Warning issued against Americans traveling to Progresso

navegator wrote:
Mexico stoped being a third world a long time ago, they have more car factories than the US more Chemical companies most of the flat screen tv's are manufactured in Mexico and sold in the US, my wife worked for SIEMENS, German electronic company in Mexico that manufactured electronic chips from the git go, when the chips where labeld they printed made in Germany so that the US and Cnadiaan consumer would accept them, same chips where sent to europe, labeld made in Mexico.

More vehicles from Mexico are imported to the US than from any where else, they also manufacture a lot of parts for the commecial aviation industry, but then all you nay sayers see is the guy under the sombrero taking a siesta aginst the saguaro, well there are beatifull homes down Mexico way that only the very rich in Canada or the US would be able to afford, most Mexicans the ones under the sombrero with money will come to the Staes but they prefer to go to Europe, since most of them speak, read and write fluent English French and or German, so third world?

Buy the way can some of you speak Spanish, I know some of you Canadians speak French and no English.

And yes I have been to mexico, wife and I own a House in Mexico City and travell quite often, and we speak several languages.

navegator

Visiting cities like Monterrey, Puebla, Guadalajara and others is a very eye opening experience. These are amazing beautiful cities that compete with cities like Vancouver and Toronto. Highly educated populations and large middle class sections. Good security and quality of life second to none. I think many have outdated perceptions of what Mexico is. They focus on the poverty, drug problems and security issues of the country instead. No doubt there are problems but a lot of "painting with a large brush" goes on.

Speaking of Mexicans travelling to Europe, during our 9 week summer European trip we ran into at least half a dozen Mexicans travelling in Europe including a large family from Chiapas at the Louvre museum in France. We spoke at length to them (in Spanish) about our favourite Mexican city which is of course San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas.
Shared a river cruise in Germany with another family from the DF and talked with an 18 year old young guy who was trying to cover as much of Europe before heading to University in the fall. We met him in France Spain Border as we picked up the high speed train. He had 9 hours to make it to Madrid to catch his plane back home. Hope he made it. It was fun comparing his Castellano to what we were starting to get used to hearing in San Sebastian.

I agree with the comments on multilingualism. A german scholar once said "the limits of my language define the limits of my world". We enjoyed speaking English, Spanish French and German during our trip and feel the ability to speak those languages greatly enhanced our experience over there. It would be nice to see a greater emphasis on second language training and immersion in our North American schools. I think it will be key to keeping our economies competitive in an ever growing Latin market place. Spanish is now the second most spoken language in the world and English has moved to number three.