Blessed with Good Fortune

It always amazes me when, somehow, all of our blessings become evident all at once. This has been one of those weeks. And, as I look back at this past month, I cannot believe just how much we have achieved.

Apostille

After two weeks of waiting, and several days of panic, our marriage certificate with Apostille arrived yesterday. Don’t think I just sat around waiting! (Don’t you know me by now?) I started calling FedEx last week to see what was going on. Then, this week, one of our colleagues at Globoworld joined in the effort. He is local and has contacts in FedEx and in the Aduana (customs). He called on my behalf, as well, and I also took the extreme actions of emailing the Mexican Consulate in Dallas and reaching out to the US embassy to explain the situation and solicit help.

Whether it was the frequent calls or attempting to add some pressure from above, something shook loose, and we finally got our package yesterday. Just in the nick of time, since today started the Holy Week holidays here when most everything is closed.

Bottom line — we have all the documentation we need to get our permanent residency visas.

Car

Another delay we experienced was in the purchasing of a car. They do not let “extranjeros” just buy a car. You have to prove residency. We provided the dealership with our lease and paid by wire transfer, thinking it would help ease the beaurocratic headaches.

Yes. And No. The idea was a good one, but actually making the wire transfer was quite complicated. The problem centered around the fact that we now have local phone numbers. Wells Fargo, where we have had accounts for 16 years, will not accept foreign phone numbers. But, here, you cannot open a bank account without a local number, which is why we changed them.

In addition, the cost of a one-year prepaid plan here for both of us was less than our typical monthly rate in the US. Seemed like a no-brainer to me! And, we still have international calling and plenty of data.

We had no idea that Wells Fargo — our bank — would now become a problem. I do almost all my banking online. It is so much easier. No checks, no postage, no problem. If I need cash, I go to an ATM. Of course, here, I get charged fees every time I use the ATM. For that reason, it seemed to make sense to open a bank account here.

You see where this is going.

To make this story a bit shorter, the answer to our problems involved calling our financial adviser and having her make the transfer, which she did. You might think that would be the end of it, right? No.

We still had to wait for four days for the money to arrive in the account of the dealership. Then, after signing my life away and paying even more money (the delay in the transfer resulted in a different currency rate), to pay the account in full, get temporary plates, and a year’s worth of insurance, we were told we could pick up our car… tomorrow (Thursday).

Phew.

Interesting note — we cannot drive the car in Mexico City because the laws there are different. Go figure. Thankfully, we have no plans to go to Mexico City.

Move

If I may digress back to the beginning of this post, I want to assure you that, while the process has been a little frustrating, everything we have wanted to or needed to do, we’ve done. Blessings!

Add to that the fact that we have also been renting a house in the suburbs, and you see how lucky we really are. We have stayed in our Airbnb mostly because of the car situation and not wanting to stress the animals any more than is necessary. We’ve planned to move most of our stuff into the house this weekend, although we probably won’t actually move in until after we return from Dallas on Wednesday.

Having the car will really help with the move. We can take multiple trips to get all of our stuff there, and then take the animals over when we are ready. We have paid for our Airbnb until 4/18, so we’ve got time.

While we are away, we have arranged for the dogs to go to Pension 3 Perros. They are so nice. They even offered to pick them up here in el Centro. Because of the timing of our flights, the dogs will stay with them for three nights, even though we will only be away for one.

When we get back and pick them up, we will take them directly to the new house.

TaDa!

So, to recap:

In the space of one month we have:

• Sold our house in the US
• Moved to Mexico
• Opened a bank account
• Rented a house
• Bought a car
• Found jobs
• Arranged to become residents
• Made new friends

I would say those are some amazing blessings!

Poodles!

A view from our walk this morning. I know the dogs will like our new location, as there are a lot more green spaces there. The community even has a dog park!

FYI. It is going to be hot today!