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MO39
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 1970
Location: El ombligo de la Rep�blica Mexicana
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 Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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| notamiss wrote: |
| Just buy a down comforter at the supermarket. Probably around 400 to 1200 pesos, depending on how high you go in quality. I bought mid-range ones a few years ago at Carrefour (just when they had sold to Chedraui and merchandise was marked down for clearance), and we've never had to fear the winter nights since. |
Sounds like a good idea, notamiss, but one that will have to wait till my broken right wrist (ouch!) has healed. As things stand now, a jolting ride in a microbus would be a bit too painful to bear! |
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Prof.Gringo
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 2236
Location: Dang Cong San Viet Nam Quang Vinh Muon Nam!
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: Re: Cold Weather |
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| Phil_K wrote: |
| MO39 wrote: |
| Phil_K wrote: |
| OK, I admit it. It's ******* cold. It's funny how people say, "Ah, but you must be used it, coming from England". |
Tell those people that in England (or in the U.S. or Canada), when the temperatures fall, we have HEAT in our houses! |
That's one that's always amazed me. That it's often cold in many places in Mexico in Autumn and Winter, but they build houses and apartments without an provision for that. Portable heaters can only heat one room at a time, and our estancia is enormous!
Guess I'll have to crawl under a duvet with a nice warm woman...oops, I mean, wife! |
Funny thing is Mexicans always try to tell me how much better the construction of houses is in Mexico vs. the USA. Oh, do you mean that rebar sticking out the top or the lack of built in heaters, or is it the lack of natural gas pipelines so I have to go and fill up the gas tank?
Just wondering why shoddy construction and crap designs are something to be proud of. I guess nationalism runs deep. |
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john_n_carolina
Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 700
Location: n. carolina
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:09 am Post subject: Re: Cold Weather |
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| Prof.Gringo wrote: |
Funny thing is Mexicans always try to tell me how much better the construction of houses is in Mexico vs. the USA. Oh, do you mean that rebar sticking out the top or the lack of built in heaters, or is it the lack of natural gas pipelines so I have to go and fill up the gas tank?
Just wondering why shoddy construction and crap designs are something to be proud of. I guess nationalism runs deep. |
...Apparently, this is the reason why you see almost every other house with rebar sticking out the top of the last floor of a building in L.America. (at least in Ecuador that's why)
>>>> i believe it's a tax evading / exempt thing. if the owner were to finish the 2nd floor, then they would have to start paying taxes on the property. if the house only has 1 floor with rebar sticking out of it the house is not considered "finished" yet. Therefore, they don't have to pay taxes on it. |
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john_n_carolina
Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 700
Location: n. carolina
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:17 am Post subject: |
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.....boil red wine, 3 cinnamon sticks, half a lemon, for about 5-8 minutes....don't let it boil over.
do 50 jumping jacks while you're waiting.
i used to fill 12 oz. water bottles with this if i was going out to the internet cafes at night when it was 3 or 5 C in Ecuador.
(there are many more traditional hot liquor drinks that i use. actually, many pueblos have their own traditional variety) |
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thelmadatter
Joined: 31 Mar 2003
Posts: 1212
Location: in el Distrito Federal x fin!
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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| TheLongWayHome wrote: |
| Phil_K wrote: |
"Ah, but you must be used it, coming from England".
How's the weather in your neck of the woods? |
I get a lot of, 'Teacher, is like you country, no?' too but at least it's a dry cold here, not that damp, dark, bone-aching English cold.
What annoys/mystifies me here is that people think that the cold makes you ill, and through the sheer power of belief, start developing 'flu'. Do they think that we spend most of the year sick because it's cold? That Canadians live in a permanent state of ill health because of the cold? The media of course, doesn't help with its scaremongering and relentless advertising of flu remedies. |
Actually, that is not quite true. They did a study a few years back where they had perfectly healthy college students put their feet into ice water for 15 minutes and told them it was a hypothermia study. Within two days over half came down with cold symptoms. They theorize that we always have one kind of cold virus or another in our system but exposure to the cold lowers immunity and gives the virus a chance to take root... kinda like the way cold sores develop for those of us cursed with them (like me!) |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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Mystery solved as to why they don't call it the common hot or warm sores.  |
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lozwich
Joined: 25 May 2003
Posts: 1536
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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Then why are they called fuegos in Spanish? Hmmmmm?
Actually I do know, because it feels like you're about to burst into flames wherever they appear. |
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El Gallo
Joined: 05 Feb 2007
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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I moved up into the mountains a little to get away from the heat of Tuxtla GTZ and now my feet are freezing!
I never imagined being so cold in the tropics: 5C |
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MO39
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 1970
Location: El ombligo de la Rep�blica Mexicana
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| El Gallo wrote: |
I moved up into the mountains a little to get away from the heat of Tuxtla GTZ and now my feet are freezing!
I never imagined being so cold in the tropics: 5C |
In Mexico the climate is strongly affected by the altitude, the higher you go, the colder it can get! |
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girlcabbie
Joined: 26 Nov 2008
Posts: 25
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:07 pm Post subject: Re: Cold Weather |
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| johninmaine wrote: |
| Prof.Gringo wrote: |
Funny thing is Mexicans always try to tell me how much better the construction of houses is in Mexico vs. the USA. Oh, do you mean that rebar sticking out the top or the lack of built in heaters, or is it the lack of natural gas pipelines so I have to go and fill up the gas tank?
Just wondering why shoddy construction and crap designs are something to be proud of. I guess nationalism runs deep. |
...Apparently, this is the reason why you see almost every other house with rebar sticking out the top of the last floor of a building in L.America. (at least in Ecuador that's why)
>>>> i believe it's a tax evading / exempt thing. if the owner were to finish the 2nd floor, then they would have to start paying taxes on the property. if the house only has 1 floor with rebar sticking out of it the house is not considered "finished" yet. Therefore, they don't have to pay taxes on it. |
I saw this all over Galicia, Spain: they build a 2-story house, but only finish the second story and a big staircase, and the ground floor story is just a concrete pad and occasionally a wall or two. Thus it's "unfinished" and they don't have to pay taxes. |
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El Gallo
Joined: 05 Feb 2007
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Mexicans don't understand that they get sick when it's cold because they all gather inside together with the windows closed so viruses spread to one another faster and easier. |
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MikeySaid
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 509
Location: Torreon, Mexico
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject: Re: Cold Weather |
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| johninmaine wrote: |
| Prof.Gringo wrote: |
Funny thing is Mexicans always try to tell me how much better the construction of houses is in Mexico vs. the USA. Oh, do you mean that rebar sticking out the top or the lack of built in heaters, or is it the lack of natural gas pipelines so I have to go and fill up the gas tank?
Just wondering why shoddy construction and crap designs are something to be proud of. I guess nationalism runs deep. |
...Apparently, this is the reason why you see almost every other house with rebar sticking out the top of the last floor of a building in L.America. (at least in Ecuador that's why)
>>>> i believe it's a tax evading / exempt thing. if the owner were to finish the 2nd floor, then they would have to start paying taxes on the property. if the house only has 1 floor with rebar sticking out of it the house is not considered "finished" yet. Therefore, they don't have to pay taxes on it. |
I'm pretty sure the rebar thing is just good 'ol mexican optimism and that it has been chatted about on here before. In terms of tax evasion, there is an ongoing census with aims of appropriately taxing people because houses are generally built and documented as one floor houses and then many are finished and in this way the owners are able to avoid paying a portion of their property taxes.
As far as the quality of building goes... I would argue that Mexican construction is of pretty high quality as long as you don't get hit by an earthquake or the dreaded salpitre here in the desert. One might anticipate a home in this country lasting half a millennium (and they do, my wife lived in a 300+ year old home in Queretaro while in university. American homes on the other hand are built to last little longer than 50 years before major repairs need to be made. Heating... that's just not necessary in most of Mexico. As a matter of survival, Canadians and a large percentage of Americans (with the exception of people in places like California, Florida and the Gulf Coast actually need to be able to heat their homes in an economically responsible way. Perhaps some places in the Sierra or close to the border (Juarez?) would benefit from this kind of luxury, but realistically it is only for comfort, not necessity.
Those who have the financial means to do so in Mexico have either a minisplit or aire lavado for cooling their homes which is a much greater need in hot sub-tropical and tropical areas.
The gas lines is a whole other headache and is all about infrastructure, not the quality of building.
I for one, intend to build a home made of adobe in Mexico and perhaps cob in the United States. It makes little sense to me to construct a disposable house out wood and sheetrock when I can slap together a beautiful naturally insulated home with straw and clay. |
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NinaNina
Joined: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 78
Location: Oaxaca
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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I agree, Mikey. Our house in California's Bay Area, while it had survived major earthquakes, was a seething pit of mold and mildew due to improper ventilation and that good old wood construction. I could not believe it when the construction worker removed the kitchen counter to reveal a pit of slime in our lovely painted lady Victorian. Not to mention the rotted wooden beams holding up our laundry room, slowly sinking into the ground. And these were additions from less than a decade before, made before we bought the house.
We loved that smelly old house and were lucky to sell it and get out when we did! |
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sarliz
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 198
Location: Jalisco
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, I'm not going to critisize our house where we spend exactly zero dollars on heating and cooling annually, even though it gets both pretty darn chilly and swelteringly hot outside, it's always comfortable inside. I'm also fairly confident that we could run a truck into the thing w/out fear of major damage. As a bonus, there's no rebar to been seen. I'm pretty content with our Mexican construction. |
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