Job Discussion Forums

[cgage]

I'm looking for some place kind of like Florence Italy -incredibly beautiful hill town and great food. I'm sure there are lots, but some opinions would be interesting. Oaxaca?

Also where would be some intense night life? Other than DF.- I've lived in New York and had enough of big cities.
Thanks in advance.
-member since 2003. I guess my membership slipped through the cracks.

[M@tt]

maybe guanajuato, although it's less than 100,000 people.
honestly there is nothing in mexico even remotely close to florence.
Veracruz/Boca del Rio has good nightlife and it's not big, maybe one million people in the whole area but it doesn't feel like that many.
sorry, that's all i've got.

[chola]

Ditto M@tt's reply: Guanajuato.

[J Sevigny]

There are soooo many. But it's hard to find good paying work in one

The previous poster is right. There are few towns that rival those well-cared for places in Europe that we've all visited or seen on post cards.

But there are places that are beautiful for other reasons -- friendliness of the people, local customs, climate, whatever.

Personally, I like Zacatecas better than Guanajuato. It's a little less tourist-oriented, though I think that's changing somewhat.

[cgage]

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know about Zacatecas because I already have some work lined up there.
One of my students told me that Colima/Manzanilla was cool.
I got really spoiled living in France and Italy. So much great stuff there. Mex will have different things to offer: low low cost of living (Paris is close to $100 a day), much less anti-american, or anti foreigner sentiments, no Parisian waiters. Many Europeans immediately negatively stereotype Americans. For me, Europe is the best place. But Mex sounds like it might be more adventurous, more friendly, and with more unknowns.

[Guy Courchesne]

I think it would be hard to put most beautiful and great nightlife together. Zacatecas looks really nice but seemed pretty quiet. Maybe Queretaro...800,000 people but it seems smaller and being something of a university town, it should offer some good nightlife?

[M@tt]

if you want most beautiful and good nightlife you're talking something like cancun or puerto vallarta but those are not hill towns as far as i know. mayb PV is kind of picturesque?
i haven't travelled enough.

an aside--i lived in france in 97 and people were pissed off about the movie "independene day" and later "titanic".

[MELEE]

I would have said Oaxaca if you had written last year. There is/was a good music scene and art scene. And the center is/was almost too beautiful.

If you want something smaller. I love Tepoztlan, Morelos, but I doubt there is much "nightlife" there. Same goes for Taxco, Guerrero, and Patzcuaro, Michoacan, extremely beautiful cities, but too small for more than one or to happening bars. Guanajuato or Queretaro are probably better bets.

[seanie]

Xalapa, perhaps?: The Paseo de los Lagos is pleasant, a couple of botacnical gardens, close to interesting little towns (including Xico, where there's a waterfall), you can see the Pico de Orizaba a couple of times a week (when it's not too misty/rainy), the second-best symphony orchestra in the country (I'm told), excellent archeological museum, good restaurants, sizeable "artsy" crowd ... and, best of all, I lived there for a year and saw only one cockroach I hear the nightlife is OK. It rains a lot, though.

[seanie]

why is there a BEEP in my post?? anyway, the word there was "roach", but with c--- attached to it

[cgage]

Do you mean the recent trouble has harmed Oaxaca? It can't recover?
I didn't mean that I expected to find everything in one place. That's rare.
Florence has the best art in the world (unbelieveable, and intensely inspirational if your an artist), but you have to take the train to Amsterdam for night stuff. From what I've read on the web, Guanajuato sounds like an Italian town with its wealth of colonial architecture built during the silver days.
On a different note: French, and to a certain extent, Italians often tend to treat Americans like Disney World guest nerds (always some exceptions, my best friend is Parisian) even if you have some command of those languages. Are Mexicans more open and do they treat Americans like fellow humans? I get along great with the Mexicans here but that's just based on a maestro/estudiante/padre mindset.
Feliz accion de gracias.

[Guy Courchesne]

Mexicans will pretty much treat you as you treat them. Generally very welcoming as an opening gesture...maybe some will be suspicious and shy.

[MikeySaid]

[Guy Courchesne]

[cgage]

That's encouraging since I'm a language nut anyway. Its also encouraging since in the last country I was in, the word for foreigner is the same word as for enemy