Moving for an 8 month rotation there for work. Any recommendations on areas of town to live in? Apartments? Fun things to do on the weekends? Restaurants?

I know virtually nothing about the city. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

As a native El Pasoan, I have some things to contribute:

Stay the hell out of El Paso. That place is a stink-hole that will suck the life and money out of you. If you align yourself with the Republican party, prepare to be surrounded by a bunch of liberal, economy-draining bottom dwellers who think the government OWES them something (even if they're illegals). Don't drive a nice car - it will be vandalized, broken into, stolen, or damaged in an accident caused by an illegal with no insurance. Oh, and I hope you speak Spanish fluently, because God forbid, it's nigh impossible to find someone there who actually speaks English.

You're lucky though - at least you're there for a rotation then you get to leave. Good job.

To deal with it in the short term: rent/buy a home on the West side of the mountains; they're classier and generally populated by a smaller number of bottom-dwellers. If you can't afford that, or don't like looking across the river at cardboard huts, then I might suggest actually living in Las Cruces, NM. It's only a 45 minute commute. Be sure to get caught up on all of your shots, and make sure you get a TB test reguarly. Stay away from the Lower Valley AT ALL COSTS. Don't be anywhere near downtown at night. Lock your doors everywhere you go. Always watch out for that thug next to you. Carry a knife. Don't look at anyone, and speak only when spoken to. If you eat at a Mexican food joint, be prepared to have the ****s, and don't drink the water. Buy bottled water. Don't ever shop at Wal-Mart...it'll make you want to commit suicide. Most of the women there are infested with STDs, so be careful who you mess around with. Don't party across the border in Mexico; the cops ARE corrupt and will throw you in jail until you can bribe them to let you out. And lastly, be prepared for random, arid weather. No rain.

So yeah, if you can handle all of that, you should be fine. Hit me up anytime, my AIM name is AggieJason05.

[This message has been edited by jlvaughn (edited 10/13/2006 3:31p).]

[This message has been edited by jlvaughn (edited 10/13/2006 3:31p).]

You are one talented writer...very funny stuff.My sister lives in El Paso and she loves it there and I like to visit.

Grew up and lived in El Paso til I went to A&M in late 90's. I totally agree with all of what jlvaughn said.... stay far away from El Paso.

Eh, I guess it depends on the mindset. If you're not from there, El Paso is a beautiful place to visit (only because you know you get to leave). If you actually have to live there, you start to see the town's true colors soon enough.

I moved to El Paso 5 months ago expecting the worst. Turned out, I had just been misinformed by a bunch of morons (i.e. the above posters).

El Paso is fine. I, nor anyone I know, have had anything vandalized, stolen, or have been stabbed at any time. In addition, the only place I ever have to speak spanish is at the hospital where I work. Otherwise, most merchants & waiters speak english or are bilingual. Most bars/clubs have a dress code to keep out "undesireables" so be aware of that if you go out.

Good restaurants - Kiki's has great mexican food & very hot salsa, PF Chang's for asian, & there's a vietnamese place called Pho Tre Bien.

I would suggest living on the west side of town. It's newer & within driving distance of most anything. A popular apartment complex is called Colinas. If you'd prefer a house, look for homes off of a street called Riesler. You can get 3 bedrooms for $800-1000/month.

But like I said, there's nothing wrong with El Paso - I don't plan on settling down out here, but I'm here for another year & it will be fine. If you have any other questions, let me know.

[This message has been edited by agdoc2001 (edited 10/14/2006 7:54p).]

[This message has been edited by agdoc2001 (edited 10/14/2006 7:57p).]

Do you feel better about yourself, doc? Must be nice to be a doctor, living in the good part of town, making some decent money and not having to face the rest of the city.

Just because you're privileged to not have experienced the worst that city has to offer doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[This message has been edited by jlvaughn (edited 10/15/2006 3:20p).]

I appreciate the replies, both positive and negative. Any other insights would be great too! I'd like to enjoy my time there as best as I can. What about day trips?

run over to Las Cruces check out the old town La Mesilla. Old square and a few shops. Eat at La Posta - an old Butterfield Stage station from 1850 thats now a decent Mexican food place.

Go back east on 180 to Guadalupe Park
and a little further to Carlsbad

North of Las Cruces to White Sands

I live on the eastside. We have a couple of rooms for rent if that is what you are looking for.

Day trips:

Carlsbad Caverns, see the cave and the bats and there's a nice park in Carlsbad, NM on the Pecos River.

White Sands National Monument.

Alamagordo, NM, atomic bomb making site and Indian ruins.

McKittrick Canyon and the rest of the Guadalupe Mountains, including a hike to El Capitan, the highest point in Texas.

Swim in the big pool at the spring at Balmorhea.

Visit the Hueco Tanks to see petroglyphs.

Go to the dog races in El Paso.

Go to a basketball game at UT-El Paso or at NMSU (they're the Aggies, too) in Las Cruces.

Farther away:

Go to Big Bend for a weekend and ride a horse from The Basin to see The Window up in the Chisos Mountains.

Drive The River Road along the Rio Grande from Lajitas to Presidio.

Also float through Santa Elena Canyon.

And eat at the Gage Hotel in Marathon.

Go see Copper Canyon in Mexico, a couple of days (one way) by train from Presidio.

Go to Mesa Verde in Colorado to see the cliff dwellings.

Go to Ruidoso/Cloudcroft to golf, ski, gamble or watch the horse races.

Go to Red River, Taos and the Rio Grande Canyon area in New Mexico for a weekend.



Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.

Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.

[This message has been edited by FAST FRED (edited 10/21/2006 12:56p).]

You left out making an "evening" trip to Juarez, FAST FRED.

Yeah, is it The Cadillac Bar in Juarez that's famous for inventing the Ramos Gin Fizz?

Maybe that's in Nuevo Laredo and maybe that's even the wrong drink, but it sounds familiar to me.



I looked on Google and The Cadillac Bar is in Nuevo Laredo and the Ramos Gin Fizz was invented in New Orleans, but all that other stuff I mentioned in the first post is correct.

I think.



Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.

Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.

[This message has been edited by FAST FRED (edited 10/17/2006 10:14p).]

El Paso is not entirely bad. I do recommend you stay on the West Side though. I have been there one year and haven't had any problems.

"Must be nice to be a doctor, living in the good part of town, making some decent money and not having to face the rest of the city"

I suppose that would be nice, but unfortunately, I'm only a resident at a community hospital who has 200k in debt - so I wouldn't know anything about that. I spend all day treating people from El paso and Juarez who have no insurance & generally speak very little English. I'm just saying that your portrait of El Paso was over the top & there's no sense in adding to the already horrible stereotype the area gets.

You are completely dead-on about Walmart though - I always come out of that place completely ticked off.

In other news though, the Pei-Wei in town opens it's doors in a couple weeks!

quote:

---

You are completely dead-on about Walmart though - I always come out of that place completely ticked off.

---

Don't worry, that feeling isn't exclusive to El Paso. I never come out of the Wal-Mart in Stamford without feeling a little worse about Stamford, West Texas, America, and the world in general.

I honestly don't know where some of the people in Wal-Mart come from. All the freaks come out of the woodwork to shop there, and thankfully, you never see them anywhere else.

Well folks, I have returned from my house hunting trip out to El Paso. All in all, I was able to find some decent housing. Based on the recommendations I received here, and from a few other folks, I've landed over on the West side.

I think I can hold my breath for these 8 months, and hopefully make it out before being beat up too bad. It's not a bad place....but I don't see myself staying there much longer.

Even my real estate agent recommended buying a club for my vehicle. She said that it would at least slow down the thieves....

Moo, maybe not a bad idea. I think karma came to get me for attacking jlvaughn & his post about El Paso. Woke up the next morning to find my truck keyed... Jlvaughn, my deepest apologies...

I grew up in El Paso and have never understood the negative sterotypes associated with it, especially with regards to crime. The fact is, its overall crime rate is low for a large city (much lower than Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or even Austin or Fort Worth), and its murder rate is one of the lowest in the country among cities with populations over 250,000.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004902.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

http://www.morganquitno.com/cit06pop.htm#500,000+

As far as suggestions, you can enjoy hiking (the Franklin Mountains right in the middle of the city, Hueco Tanks and its petroglyphs, Guadalupe, Big Bend, Oliver Lee, the Sacramento Mountains), skiing (Cloudcroft, Ruidoso), exploring (Wyler Tramway, Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario Missions, downtown and the Plaza, the zoo, Old Fort Bliss, War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, Wilderness Park Museum, Border Patrol Museum, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Old Mesilla, Elephant Butte Reservoir, the Mercado in Juarez, Copper Canyon), watching sports (UTEP football and basketball, Diablos baseball, Patriots soccer, the Sun Bowl, Sunland Park Racetrack), appreciating the arts (El Paso Museum of Art, Viva El Paso! in the McKelligon Canyon Amphitheater, the El Paso Symphony at the restored Plaza Theater or at Abraham Chavez Theater, "Music Under the Stars" at Chamizal, various productions at UTEP), eating great Mexican food (Forti's Mexican Elder, La Hacienda, Avila's, Leo's) or steak (Cattleman's Steakhouse) or Tex-Mex (Jaxson's Restaurant and Brewing Company), golfing (Painted Dunes), bar-hopping (Mesa Street Bar and Grill, King's X, Juarez Sports Book), shopping (Sunland Park Mall, Cielo Vista Mall, Bassett Center), playing (Ascarate Park, Western Playland, Wet 'n Wild, Tinseltown), and taking in the sunny, low-humidity weather.

Also, unless your job involves working with new immigrants (such as agdoc2001's at a hospital), you should have virtually no problem with people not speaking English.

I'm not saying it's heaven-on-earth at all (I don't live there now and don't plan to again), but it's not a bad place if you give it a chance.

Hope you enjoy your stay, moo and agdoc2001!


[This message has been edited by CS3 (edited 10/25/2006 8:06p).]

Moo - Congrats, with your new accomdations, you should at least avoid some of the crap. And as many have mentioned already, there IS a ton of interesting things to check out, esp. since you've never been there before.

AgDoc - I'm sorry to hear about your car. It's a cryin' shame that some idiot would do that for entertainment. As for your residency, well, you're a better man than I am - I did a lot of volunteering in hostpitals while I was in high school (went to Silva Health Magnet HS), and some of it was just so overwhelming. Kudos to you.

I admit my view on El Paso was over-the-top, but for good reason. I spent 18 years of my life there and saw more bad than good. Being the minority sucked. I just grew to dislike it.

jlvaughn,

I'm going to have to agree with you. As a not-so-proud graduate of Coronado HS back in '91, El Paso is truly a crap hole of a town.

Being from the west side, I would say your comments are spot on. The west side is truly the last bastion of the civilized in El Paso.

My family had three cars stolen from us while we lived there. In fact, I had a jeep that was stolen right out of my highschool parking lot. My parents took pity on me, bought themselves a new car, gave me their old one, and their new car was stolen five days after they bought it.

El Paso is a town overrun with machismo. Be careful who you look at and how you look at them. In El Paso, everyone is looking for a fight.

Before anyone claims that I know nothing of what I speak, I lived there for 17 years. I went through k-12 there. Trust me, the town sucks.

TAF

So, moo, any updates? As an outsider, how do you like El Paso?

Post padding? Or were you trying to say something?

Lived in EP for 12 years before leaving to Aggie Land. First two days I was there someone broke into my dads truck. We had nothing sitting out and the busted the lock trying to steal his Blazer. Had two other cars broken into while there. When most people say they are going to El Paso I usually apologize to them for what they have in store. The place has great Mexican food though and living on the Westside is a lot better. El Paso has been flooded with Dollar General stores now and it is difficult to find good food besides Mexican. The Thai place is a good place to eat. PF Changs in EP is over rated, other locations such as Austin or LA tastes better since the cooks know what they are doing. I had the opportunity to do a 8 month rotation in El Paso for Johnson & Johnson. I was not impressed that I would have to travel to Mexico every morning (even though EP is pretty much like Mexico). I did not want to move back so I moved to Austin to be an engineer at Freescale. It was great being in Austin when the Ags won. I have a 3x5 A&M flag in front of my office. Good luck with the EP rotation.

Yup. Sounds about right.

I'm settled in here on the West side. Here are my first few week's impressions. I'm trying to be unbiased...

I'm not all that impressed with the mexican food here. I grew up in South Texas, and the flavors here in El Paso are quite bland in comparison. In addition, I just moved in from Tucson, so I got an appreciation for the Sonoran style of Mexican food. There also seems to be an Applebee's on every corner. I'd like to try out some of the steakhouses out here because everyone talks about them, but I haven't had the chance to yet.

The drivers absolutely suck here, and I have yet to see a clear day. There is always a strange haze (pollution, I'm guessing) that covers the sky. The sun also seems to line up with I-10, so when I'm driving to work in the morning or home in the evening the sun goes directly into your eyes.

The folks I work with (small site, but large company) seem to act like it is their little kingdom. Fairly "small town" thinking, and everyone freaks out about everything rather than trying to find a solution and moving on with life. I'm a bit disappointed with that.

All in all, I don't think its a place I could ever settle down in. I'm hoping to stay positive, grow in my job, see some cool west texas things, and move on outta here.

Bright side: I only have 7 months left.

I'll keep you posted.

Haha, it's sad when your best thought of the place is that you get to leave in 7 months.

quote:

---

The drivers absolutely suck here

---

Statistically, El Paso County auto fatality rates compare pretty favorably with the national average and with other Texas counties.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-30/ncsa/STSI/48_TX/2005/48_TX_2005.htm

quote:

---

There is always a strange haze (pollution, I'm guessing)

---

This is another area where El Paso compares much more favorably to other cities in Texas and the US than the stereotypes would lead one to believe.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872695.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908617.html

quote:

---

The sun also seems to line up with I-10, so when I'm driving to work in the morning or home in the evening the sun goes directly into your eyes.

---

Given that essentially all even-numbered interstates run east-west, I don't think this is a problem unique to El Paso. If you happen to live to the west of where you work, I'm pretty sure this would be a problem anywhere.

Besides, within El Paso, I-10 actually goes north-south at least as much as east-west http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=el+paso,+tx&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=10&ll=31.77838,-106.114197&spn=0.544018,1.7276&iwloc=addr.

BTW, I'm not trying to be argumentative or discount your complaints; just offering another viewpoint.



[This message has been edited by CS3 (edited 12/5/2006 1:16a).]

interesting stats CS3

I can never forget the days growing up that the thick and irritating bluish smog would blow over from Juarez...probably mostly due to all the tires they burned the night before. It has been a long time since I have seen one of those days.

Oh Man, I'm so glad I got out of there.

Sad thing is, I may have to go back.

quote:

---

Haha, it's sad when your best thought of the place is that you get to leave in 7 months.

---

On the other hand, when two of the main complaints are that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and that there are a lot of Applebee's, it doesn't sound all that bad.

[This message has been edited by CS3 (edited 12/5/2006 8:48p).]

quote:

---

Be sure to get caught up on all of your shots, and make sure you get a TB test reguarly...Most of the women there are infested with STDs, so be careful who you mess around with.

---

Syphilis, gonorrhea, and AIDS rates are all below state averages

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/cfs/cfs02/Elpaso02.pdf

Chlamydia and TB are higher, but not by much.

It's better than Harris and Dallas Counties in all of these (in many cases much better), and better than Travis and Bexar in all but TB:

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/cfs/cshdpa02.shtm

[This message has been edited by CS3 (edited 12/5/2006 2:31p).]

How 'bout similar comparisons to the hookers over in Juarez?