- Hello, Tangerine is from Queretaro, Mexico.
Tonight I'm gonna be exploring Zona Centro,
grabbing some dinner around here
and seeing if there's anything going on for the holidays,
to see if there's any events or whatever.
But before I do anything, I am starving,
so I need to get dinner right away.
For dinner tonight,
I'm at this nice rooftop restaurant in Centro,
called Carranza 50.
It's one of my favorite rooftop places here.
Something that has started since COVID
is that almost every restaurant in Mexico,
or at least a majority of them,
you get a QR code that you scan with your phone
to see the menu,
and they hardly ever bring out
physical menus for you anymore.
(waiter speaking in foreign language)
(speaking foreign language)
A few videos ago
I was kind of lamenting
that it's getting a little too cold here
in Queretaro for me,
but thankfully that was just a cold front
and the next week it was much nicer.
However, I came out today,
I put on jeans
and then I put on one of the few long sleeve shirts I have,
the warmest long sleeve shirt I have,
not because I wanted to dress up,
just because I didn't want to be cold.
But you know,
I'm already feeling a little too cold,
but thankfully I brought a sweatshirt as well.
To drink, I got something called a Naranjada,
and this is a drink that's just a mixture
of orange juice, water and sugar.
However, to me, orange juice is sweet enough,
so I don't need that, its sugar,
I always ask for it without sugar.
This was 40 pesos.
And when you order one,
they'll usually ask if you want mineral water
or regular water,
and I always go with the mineral water,
it's like a sparkling water type thing,
because the mixture of orange juice
and the sparkling water is always super refreshing.
For dinner, I ordered what I almost always get
when I come here,
it's the roasted cauliflower.
It sits in a bed of tomato sauce with some spices in it,
and it also has Mennonite cheese and Parmesan cheese.
It is so awesome, I love this dish.
Mmm,
mm-hmm.
This is where it's at.
I feel like, even though it's doused in cheese,
it's still pretty healthy because it's cauliflower, right?
(chuckles)
Healthy enough.
And by the way, this dish was 120 pesos.
Whenever you're shopping or at a restaurant in Mexico,
bylaw, the prices must include tax
and it's a 16% value out of tax.
So if you get your receipt at a restaurant
or you get your bill at a restaurant
and then there's the total,
and then there's tax added,
make sure that the total after the tax
adds up to what the menu prices would add up.
Here it does,
but if you just glance at it,
you see that there's a breakdown,
the total is 160,
which is what the menu prices added up to.
But then they're like,
"Okay, 138 is the subtotal and then 22 pesos of tax."
So they're just kind of breaking it down for you,
showing how much is going to the government
and how much it's going to them.
If you ever come here and I've been drinking,
I need to go to the bathroom.
If you're a guy,
make sure you go into the one that says H, not M.
I've made that mistake before.
(chuckles)
You know, after a few drinks,
you kind of forget that M means mujeres, not men.
(chuckles)
Oh, that was so satisfying.
I love that meal.
Highly recommend Carranza 50 for a nice dinner.
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about our life in Mexico.
The Centro of Queretaro is so pretty.
Believe it or not, the city was founded in 1500,
it's like, 1530s or sometime around there.
This Plaza sure is festive,
there's so many Christmas lights up,
there's a Christmas tree,
there's like this 2022 sign to ring in the new year.
And it's pretty busy,
and this is a Monday night, kind of crazy.
How cute is this?
It's a nativity scene made with Lele Dolls.
Lele dolls are like
the most typical thing of Queretaro,
the most typical artesania here in this state.
This festive Plaza with all these Christmas lights
and its Christmas tree is Plaza de Armas.
Up of right off Plaza de Armas,
is this little,
what do you call it?
It's like a hallway? No, like a alley, alley,
that's what I'm looking for.
But it's aligned with vendors,
that all putting out their products,
their artesanias that they make.
And a lot of them are indigenous people, I believe.
But yeah, kind of cool shopping here.
It's a little Christmas Lele Doll.
(speaking foreign language)
I'm getting this Christmas Lele Doll,
and it's 120 pesos.
It has a little Santa hat on and cute little ribbons.
I love it.
It's a pretty common belief in the US,
that Mexico is super dangerous,
and if you go outside of the resort,
something terrible is gonna happen to you,
like you're going to get mugged or killed or something,
which like after traveling around Mexico for a few years,
now seems totally ridiculous to me.
And I'm walking around here in Queretaro
alone, at night and I have zero concern whatsoever.
But I wouldn't do this in every city in Mexico.
But you know, I think safety comes down to
more of a city by city thing,
and later on,
I'm gonna tell you one very popular tourist place
that I just would not visit right now for safety concerns.
If you have someone on your Christmas shopping list
that is interested in traveling to, or living in Mexico,
something I think they'd appreciate,
I know I would appreciate it,
would be a Spanish language course,
because the best investment you can make
is in yourself to learn the language,
if you're interested in coming to Mexico.
So if you'd like to check out our favorite course,
you can head to TangerineSpanish.com,
that's our affiliate link and it'll take you right there.
It's an awesome course and it's great value,
so I recommend checking it out,
TangerineSpanish.com.
But with that said,
there is one very popular tourist destination in Mexico
that I would just not visit right now
for safety reasons,
and that is Tulum.
You know, Maddie and I have been to Tulum a few times
and we really loved it,
but the last time we were there, we were thinking,
you know, this feels different,
this doesn't feel as safe as it did before,
and I don't think we're gonna come back for a while.
Well, like that was in
late 2020,
so that was over a year ago now,
and just a couple days after we left there,
there was like this big party going on
and a couple people got shot.
And then you would hear about
shootings and stuff all the time,
they're talking to people who live there.
Someone said hardly a week goes by
that there's not another kidnapping.
And then recently in the news,
there was another shooting
and a couple of tourists got killed,
they were actually bloggers,
and they were killed at a restaurant that we went to
every time we went there,
so that really hit close to home.
But since we were there and we felt like,
you know, this is getting a little too dangerous,
murders are up, something like 80% in the last year.
So yeah, of any place in Mexico,
that's one place that I personally am avoiding right now.
Laska, hey!
Hey, I have a question for you,
do you wanna go for a car ride?
We got to go get mom from the airport.
Okay, let's go.
We gotta go.
We've told you guys before in past videos,
that one important thing to stay safe in Mexico
is to never drive at night.
And I generally think
that's pretty good advice,
for quite a few reasons.
Number one, there's a lot of potholes
and problems with the roads in various parts.
So you're driving at night, you don't see them in as easily.
So that's one big thing.
Another thing is there's a lot of roads
that aren't very well lit,
and at night it's just more dangerous,
you might have cattle coming out onto the road,
there might be cars driving without headlights,
without taillights, things like that.
So not driving at night is generally good advice.
So why am I driving at night?
(chuckles)
Well, I would like to qualify the advice
of don't drive at night to,
don't drive at night on roads that you don't know very well.
I've made this drive to and from the airport many times,
in fact, I feel like I've been there
five times in the last month,
(chuckles)
and I know the roads from here to there
and I know they're good roads,
it's a reasonably easy drive.
When I went to the Queretaro airport
for the first time,
I was kind of annoyed
because you drive so far out of the city
and I'm like,
"How can they call this the Queretaro airport?
This is crap. This is bull crap."
But then I immediately realized,
"Oh, it's the state of Queretaro airport."
But yeah, depending on where you're at in the city,
it's probably gonna be like a 30 or 40 minute drive
to get to the airport,
so yeah, it's kind of far out there.
You head like you're going towards
the Pueblo Magico of Tequisquiapan
and it's reasonably close
to Bernal and Tequisquiapan.
Laska, are you excited to see mom?
(soft music)
Yeah?
(soft music)
You see mom?
(soft music)
(Laska barking)
- Stay, stay, stay, stay.
Hi, dog, hi.
Oh, Laska.
Okay, why don't you put the window up
so she doesn't climb out?
Oh, hi! Laska.
Who is a good girl?
(Jordan chuckles)
Good girl, hey.
- [Jordan] Careful, there's a wild animal.
- Don't climb out.
Don't climb out.
I'll be there on a second.
Let's see how I can do this.
- I can come out and help.
Thank you guys for watching.
On the screen here is a playlist
of all the videos we've made in Queretaro.
If you'd like to learn more about this beautiful city,
please subscribe to our channel.
And one more thing before you go.
(bell dings)
Gong that bell,
so you get notified every time we release a new video.
And we will see you on Saturday.