on credit cards,
or get out loans in the same way that you can in the US.
Also, we had said that Amazon two-day,
buying stuff online is not as much of a thing,
and that is definitely true,
but we have fallen back into the habit of getting stuff
on Amazon more,
especially like after getting a house
and stuff, and like putting down roots here,
we're buying stuff online all the time.
So like I said, I think it's about 50% is true,
but there is still materialism here.
It's not like people are so pure of heart,
and not focused on all those things.
Like everybody has their vices,
and that's still one of them for some people here in Mexico.
- Speaking of Amazon Mexico,
the selection here is much smaller than on Amazon.com,
so, I actually think this is a really great,
business opportunity.
In fact, a friend of a friend,
here in Queretaro makes over a million dollars a year,
supplying products on Amazon Mexico.
So, a lot of people are wondering,
hey, how can I make money in Mexico?
Well, I think this is one big opportunity,
that you have here because in my estimation,
Amazon Mexico is about fifteen years behind Amazon US?
Give or take.
And fifteen years ago,
that was a heck of a great opportunity,
for people to supply products on Amazon.com.
So just food for thought.
Okay, I'm ready. I'm done playing.
Back to business.
Another reason why we live in Mexico and not in the
United States is because of politics.
We mentioned that in the previous video that we just,
hated being around US politics,
it was so polarizing,
and like ripping friendships apart,
and like listening to it I just want to tear my
eyeballs out and whatnot,
but that still remains true.
In fact, I think that's even more true today
than it was a few years ago when we first made that video.
- And that's not to say that there's no politics
happening in Mexico, because there is,
and, I'm pretty sure we just got through what was like
the governor, governator elections.
And so there was tons of political ads, billboards,
the whole thing, like very similar to the US,
and in fact, very similar slogans and stuff to what you
would hear in the US too.
But, I think we're more able to tune it out and like,
ignore that side of Spanish, and just specifically not have
conversations about that.
So it's kind of like a blind spot for us here.
Does this frame my face nicely?
Is this good for the video clip?
(laughs)
So, along the same lines as politics,
is something else that we talked about there being
in the US a lot of off limits topics,
this is so weird, I can't do it.
(laughs)
Let me go over here.
There's a lot of stuff that you can't really talk about in
the US like, you supposedly have your freedom of speech,
but now there are literally topics that for instance,
we cannot talk about on our YouTube channel,
or it could get shut down.
There are certain things that you cannot say anymore,
like whether you are in support or against the vaccines,
or saying something like herd immunity or natural immunity
or things like that, I'm not making any opinions on that,
I'm not saying what I think I'm just saying are things,
topics that you can't really go into.
And I think maybe because of the pandemic,
or because of the way politics have changed because of
fear-mongering and controlling the population through fear,
there are stuff like there are these freedoms that people
are giving up.
Like not even thinking about it too much,
because of this fear.
- And that reminds me of a famous quote.
I think it's by Benjamin Franklin.
And it goes something like,
"Those who will give up a little bit of freedom
for a little bit of security, will deserve
neither and lose both".
And these past videos were pre-COVID.
But now, just think about what freedoms people have
given up in the US and where will that lead?
Will it will it lead somewhere where Benjamin Franklin
said it would?
- That's definitely a reason why I like living in Mexico,
because I don't feel like the same thing is happening at
least to the same extremes.
- Yeah, I have read the book, "1984"
like maybe three, four or five years ago,
something like that.
And I couldn't believe this is supposed to be
a dystopian novel.
And at that time, it was like a freaking instruction manual
for the government, for the world powers,
to like create the society they wanted.
It was unbelievable.
And I remember one of those things that happened in the book
is the government puts out a dictionary every year of the
allowable words and every new revision of that dictionary.
takes out some of the things you're allowed to say,
some of the words that are in society.
I feel like that's even more so the case now than it was
when I read that a few years ago.
- Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention in terms
of this society being rooted in fear,
and the powers of be controlling people,
is that we were sort of in previous videos talking about
like mass shootings becoming more of a prevalent thing
in society in the US, and since then,
even more crap has gone down,
even more stuff continues to happen
in that same facet, like the BLM riots,
and rights and freedoms being taken away
because of the pandemic, because of COVID, race wars,
like society just seems to be falling apart.
It was just crazy. I don't want to be a part of that.
I don't want to live somewhere where I'm constantly
thinking, okay, what's the next thing going to be?
What's the next politically incorrect statement or action
or whatever hobby that I have,
or something like that.
It's just not a very desirable position to be in.
I will say that here in Mexico,
I think it's way more restrictive in terms of COVID now,
like still having to wear masks,
some requirements about how many people can go into
the store at a time,
you have to get your temperature taken
on the way in everywhere, use hand sanitizers,
step on a stupid sanitizer mat for your feet,
whatever the heck that does.
But I see this as a phase here in Mexico,
whereas the things that are happening,
the cracks in society, in the US,
I think that's only going to get worse, unfortunately.
So in the previous videos, we mentioned that
one of the biggest reasons why we love
living in Mexico is
the people of Mexico.
This is one of the best things about living here,
is that you're surrounded by some of the most
hardworking people that I've ever experienced
in my entire life,
they're also loving, helpful, kind, welcoming, hospitable,
and just, I mean, we could list off 20 or 30 traits.
Great traits that, the vast majority of Mexicans have.
And that has remained true still to this day,
and even more so now that we are plugging ourself
here into life in Queretaro,
trying to make friends, and expanding our social
circle, and
- And build a life here.
- Yeah, build a life here.
People are welcoming us into their friend group,
and inviting us to parties, and events and lunches,
and all these different types of things,
even though they hardly know us at all.
So,
and that's not to say that you can't do that in the US,
it's not like people are so closed off,
you can't make friends,
but I just feel like the people
here are something truly special.
And it's different in a way that I sort of can't describe.
(laughs)
The people in Mexico versus in the US.
- One problem that kind of comes with this though,
is it seems like we're getting invited to like,
four parties a week now, and,
(laughs)
- Productivity has gone out the window.
(laughs)
My liver is throwing a fit,
(laughs)
because there's also alcohol
at all of them so,
(laughs)
but I love it. I love that we're getting, like,
we're becoming part of life here in Mexico in a way
that we haven't before, because when we were traveling
from place to place to place, for like,
just a week at a time,
or maybe a couple months,
if we were deciding to live there longer,
(laughs)
- Live there.
- But, it's like, you just, can't at least like,
that's not my personality, it's not your personality
either to like, make a whole bunch of friends.
I'm not like so, so outgoing that I'm going to be
chatting people up everywhere we go.
And sometimes in the past, it's felt sort of pointless
to meet up with people and try to make friendships
when we are in a place for only one week.
- Yeah.
- So we may never see that person again,
and like a lot of times I'm like,
I want to experience the city, I want to eat the food,
I want to see the art, the cines,
and meeting up with a person for like an hour,
it kind of drops down on my priority list,
(laughs)
but I'm being honest.
- Yeah. I mean, for me,
it takes time to develop friendships and like,
like you, I'm not super outgoing.
I don't have a huge friend group.
I have I've my whole life.
I've always had like a smaller group of good friends,
rather than a whole bunch of friends.
- At the time that we made those previous videos,
it had only been about a year that we were living
and traveling in Mexico, and we were saying that
it had been one of the most fulfilling,
and amazing experiences of our lives,
more than we ever thought was possible.
And so now it's been three and a half going on
four years later, and that has become even more true
than I thought it ever could be,
in terms of just personal fulfillment, growth,
understanding of the world and people,
continuing to learn a new language,
and experience the culture and just all the
amazing things that come with being in a foreign country.
And I'm so grateful for that, there have been
plenty of good, bad and ugly things that have happened
since we've been here,
but I would not trade this experience
for all the money in the world.
So two videos ago,
I released a video, a vlog of a day by myself,
titled, "Should I move back to the US?",
and honestly, there are so many reasons why
that is kind of a good idea for me right now,
after the breakup and with different things
that I'm dealing with,
but especially after re-watching
the two previous videos on why we do
live in Mexico and the US,
and thinking about current reasons
why I like living here,
I don't think I ever could go back to the US.
Mexico is my home, Mexico has my heart,
and I do want to stay here.
And I hope to continue living here for a very long time.
- If you feel like there's things that are missing
about why we live in Mexico and not in the United States,
that's probably because we mentioned them in
those two previous videos.
(laughs)
- So we'll link the first one on the screen right now.
So you can continue watching,
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