our neighborhood

We live on a rather busy street--one of the streets that leads to Plaza de Armas (the main plaza). Unfortunately, this means that sometimes there is a lot of noise at night. For example, one night, we were listening to a mariachi band until 11:30. Miraculously, the girls stayed asleep.

The other bad thing about being on a main street is that often, our driveway is blocked. Our apartment building has two storefronts facing the street. The owner of one of the stores is particularly annoying--he constantly blocks our driveway. This morning, I was particularly peeved because he didn't need to block our driveway--there was a huge parking space behind him--but he did anyway. Grr...

This is what our street looks like when it is flooded. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the street on a normal day.

This is the annoying storefront owner's car--parked where it should be parked.

If you go down one of the side streets, this is basically what it looks like. There are often little speed bumps (like the metal ones you see in this picture) or big asphalt speed bumps that sometimes aren't painted. 

This is a rare, three-story building.

Here is what a smaller street looks like. Only one lane.

What I find interesting is that there are these vacant, dilapidated buildings all around our neighborhood. We basically live in the city center--and yet no one seems to want to buy and fix up these buildings. At the same time, there are new developments, further outside of the city, where lots of new homes are being built. Maybe people want a larger house?

There is a more charming part of town, with older buildings. But we live here--which is much more convenient. After all, there's a Soriana (a supermarket) two blocks away.