Looking for a neighborhood for Spanish experience (El Paso, Alto: real estate, for rent)

[RoamingRogue]

Hi

We are considering moving to El Paso. I hear many good things about it. We want to rent a home in El Paso for part of a year. We are not looking to purchase right now.

My husband wants to learn Spanish fast, so we'd like to find a neighborhood where we can be immersed in Spanish, that will be tolerant of gringos who are trying to adapt. Hopefully, that area will also be a short commute to the border.

I'm looking for a place that has good Internet connections too and a place to garage my car.

We do not want to be in a high crime area (I'm assuming that there have to be "some" bad areas in EP) or an area where even just car crime is a concern. Cost is also a concern.

No kids/school stuff to worry about.

Also, if folks can comment about how the air is cooled in this town, that would be a nice thing to know. What is reasonable for utilities here? What can we expect in building materials for homes here?

FYI - I've lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, so I'm not expecting the heat to be much of an issue. I'm just hoping it is less humid than the east coast where I am now.

Thanks in advance.

[malamute]

Any neighborhood at all will do. No neighborhood has many murders or violent crime, you can be immersed in Spanish anywhere in this city. Downtown or Central or East side around Zaragosa will provide a short commute to the border plus have the Spanish immersion.

Some people will tell you that you have to have refrigerated air which is very expensive as far as the electric bill, a lot of people are fine with evaporative coolers and others do fine with just fans.

[armywifeandmom]

Malamute hit the nail on the head as far as spanish immersion and very low crime rate within this city.

A note about refrigerated air. Since you have lived in Las Vegas you probably won't have much of a hard time acclimating. The evaporative coolers work very well here. I prefer them myself now. I have found that refridgerated air is too cold. Just my experience though.

[luplor]

Suggest watching and listening to the spanish channels as much as possible, After a while, you will pick up words and sounds. Next dont be afraid to make mistakes when speaking spanish. People will help you with the correct sounds and vocab. Make it a point to go to the flea market and communicate exclusively in spanish.

[RoamingRogue]

Thanks for the tips. If I'm looking to rent a house, how are they advertised in this town? Craig's list is the most populous listing of homes for rent.

Also, is there some map to tell me how to figure out what is Central or East or whatever? We get one trip of a couple of days before the furniture comes so we will need to make some fast decisions.

Other than the flea market, how would someone find social occasions to mingle with Spanish speakers? (we are both adults and remember, no kids)

Also, I didn't see anyone mention Internet. What are the best ways to do Internet in this town? Cable? DSL? Who are the big name providers and would you recommend them? I will need to depend on good Internet...

Lastly, what are the churches like in this town (yes I suspect they are mostly Catholic and we are Reformed...). I'm more concerned about traditional vs contemporary services than denominations.

Thanks for the wonderful info.

Mary

[armywifeandmom]

Mary I'm not a native or long time resident of El Paso so I can't answer any of your above questions except to say that we use Time Warner for our internet. We have a bundle service.

We haven't had any problems with Time Warner (there was one incident this summer but I think it was a fluke? in that a piece of TW equipment was damaged or etc. and there wasn't service for about 24 hours). Altogether we've been satisfied with Time Warner here.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by RoamingRogue

Thanks for the tips. If I'm looking to rent a house, how are they advertised in this town? Craig's list is the most populous listing of homes for rent.

Also, is there some map to tell me how to figure out what is Central or East or whatever? We get one trip of a couple of days before the furniture comes so we will need to make some fast decisions.

Other than the flea market, how would someone find social occasions to mingle with Spanish speakers? (we are both adults and remember, no kids)

Also, I didn't see anyone mention Internet. What are the best ways to do Internet in this town? Cable? DSL? Who are the big name providers and would you recommend them? I will need to depend on good Internet...

Lastly, what are the churches like in this town (yes I suspect they are mostly Catholic and we are Reformed...). I'm more concerned about traditional vs contemporary services than denominations.

Thanks for the wonderful info.

Mary

Since you're interested in living in the most Spanish speaking side of town, I think anything south of I-10 would be the best bet. Finding ways to mingle with Spanish speakers isn't going to be tough at all trying to do here. You'll mingle with them at the malls as well as the flea markets, shopping downtown.

If you google El Paso, you can find Central pretty much north of I-10 near the mountain, Sierra Hospital area, Five Points, up until Cielo Vista Mall although some people might put that in East.

For churches, you should be able to find just about anything here - and not too far from whatever neighborhood you end up in. They would all most likely have services in Spanish, lots of Prostestant churches of all kinds are here and in Spanish.

Internet service isn't a problem. Time Warner is popular, ATT DSL is popular and there are all kinds of others, I never hear people gripe about their internet service.

You can find places to rent with many of the real estate agents because many of them do property management also. Newspapers like thrifty nickle often have the rent ads in Spanish which helps you find the mostly Spanish speaking neighborhoods. If you really want to save money, you can often find rooms to rent for very little money.