Alright, welcome back to our channel and welcome to San Miguel de Allende here in Mexico.
In this video we're going to talk about the things that we like about San Miguel, a couple of minor things that we didn't really like.
Let's get started.
So the first thing we liked about San Miguel and probably the thing that stood out the most when we first arrived was the beauty of the city.
This place has so much color.
Many of the buildings have that kind of orange, reddish, brown colonial type colors.
But then you've got all of the vibrant colors mixed into some of the houses and buildings,
and then all the beautiful colors from the murals and paintings on the walls all around the city.
This is probably my favorite mural that we've seen in the city, the horses and just the vibrant colors.
But there are beautiful murals like this all around.
Let me show you another great mural here.
I love this one because I like how it's a combination of both art and landscaping.
I love how the hedges grow up on the wall to form the lady's hair.
Something else that makes this city beautiful is the churches.
There are several of them but the one that dominates over the city is the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel.
What a beautiful building, and like I said, it is basically the icon of this city.
And we're not the only ones who love the beauty here.
UNESCO made this historic area a world heritage site in 2008.
The second thing we really like about San Miguel is the small size of the city.
It's small enough so that you don't need a car to live here.
Here's just an example: Our apartment was in the northern part of the city and it was about a 45-minute walk to get to La Comer in the southern part of the city, which is the big grocery store here.
We actually almost never went to the big grocery store.
I'll tell you why a little bit later in this video.
But yeah, we would walk oh about 45 minutes to get across town to the grocery store,
but then we would take the bus back to our apartment with all of our groceries.
The bus system is actually quite extensive for such a small city.
Now the buses are slow going up the hills and the cobblestone streets.
And it's not just the buses that are slow, everything is nice and at a slow pace here.
It's great - or at least I think it's great - that people here don't seem to be in a hurry.
They are in general not stressed out to get somewhere quickly.
It's probably the way a small town in the U.S. would have been, I don't know, 100 years ago maybe.
Okay, so I was telling you we didn't go to the big grocery store too often and that leads to the third thing we like about San Miguel.
It's the small neighborhood markets.
Each little neighborhood has its own small family-run stores that usually specialize in something.
I think this is pretty common not just in Mexico but in Latin America in general.
Some examples would be the small butcher shop that was just a few steps away from our apartment.
Or the outdoor fruit and vegetable market with great produce just a two minute walk away.
Or being able to get a new jug of water literally right next door to our apartment.
Or the little family-run tortilla factory also just a two-minute walk away.
Or the bakeries which make the whole area smell like a big giant delicious donut.
Or even small pharmacies in the neighborhood.
Or the flower shops. We bought some beautiful flowers for a friend's birthday.
The fourth thing that we like about San Miguel de Allende and the reason we chose this as one of our first destinations is that there are a variety of Spanish Schools available here.
When we travel we like to be able to communicate and interact with the local people as much as possible.
Emily is new to Spanish and has enjoyed the Spanish classes here.
I minored in Spanish in college, yes that's a picture of me in college, look at all that hair,
but that was 30 years ago so I'm a little bit rusty with my Spanish but it is coming back pretty quickly.
Number five: the weather here. It is perfect.
The summers where we are from in North Carolina are disgusting.
Here in San Miguel de Allende it's very pleasant and it's pleasant all year with temperatures in the 70s and 80s Fahrenheit or in the 20s Celsius pretty much all year.
No need for heating or air conditioning here.
And then the final item I put on our things we like about San Miguel de Allende list is the food.
First there's a wide variety of international food.
We saw an Irish restaurant, Italian restaurants, a few Peruvian restaurants, and even a Lebanese restaurant.
But we decided to stick to the delicious Mexican food.
Our favorite restaurant was Tacos Don Felix.
This restaurant seems to cater both to expats and the local people as well.
They have great enchiladas, but my favorite thing here was the tacos.
And what I liked about the taco plate is that you get one of each type.
I'll tell you a little bit about each one.
Let's take a look at my tacos here, first is beef, then we have chorizo which is sausage,
next is el pastor which is pork, then we have these two green ones one is chicken and one is pork,
then this corn mixture I'll tell you about in just a minute, and then the shrimp.
So that taco with the corn is huitlacoche, which is actually a type of corn fungus.
Yes, I know that sounds gross, but it's a delicacy here, and it, I think tastes quite good.
It doesn't actually taste like fungus or anything like that.
But yeah, I mean we really loved this restaurant.
It is a little hard to find because it's not in the touristy part of the city.
It's in a residential neighborhood.
Look it up on google maps and when you see the hippie dippy mystery machine looking van on the street you know you're getting close.
We also enjoyed eating at the local family run food stalls in the markets and on the streets.
These places are practical if you want to eat out on a budget.
And you know they must be good when you see the local people eating in places like this.
One more restaurant I want to mention is Pollo Feliz.
Now I know this is a chain restaurant, but it's good, and there was one that was just a two minute walk away from our apartment.
The rotisserie chicken was so delicious.
And then another item I want to mention are the popsicles from this shop here, Michoacana I think it's pronounced.
But wow these were so good.
I love the one with the strawberry on the inside and the vanilla cream on the outside.
And finally they have Thrifty ice cream here.
When I was a kid I would ride my bike down to Thrifty Drugstore and get a double scoop for 10 cents.
Now it's 80 pesos which is about US$ 4, I guess about a 4,000% inflation rate since I was a kid. Yeah, I'm getting old.
So those are the things that we personally like about San Miguel de Allende.
Something I do want to mention quickly is that it can get a bit busy here on the weekends.
A lot of tourists come from other parts of Mexico and this can create some traffic jams.
Another thing is that San Miguel does have some steep hills to climb depending on where you're going in the city.
But really there was only one thing that we didn't like about San Miguel, and that is the cost of things,
especially housing and restaurants which are high when compared to other parts of Mexico.
Let me give you a tour of our apartment and then I'll tell you how much we spent.
Alright, we just arrived here at San Miguel de Allende. Let's take a look at our apartment.
So this is when you first walk in the door. We've got a little sofa here, little sitting area...
This is our kitchen area, nice big table, very traditional, you've got oven and stove,
really nice little seating area especially somewhere like here where the weather is perfect...
We've got bedroom number one, very nice, and another little balcony here...
We've got the bathroom, looking good another little sitting area with a TV,
and then here is the final bedroom.
So our housing came to US$719 for one month which is actually a pretty good deal for San Miguel.
Food was US$490, and I think that is probably the most we have ever spent on food since we started traveling.
We went out to eat more often than we usually do, maybe two or three times a week,
and that's because we ate out with our friends here.
Some of these friends have YouTube channels as well, so let me give a quick shout out to Tim and Amy from the Go With Less channel,
and also to Sarah and Neil from the 2 Go Roam channel.
For transportation we only spent US$4 for the month, mainly because we walked everywhere.
For miscellaneous things like toothpaste, a few kitchen items and cell phone we spent US$74.
A month for Emily's Spanish school was $385.
and then we have $204 for health insurance and then an additional $160 for travel insurance.
And finally activities were $45, that includes a day trip to Guanajuato, which is a beautiful place, another UNESCO World Heritage Site,
and it also includes a visit to the botanical gardens here in San Miguel.
I'll talk more about Guanajuato and the botanical gardens in a future video.
When you add up all the categories you get US$2081 for one month for the two of us.
Still cheaper than living in the U.S. but more expensive than other parts of Mexico.
This total does not include some donations that we made or our transportation to get to San Miguel.
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