Does Oaxaca City Live up to the Hype? (First Impressions)

now tell me honestly is it  wrong to come to a place   just because you heard it has a really  amazing food oh wow that is wonderful   this is much bigger than anything i've ever  ordered before it's like a hot corn drink we've made it we're in our final destination we're  spending the entire summer in mexico and capping   it off with a whole month in oaxaca city and it's  a little embarrassing to say but we actually know   very little about oaxaca except  that it has really amazing food   so when we were planning all our destinations  in mexico we knew we wanted to get to the beach   we knew we wanted to see mexico city and of  course we knew that we had to try the best food   that mexico has to offer and apparently that's  right here in oaxaca now of course we know that   the city has a lot more to offer than just food  and we're definitely going to discover it all but first we need to get all settled  in it's our first day here and   just like usual we've got a long list  of things to do we're gonna take a look   around the neighborhood we're gonna definitely  check out one of those famous oaxacan markets   and obviously we're gonna get something to eat  and of course we're gonna show you guys our   latest airbnb probably the most minimalist one  we've ever stayed in but before we do all of   that a big hello to all you nomads so if you're  new around here you've never seen us before i'm   stephanie and this is jillian we travel the world  full time and share all our adventures as we go since it's our first day we're on  a neighborhood discovery walk and   wow what a neighborhood this is we're in the  barrio de la laco and it's beyond charming here   there are these low-rise buildings and  they're painted in wonderful colors and   just look at all these murals it feels really  festive here this neighborhood is amazing after all the buzz of mexico city i'm really  digging this lower pace here in oaxaca   it seems like the kind of place where you  can just relax and soak in the culture oaxaca has a lot of famous markets  that are just huge and jam-packed with   tourists and vendors but we wanted to go check  out our local market it's just a few blocks from   our airbnb and the place where we're actually  going to be doing all our shopping it might not   be as big as some of the others but i think it's  gonna be big enough for our needs wow this place   is really great so it is definitely a smaller  market it's got a real neighborhood feel to it   but it does also seem like you can pretty much  get anything here if you want some chicken you   can get chicken if you want produce you've got  lots of produce here and lots of specialty items   too very interesting so normally jillian  does all the grocery shopping but today i'm   gonna give it a try so let's see what i can  get just a few little things for the house so normally jillian does a pretty big stock up as  soon as we arrive anywhere i'm not that ambitious   but i wouldn't mind picking up a few little  pieces of fruit so i'm going to start with a   papaya and that one looks like a reasonable  size and then i think i would take maybe   some oranges just to grab like a few little  oranges i think these ones look pretty good okay um i haven't learned my numbers yet so julian's  gonna have to tell me 40. okay 40 pesos   okay gracias thank you oh my god my first  grocery shop well stephanie calls that   grocery shopping obviously i'm gonna have to  go back through and buy a ton more stuff but   i think we're ready to get into the food of  course there are loads of fine dining options   here in oaxaca but today what we're looking  for are the cheap and cheerful casualties uh the tamale mole so we're gonna  start things off with a little snack it feels heavy so i'm not entirely sure what i ordered what i  asked for was a tamale with mole sauce and of   course mole originated as far as i understand in  oaxaca so i'm very excited to try some here and   also a hot beverage so this is something called  atole blanco and it is a corn based beverage   it smells very very plain i'm just gonna give it  a sip oh it's very hot and it's very plain i mean   it doesn't taste like much just something to kind  of get you going in the morning made out of corn   and here we have the tamales wow this thing is  massive so i'm just sort of getting into it now   this is much bigger than anything i've ever  ordered before so it's got the um the delicious   corn and then it has been stuffed with both mole  and chicken so it's really hearty so the stand   that we went to is one of the really popular  ones so this should be a really great version that is fantastic wow that is so good so i'm  taking that as a very hearty appetizer and   we're going to go in for something else so this is  the main eating area kind of the food hall of the   market and it's very busy but we'll see where  we can get a table and find something to eat   okay we found a spot enchilada  verde uh chocolate de leche well stephanie enjoys her very simple and  healthy atole blanco i've gone ahead and got   this beautiful chocolate de leche with i'm  sure it's very wonderful oaxacan chocolate oh wow that is wonderful and i'm gonna  have it with this beautiful concha they're very flaky it's a little on the dry  side i think this one is definitely a dipper much better looks hot so i ordered the enchiladas  verde and this is a bubbling hot plate of food i   mean i'm gonna have to wait for it to just  chill out a little bit before i can dig in   but it looks and smells just delicious so this  is definitely like a real local feel in here   it's a place where people come to just get a  good feed on before the day starts so we've   got nice tortilla a little bit of queso and some  verde sauce that i really hope is not too spicy really good it's tangy it's got  that little bit of cheese in there   really yummy i think this is going to  keep me going probably until dinner i have to tell you guys if you're going to  be in mexico for a while the way that we are   it's pretty important to brush up on your  spanish it just makes everything so much easier   i'm basically starting from zero with  spanish so my second language is french   and i actually kind of second french so i've been  using rosetta stone about 20 to 30 minutes a day   just to get some basic vocabulary i've been also  watching really bad reality tv shows in spanish   and i'm not going to share which ones because it's  just way too embarrassing but for all that effort   whenever someone talks to me in a restaurant or  a store i can really only pick out like a word   or phrase if i'm really lucky like toto bien  or algomas the going is pretty slow but i'm   gonna keep trying because we might be spending  even more time in spanish-speaking countries   okay we've eaten we've shopped we've taken a  look around now it's time to finally take a   look at our airbnb this is our neighborhood and  it's much like all the other streets in the area   lots of low-rise buildings relatively quiet we're  less than 10 minutes from the main tourist area   and we're feeling pretty comfortable here so  about our airbnb this month in puerto escondido   you guys saw us living basically outside  for a month that was kind of an adventure   then in san miguel de allende we were staying  in that very colorful apartment and then in   mexico city we were living in absolute luxury  well this place is totally different yet again so this apartment is really minimal and i mean  super minimal it has absolutely just what we   need and not like one little thing more but  we're gonna go inside and you can take a look here we go so here we are and i think you can probably  see what i mean about the minimalism   so it's been very nicely put together everything  is in very good taste we love this pop of color   but it's definitely more on the  functional side than it is cozy so here in the kitchen they've provided  very good quality dishes and good cutlery   but it's just enough for two people and there's  literally nothing more so the bedroom is another   very simple room again done in very good  taste i mean i love this pop of color here   and then the storage is really amazing certainly  jillian really loves this space but i think for me   i could use maybe like a few more cushions  maybe some art on the wall now there are   a few other things that are missing like a  dishwasher an oven a microwave a washing machine   i actually almost cried a little when i  realized just how many appliances are missing   but we actually were really happy with this  apartment and there's a very good reason for   that we have jillian's family joining us here  in oaxaca later this month and we were able to   get an equally very simple but very nice place  for them just on the floor below so it works out   just perfectly but wait there's actually one more  reason why we are so happy to have this place   and that's because it comes with an enormous  terrace so this space is just perfect for having   a coffee in the morning or maybe just chilling  out in the late afternoon we just love it you know i actually do really like this place  it's really bright in here and it feels really   calm and if you need more pillows i can get you  more pillows it's fine it's fine okay so that's   it it's day one done in oaxaca we checked out our  neighborhood we went to the market i kind of think   we covered it all and we can already see that  oaxaca has so much more to offer than just great   food yeah there's the historic center we're gonna  explore that the botanic garden maybe a day trip   to montalban we're gonna do it all and that's a  good lesson for us we don't need to over research   every single destination sometimes we just have to  go and then you just trust that there's gonna be   lots to see there and lots to do i think we  took a similar leap when we booked mexico city   going there without really knowing what to expect  yeah we were actually a little worried about that   one we thought that mexico city would just be  full of traffic and crowds and generally just   really overwhelming but it was nothing like  we expected at all and if you want to see what   we discovered on our very first day there  you can click on the next video right here

Channel: Our Freedom Years

Views: 10,857

Keywords: how to retire early and travel, retire early and travel the world, life in early retirement, life after early retirement, our freedom years

Id: 9rJd3oJSqJo

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 28 2022