RAWR. RAWR.
And the more we explore, the more we're kind of shocked. I had woken up in a US city
where for some reason everyone was speaking Spanish. Alright, it is the morning, I got my
coffee. I'm Jordan and I'm Maddie. And we just arrived in Guadalajara, Mexico. We're noticing
some stuff that's similar to the US, we're noticing some stuff that's a lot
different, and generally just soaking in the newness and everything that makes up
Guadalajara. So these are our first impressions. What have you noticed? Well,
When we first came into town my first thought was wow this reminds me a lot of
Houston, Texas in the U.S. Because it's huge, you see these buildings are massive.
Factory-style buildings, much bigger than anything we've seen anywhere else in
Mexico. The streets are wide, there's a lot of traffic, and there's quite a few
tall buildings as well that we saw on the way in. Yeah, there's a lot more money
here than I thought there'd be. It is a really nice neighborhood. As we're
driving in here we see like a guard at one of them. Our Airbnb host ends up
telling us that a few houses down is where the guy lives who started the de la Rosa
Mazapan candies here, which is a super popular staple Mexican candy. You've
probably even seen them in the US.
RAWR, RAWR, RAWR, RAWR
Ow! That hurt.
Hello!
The next thing we noticed about Guadalajara is it is impeccably clean. We are
Hard pressed to find any piece of garbage, anywhere, super clean! Maybe even
more clean than Mazatlán. People have perfectly manicured their lawns, trees,
Everything around their house, the bushes, everything is perfect. No trash anywhere.
So many people sweeping, every day, outside. For how many people live here, that's kind of
shocking to me. Now the next thing I thought about Guadalajara if I had just
woken up here and I had no idea where I was and I just started walking around
outside and exploring and trying to see what's up. I would actually think that I
had woken up in a US city where for some reason everyone was speaking Spanish.
That's how similar it feels, looks, seems to somewhere in the US. We've been in
Mexico for two months and before coming here I had heard about light-skinned
Mexicans, but I never actually seen them. Except for me. You're half Mexican, quarter Mexico. It counts! [laughter] But anyway,
First night we're here, we're at a restaurant. There's a whole bunch of
light-skinned Mexicans all around us, and I thought they were gonna be speaking
English because I didn't realize they were Mexican. But then they were all
speaking Spanish like they sounded fluent. Which isn't to say that you can't be fluent in Spanish, sure of course, and also
American. However, since then we've seen multiple people who are light skinned
and very clearly come from somewhere in Mexico, and just motormouth all the words. So
that was pretty shocking to see. Which leads us to the next point. Since there
are so many light-skinned Mexicans and that's a normal thing here in
Guadalajara, when people come up to us and start talking to us, they don't
immediately go oh, white, Gringo's. They only speak English so they just talk a
million miles an hour and then we're sitting there like...Uh, yeah you're going to have to
repeat that please. Mas despacio, por favor (slower, please).
Next thing we noticed was on our very first night here, where we were walking
around, this was after dark. We noticed multiple young women walking alone by
themselves in these neighborhoods at night. The whole time we've been here so
far which is just a few days we felt incredibly safe. Not like we were in any
type of danger at all even when we were walking at night. One more thing that caught
us by surprise, for how nice some of the neighborhoods are, and how modern the
buildings are, are prices. You can get a 20-minute Uber ride for three bucks.
Get a coffee down the street for a dollar. Or the private room that we're
staying in and our Airbnb is something like 13 bucks a night. So
despite the fact that this is a megalopolis, huge city that seems much
wealthier than other ones that we have visited, the prices are not that much
higher than other cities in Mexico. There's a few instances where, for
instance, you can go to a nice restaurant and spend $10 on a meal, and you should
probably be wearing a tie if you're going there, but for the vast majority of
places, they're pretty comparable to the prices that we've paid in say San Blas
or Mazatlán. It's pretty affordable to be here on first impressions. The more we
explore, the more we're kind of shocked at how nice and new a restaurant might be, but
that the prices are still comparable to what you'd be paying in a little
mom-and-pop. In comparison to Phoenix, Arizona, I think the overall prices here
are about a third of what we'll be paying there. That's reasonable, yeah. So those are our first
impressions of Guadalajara. We really do like this city and are excited to do
more exploring here. Hopefully, you found this useful as a comparison between what
lives in the U.S. and compared to other cities that we've been in Mexico to here.
If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments. If you enjoyed this
video please consider subscribing to our channel we post new videos every single
day about all of our travels through Mexico and the shenanigans all along the
way. Laska, say "bye."