Whale Watching! - Marge

Eric on our whale watching tour

This morning we went on a whale watching tour! The tour departed from the Marine Terminal, 10 minutes from where we're staying in Puerto Vallarta. Had the best time!

At first the big waves were horrible as the bow of the tiny

Two whales near our tiny inflatable boat

inflatable boat shot upward and then crashed down hard! I slumped over in my seat clutching my stomach at the alarming sensations! Also may have done some groaning. Strangely, everyone else seemed unaffected! The tour person came over and asked if I wanted to be taken back to shore. I wanly said no and suffered in silence (or as much silence as possible) for a little while and then someone gave me gum (I've read it's good for seasickness) and someone else told me to watch the horizon and then, gradually I began to enjoy the ride and in the end I had the most wonderful time! Didn't want it to end! I strongly suggested to Eric that we buy a sailboat and live on it! We could be on the water all the time!

Today was the last whale watching tour of the season! We were warned we might see only one or two whales-or maybe none. The thing is, we saw hundreds (or at least 20)! They were everywhere-spouting, diving, swimming close beneath the surface next to the boat. A couple of them actually leaped completely out of the water! Humpbacks. Also saw dolphins and frigate birds and pelicans and what must have been seagulls! Loved it! Would have been happy even if we saw no marine mammals--very much enjoyed being out on the ocean! Loved the weather too, sunny and warm as usual. I've almost forgotten how being cold feels. Only remember that I don't want to feel it anymore!

Looking for whales

More whales!

Latest news about us! - Marge

This morning Eric and I received our temporary resident visas! We met our lawyer at INM (Instituto Nacional de Migracion) at 9 and left 15 minutes later with our green cards! What a huge milestone! Am so relieved and happy! Our temporary resident visas allow us to stay in Mexico for a year. At the end of a year we'll be eligible for a 3-year temporary resident visa. At the end of that time we'll be eligible to apply for permanent residency.

For people qualifying for temporary residency using retirement income, you must provide proof of Social Security, pension or some other retirement-type income. Possibly assets (for example, owning property in Mexico) reduce or eliminate the income requirement. Don't know. all I know is the path we took--having a regular, monthly retirement income. The amount of income required varies--I believe a couple needs to show at least $1,200 per month each approximately at this time (though possibly one of the two can have a smaller income). This amount varies depending on the dollar/peso exchange rate.

In the next few days we will enroll in Seguro Popular--Mexican Universal Health Care; health insurance the Mexican government offers for citizens and temporary and permanent residents. Because we are both over 60 we will pay nothing! Seguro Popular has no exclusions related to age or preexisting conditions or anything else. Everyone is covered--though hospitals are not always well equipped for everyday-type medical care. We'll use Seguro Popular for catastrophic coverage, anything requiring hospitalization or chronic care, and, since high quality medical care is so inexpensive here, we'll pay for all other care out of pocket.

I've been treated by a pulmonologist at a hospital emergency room here in Puerto Vallarta twice so far (for complications from influenza) and the total bill for each visit was about $200. Yes, you read that right!! We are so thrilled to be living in a country where free (paid for by taxes) and inexpensive medical care is available for all!

Another happy milestone is that my intensive Spanish class started last Monday. Class is 3 hours, 3 days a week (plus at least 3 hours of homework per day) for 3 weeks. Really enjoying the class! Very hard! I should be studying now! Also enjoying meeting others who are learning Spanish.  Very much looking forward to being able to communicate better in Spanish.

There have been many moments of worry as we figure out how to live in Mexico and where to live, and all the rest. I am very happy that we are starting to get these issues resolved. We have figured out how to handle banking, how to learn Spanish, how to get medical care, where to live, and have found a place to live and rented it (huge!!!), have received temporary residency in Mexico (also huge!), have figured out how to buy groceries (yes, there are differences!) and have bought groceries and many other things even with almost no Spanish, have tried a lot of different foods that I've never eaten before at a lot of different restaurants and eaten at lots of taco stands on the street, have driven all over this area and taken long trips to the central highlands (very, very fun!), have learned how to drive in Mexico (very different!!!), Have encountered lizards and possibly a small scorpion (killed it), and have been sick and were able to get care, and a lot more!

We found a house! - Marge

Our House in Ajijic!

The plaza

The path from the malecon to the main street of the town at night

Our street

Dinner at Casa Domenach while listening to folk singing

Seafood paella at Tabarka restaurant--good but the monkfish is even better!

Ajijic at dusk

We have a house!! Spent 11 days in Ajijic deciding that Ajijic was the place we want to live, searching the town and surroundings for neighborhoods we like, and looking at listings and calling agents and walking everywhere and asking people we met and finally finding a wonderful house to rent! It's 3 bedroom/2 bathroom (one off master, with tub!), on a quiet one-lane cobbled street, fully furnished, with a washer and dryer, balcony overlooking the street, a fountain inside, a garden in the front with a place to park the car - with a gate (Otto can be let outside!), and a garden in the back, a cupola, a mirador (seating area on the roof) with a great view of Lake Chapala and of the mountains behind the town, located two blocks from the malecon (the mile long walkway next to the lake), 5 minutes to the plaza and the main streets of the town and 10 minutes to The Lake Chapala Society! Weekly maid service and gardener included in the rent--$800 per month. In a Mexican neighborhood. There are many Mexican shops very close--a tienda (neighborhood grocery store), a butcher (can hardly wait to go there)!, a fruit and vegetable place, a market of small booths on a small square at the corner every Saturday, a bicycle repair shop (maybe I'll get one!), and lots more! Very happy! We signed the lease on our last day in Ajijic-with our car all packed, on our way back to Puerto Vallarta! The manager speaks no English! Fortunately her friend was there who does speak English. Also fortunately I am starting an intensive Spanish course on Monday!

We are very happy to have a home! Very much looking forward to starting our new life in Ajijic! Looking forward to unpacking all our boxes! The house is ours as of May 1st. We'll drive up to Ajijic from Puerto Vallarta with all our stuff on about May 8. Really happy about this! :)!!!

Moving to Ajijic! - Marge

We are now in Ajijic, our future home! Loving it here! Beautiful town, beautiful lake, beautiful high hills all around; has The Lake Chapala Society, a wonderful organization for expats which offers support, information, the largest English language library in Mexico, free yoga and other exercise classes, Spanish language classes, and much more; great climate--cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon, and brightly painted walls and doors and window frames and everything painted that can be painted--turquoise, salmon, fuschia, lime green, lemon yellow, lavendar, violet, azure, pink, orange and purple--and every other color; with palm trees growing up behind the walls, and trees with giant, yellow blossoms and trees with purple foliage and climbing vines with the brightest red flowers and cobbled streets where horses frequently go clopping by.

Have been here a week so far, looking for a long term rental Love it! Especially the lake-largest in Mexico, which stretches all the way from the edge of town to the horizon-with reeds growing by the shore and a backdrop of mountains. There are horses grazing picturesquely next to the water, and snowy egrets standing in the shallows like aquatic versions of those flamingo lawn ornaments. Also, white pelicans with their long bills, that soar along low above the water and scoters or coots or whatever they're called – little black ducks, swimming together by the shore. The sky over the lake is huge, with great pink and orange sunsets. Yesterday, there were clouds, and in between the clouds, stunningly beautiful shafts of sunshine shooting down! And the malecon, a mile long walkway next to the lake, with palm trees planted all along the way and cast iron benches. Yesterday when we walked along the malecon there was a man playing an instrument--a flute? A clarinet? by the water and, further on, two couples slow dancing to a song in Spanish.

San Miguel, so popular no one will go there - Eric

Ah, San Miguel de Allende, you may have been done in by your awesomeness.
Yogi Berra used to talk about a place so popular no one goes there anymore. For now, crowds are flooding into San Miguel, especially during the high season. That's one of our problems with it. Just too crowded. With too many people, one man's 15th Century World Historic Site with ancient architecture, churches and central plaza just becomes another's 21st Century tourist trap.
Butt our main problem is pollution, especially from bus exhaust. With Marge's health concerns, that's a no-go. Also, San Miguel is way up in the high desert country. It's 6,000 foot elevation is twice as high as Snoqualmie Pass. Also hard on Marge's health.
It wasn't Yogi who said you never get a second chance to make a first impression. But our drive into San Miguel made us feel we had been transported into the most rural area of eastern Washington. The directions were like "Go 18 kilometers past Othello, turn left 20 kilometers to Washtucna and then left 10 kilometers to Dusty." All of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere appears a city of 85,000 people with nasty speed bumps and jammed narrow streets. Not quite the quaint little village promoted by retirees who moved here and reinvented themselves as authors or artists.
After all the research, we had high hopes for San Miguel. Trouble is when searching for the Land of Milk and Honey, once you arrive the milk might be nonfat when you wanted whole.

Why we are not moving to San Miguel de Allende after all - Marge

Here we are in San Miguel de Allende. We left Puerto Vallarta and the broken stove and various issues in our dust and drove up here to the central highlands a couple of days ago.

We are not moving to San Miguel after all. Had been so sure we would! All the wonderful descriptions! And the stories of people arriving for a vacation and buying a house here after a few days! All the art! The culture! The beautiful streets and the wonderful plaza-the jardin-where people sit in the morning drinking coffee. We pictured ourselves drinking coffee there too! Not sure what happened but the town we read about is not the town we found! First of all, the air is bad, the exhaust from the many buses is so bad you don't want to inhale. It's astonishingly bad! Nearly unbearable. Also, there were fires outside the town when we arrived, with flames right up to the road in places, and I believe they're still burning. There's an air inversion, trapping the smoke from the fires and the bus exhaust and the car exhaust and all the rest in place above San Miguel. The sky is hazy. There's no horizon!

The strangest thing, never mentioned in all I read about San Miguel, is that the town is all alone! It's in the middle of the most enormous, arid wasteland! Like the driest parts of eastern Washington, with no towns nearby (except Guanajuato 30 miles away) and no villages or settlements only the high plains stretching as far as the eye can see, as you drive, all a kind of beige with blackish vegetation and a few different kinds of cacti to add interest. I had no idea how isolated the town is! You have to really want to go there! And the altitude--over a mile high. The air is thin and you have to be conscious of breathing (either the bad respiratory effects of my recent influenza or the altitude--or possibly just nervousness about the altitude).

Also, there are too many people! The sidewalks are narrow and crowded and every few steps you have to step down into the street to let someone go by. Everywhere there are crowds to push through, while trying not to breathe deeply. The streets are crowded too. You can leave your car at home but even in a taxi or a bus, getting anywhere takes a long time. There is too much traffic and no place to park. There are expensive shops full of expensive goods for expats, and galleries with expensive art. There are classes to take (some that sounded very interesting to me!) but many are priced in dollars, and cost way too much for people living on Social Security and a pension! There are charming restaurants where you want to take a picture of your food and post it to Facebook, but we haven't gone to them--too hard to get there. We have just been eating at local restaurants or at our Airbnb rental. Both of us had influenza and neither of us is completely well. That doesn't help, of course.

Since we have decided not to live here we are cutting our stay in San Miguel short. Leaving soon for Ajijic. Maybe we will live there? I hope so!

Tuesday night in Ajijic - Eric

With our stove in Puerto Vallarta still on the fritz we fled to check out San Miguel, our intended permanent home in Mexico. On our way, we stopped in Ajijic for the night.
Marge suggested we go to dinner at this little hole in the wall that features four expats singing old folk songs on Tuesday nights.
Lighted candles stuck in wine bottles on the tables. I haven't seen that since 1969! Coffee house in the basement of the Campus Ministry at WSU, as I recall. Called Konia House or something like that. Don't know why. It also had upended giant wooden cable spools as tables. This place didn't have those. Surprisingly, the whole candle-in-bottle thing fit perfectly. And the food was magnificent.
The embarrassing thing was, not only did I know all the choruses but I also knew all the verses to the songs. Marge knew most of them, too. Usually, the danger when Marge really gets into the music is that she ends up dancing on the table. This time I was more worried about her slipping into a peasant dress and becoming a guitar-strumming strolling waitress.

Influenza in Puerto Vallarta! - Marge

On the Taco Stand tour

on the Taco Stand tour

On the Taco Stand tour

on the Taco Stand tour

Our blog is finally done! Here I am writing an actual blog entry! So happy about this! Also, so much to report. Hard to even know where to start! Have been sick. Got influenza. It attacked me hard and fast. Fine before breakfast. One cough as I ate, then it hit me like a hammer. the afternoon was bad but that night I could only sleep for an hour at a time between sweating and coughing and feeling almost too weak to lift a glass of water! The next day, my birthday, I spent at Emergency. Turns out there's an influenza epidemic in Puerto Vallarta. The hospitals are full. Many of the victims are Canadians. They're bringing it with them and spreading it around to the rest of us. The doctor said 80% of the time it turns into pneumonia. Hoping that was hyperbole. Had a bit of a relapse a couple of days ago. Went back to Emergency. Feeling a lot better today. Now Eric is sick! And, besides all that, we have no stove. It broke on Valentine's Day. It's been broken ever since! All through being sick. No way to cook a meal except in the microwave. Repair people have come. No actual repairs have been made. Now the estimate is that it won't be fixed for up to 2 more weeks!

Our Trip to Puerto Vallarta - Eric

With Marge still battling influenza, our blog has been slightly delayed. I thought I would fill in the lull on Facebook with more true tales from the road to Mexico. When I last posted a long time ago we were buying underwear at J. C. Penney’s in L.A. to replace what was stolen in Salem from our car carrier. After saying goodbye to Brian, Gwen and Charlotte we headed southeast into the desert. Reading the billboards along the way, we deduced that washed-up old rock stars never fade away—they just play the casinos in Palm Springs and Palm Desert. We crossed the border into Arizona where the speed limit is 75. Those Arizonians are such libertarians. We decided to stop that night in Tucson instead of trying to reach the border at Nogales. I would drive and Marge would make a motel reservation via cell phone. Tucson is a pretty big city and it was January. What could possibly go wrong? By the time I got to Phoenix, Marge was frantic. It turns out Tucson hosts a giant gem show the last two weeks of January. There was no room at the inns—especially for a couple with a dog. We pulled into Tucson with no place to stay. It was time for me to man up and personally find us a room. I strode into the motel lobby. The clerk was handing a keycard to a guy. “If you got a room for him, you’ve got a room for me,” I declared. “Yes, we do,” she replied. Now the $64,000 question: “Do you take dogs?” “Not unless it’s a service animal. Is your dog a service animal?” I couldn’t pull it off. My poker face let me down. Just then a little old lady came down the hall with a little doggy. “Is that a service dog?” I asked darkly. “Why, yes it is,” she said sweetly.” Anyway, the motel clerk called a Red Roof Inn, they had a vacancy and they took dogs. It wasn’t that great a place, but considering the circumstances we were happy to get it. Uneventful border crossing--they just waved us through. No stopping until the immigration office 21 km. down the highway. Navajoa was a mixed blessing with a nice Mexican dinner next to a shimmering pool but lots of mosquito bites. A nice older couple clued Marge into an ex-pat way station in Mazatlan on the road to Puerto Vallarta that allowed dogs. One of the motel clerks even speaks English, they said. However, that clerk wasn’t on duty and the other clerks couldn’t communicate with Marge on the phone. So Marge in Mexico called her sister in New York to ask her to call Mexico to make a reservation. But her sister wasn’t that confident about her Spanish. Janice teaches at a high school in New York but this was late Friday afternoon and the teachers and students were long gone for the weekend. Of course, Janice was still working. She found a Freshman Hispanic student hanging around and convinced him to call Mazatlan and make a reservation for a couple with a dog. Of course, they hung up on the 14-year-old. Janice called back and tried her best. But when she had to ask her freshman tutor, “How do you say king bed in Spanish?” it turned out the English-speaking clerk was now on duty and the reservation went smoothly! But the ex-pat way station turned out to be a Spring Break flop house right on the highway and across from the beach boardwalk. There was a giant statue of a garish snail with a pixie on its shoulder out our window. Fifty years ago we might have been thrilled. Otto and I did manage to cruise the boardwalk a bit and he had his eye on a foxy terrier. (OK, that was an alternate fact.) I woke up early in the morning to the sound of Marge quickly packing up the car. It was on to Puerto Vallarta!

What happened to Sayulita? - Marge

We had heard such wonderful things about Sayulita--the famous surfing town north of Puerto Vallarta. We expected to love it! In fact, we already loved it, even before we got there! We had seen pictures - and they were lovely! And heard stories! Evidently a large number of people who visit Sayulita end up as permanent residents. Plus, the town was featured on HGTV's House Hunters' International--more than once! We watched each episode eagerly and added Sayulita to our bucket list--and our Places to Consider Moving to in Mexico list!

Then we actually went to Sayulita. Or a town that called itself Sayulita. Perhaps it was some other town that had just changed its name to Sayulita to capitalize on all those tourist dollars? Maybe the real Sayulita was  a little further up the coast and we should have kept driving? The thing is, it was very hard to believe this was the Sayulita written about so glowingly in all those articles and blog posts--and even a book or two! First of all, every one of the narrow streets in the town was full of cars. And the cars were barely moving as they went past all the little charming, high-priced tourist shops and past the cafes where people sat at tiny tables drinking expensive foreign beverages while inhaling dust and car emissions, and past the lines of vendors selling silver jewelry and inflatable beach accessories and carved wooden trinkets.

There were too many people for the sidewalks. And too many people roasting on beach loungers set out in rows along the small and lovely crescent beach. And so many surfers riding the great surfing waves there must have been collisions frequently.

We ate lunch at a table on the sand, at a restaurant where the menu was in English, close by a table reserved for a TV shoot, with people carrying movie cameras, arranging and rearranging table settings, calibrating lighting and angling beach umbrellas. They all looked very important and harried as they prepared to shoot what someone said was one more House Hunters International and someone else, one of the crew, claimed was actually an episode of Real Housewives of New York. "No really!" she insisted. But I wonder if there actually is such a show.

In the end, we had to hurry the half mile or so back to the highway where we had left the car, because our dog, goaded beyond endurance by the loud, sudden sound of a motorcycle engine revving - after putting up with the heat and crowds and not enough attention - suddenly ran out into the road and nipped the leg of the motorcyclist who was, of course, stuck in traffic along with everyone else in Sayulita.

Maybe there is a part of town we missed that is less crowded. Or maybe it was just the wonderful weather that drew so many people to Sayulita and we should go back when the weather is worse. Or maybe we just came too late. Maybe the town was loved to death. I've heard of that happening.

Housewives of New York in Sayulita - Eric

Eric waving on the beach at Puerto Vallarta, with Otto

There's some liquid stuff falling from the sky this morning in Puerto Vallarta. I have some vague recollection that it is called rain. Yesterday, we went to Sayulita, a small surfing town north of here. Very pretty but completely overrun by tourists. At Don Pedro's bar on the waterfront they were setting up to film a TV segment. Marge thought it was for House Hunters' International but they insisted it was for Housewives of New York.

View from the condo in Puerto Vallarta - Marge

View from the deck of our condo in Puerto Vallarta

Here I am sitting sideways on the settee (or maybe it's a loveseat), on the deck of the place we're renting here in Puerto Vallarta, gazing out at the Bay of Banderas and the Sierra Madre mountains across the curve of the water. Sunny here, late afternoon. The palm trees lining the beach all have long shadows. A barely noticeable breeze is brushing by me and there's a line of little twinkly flashes as the windows of cars going by on the road catch the sun. Learning how to live in Mexico. More lessons every day. No time to write more... Eric is urging me out the door. Have to go have more fun!

Our wonderful road trip to Puerto Vallarta! - Marge

What was left after the cargo carrier was amputated

Otto sleeping

Highway in Mexico

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta one week ago today! Drove 10 days in our little Hyundai hatchback to get here (with a 3 day stop in LA to see Brian, Gwen and granddaughter Charlotte). Over 2,800 miles! We filled boxes as fast as we could on our last day, way behind schedule! Having no idea the final bit of packing and storing would take so long! Finally throwing things into the car, the storage unit or the cargo carrier mounted on the roof rack almost randomly so we could get done and go. Didn’t drive out of the condo parking lot until 5;30 in the afternoon. Getting dark. Exhausted before we even started. Had to stop at my soon-to-be former job in Tumwater to drop off things and say a few more good-byes. Then finally on to Salem (yes, not very far!) where we arrived at 1:30 AM too tired to take our suitcases or anything else out of the cargo carrier on the roof rack or to take almost anything out of the car. We dragged ourselves into the motel and fell down onto the bed and slept in our clothes. The next morning, I went outside (before coffee!) to check on the car. Astonishingly, the cargo carrier had not even survived one night of travel before being amputated right off the roof rack! It was gone! All that was left were the cords, dangling down the sides of the car! Our first night! We had hardly started and already suffered a setback! We lost two suitcases, containing all our clothes for the trip, and Otto’s dog bed and a couple of pillows and a lot of my money collages which were all digital and can be replaced and many of Janice’s magnificent ink and watercolor drawings of which there are no copies so they are gone for good. Very, very sorry Janice for losing those wonderful pictures!! Astonishingly, the car itself, crammed full of just about everything we owned, hadn’t been broken into! And, strangely, I actually felt a little feeling of relief that we had less stuff to carry around with us (other than Janice’s pictures of course!!). That was the lowest point of our trip. After that, every evening when we arrived at a motel we unloaded almost everything and put it all back in the car the next morning. Every day we organized better and figured out how to make traveling easier and became more confident and enjoyed ourselves more. And each day we got farther and farther from all the places we knew and our old well-worn everyday lives and were more and more out in the open world, with the beautiful scenery, different every day, and the future out in front somewhere almost too far away to imagine. It was a wonderful trip. Wonderful to cross the border into Mexico (we weren’t even stopped—just waved through) and to drive three days through Mexico without experiencing any problems or issues of any kind other than almost destroying the car’s suspension numerous times when unexpectedly driving over enormous speed bumps (called topes--a very popular traffic control device in Mexico) and it was especially wonderful to arrive in Puerto Vallarta at last (thanks to Google, our guide all the way)!

We Made it to Puerto Vallarta! - Marge

Palm tree in Puerto Vallarta

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta late Saturday afternoon, Feb. 3, 2017. Very, very happy to be here! Very happy to have driven 3000 miles in that tiny car with a dog and a lot of clothes (a lot less clothes after two of our suitcases were stolen) and a lot of random stuff (a colander, steamer insert, lids to pans we didn’t bring, a bag of batteries) that we threw in at the end when we became desperate to leave-and a lot of dishes (Fiestaware)!

There’s such a great feeling of having accomplished something big! Loved the journey! Loved being with Eric having all these new experiences! Learned a lot! For example, gas station bathrooms here don’t have toilet paper. You have to bring your own! And, people pass on the right or left or wherever there’s a gap or even where there’s no gap! And, sometimes you look in the rear view mirror and there’s a car two inches behind you! And they often don’t signal and they drive right past stop signs! It’s exhilarating! I have begun to adapt! Would embrace the driving style more wholeheartedly if not for all the car crashes I saw and all those roadside shrines!

Also learning how big a deal it is to not speak the language! It’s like having a disability! Everything is harder! You have to guess at what the person is saying. You have to point and pantomime and draw pictures and do a lot of apologizing! You have to just finally decide to throw in half a capful of laundry detergent because all those instrucciones on the bottle are unreadable! And, is it even laundry detergent? Or maybe fabric softener? Who knows! Then you just turn the dial on what is, hopefully, the washing machine, to caliente hoping it means hot! Or is it the dryer? The dials are surprisingly similar when you can’t read Spanish. And, then, too tired after spending the day trying to buy groceries and do all the other things that need to be done when moving to a new place--in a language you don’t understand—you put the chicken thighs (muslos!) in the oven and notice that the highest temperature shown is 250 and you finally just turn the knob to a good looking spot and hope for the best because (after more thought than should be required for this) you realize you are in a centigrade world now!

I am so grateful and thrilled to be here. I am living consciously for the first time in a long time. The thing is, a lot of my life has been spent living by rote, by habit, by programmed paths that carry me through my days without noticing what’s around me or what happened or what I’ve done; but since we set off on our trip, and especially since we arrived in Puerto Vallarta, I am far more aware of the world and of experiences and sensations and find myself feeling far more alive and engaged. It’s not always comfortable but is surprisingly satisfying.

This morning we will walk down the hill to the beach and will walk along the malecon and will also try to find mayonnaise-mayonesa (thanks google!) so we can have egg salad for lunch.

Our condo is magnificent! Extremely comfortable with a wonderful view of Banderas bay curving around off into the distance and of the city and the beach far down the hill. We are surrounded by jungle, which frames the view with palm fronds and tropical trees! We are having coffee on the deck. There’s a warm little wisp of a breeze and the sun is shining (as it has every day since we crossed the border!).

A flock of green parrots just flew by squawking (Yes! Parrots!). Someone is playing a saxophone off in the distance (really, not making this up!). The rooster who lives in the neighborhood keeps crowing (all day and night). Every evening (so far) there are fireworks!