You hear my opinions and advice on here enough, so this week we have a special treat instead. This is a guest post from my 10-year-old daughter Alina.

When we put a “for sale” sign in front of our house in the spring of 2010 and told our daughter we were moving to Guanajuato, Mexico for a year-long family sabbatical, she was not exactly thrilled. She adjusted though and became a fluent Spanish speaker with lots of new friends in our adopted city. One year later she now has mixed feelings about going back to the U.S. So take it away Alina—what are you going to miss and not miss about this crazy country?

Things I’ll miss about living in Mexico:

1) Festivals and celebrations all the time

2) Being able to walk to lots of places

3) Mexican food (including tortas milanesas, paletas, ice cream, natural yogurt sundaes, icing cookies, aguas frescas, limonadas, licuados, and guava juice.)

4) My school and my friends

5) Interesting and cheap stuff to buy at the markets

6) Riding on nice Primera Plus and ETN buses—they give you a snack and a drink every time!

 

Things I won’t miss about living in Mexico

1) Super loud music playing outside most of the time

2) Chile and Limon on everything, plus strange tasting pizza

3) Garbage on the ground almost everywhere, plus sometimes poop from dogs, donkeys, and horses

4) Going up stairs, ramps, and steep streets every day in Guanajuato

5) Mariachi music and songs with “corazon” in them

First photo of Alina by Katie Clancy, others by Tim Leffel.