My wild week!

[juan]

Actually two weeks.:p

I haven't been able to say hello as much as I would have liked too recently. I've been busy with a whole load of things.

My family and I live in sunny southern California (though it hasn't been too sunny with the recent storms:bored: ) and its great, we love it. But every now and then, you get a hankering for the old country and that hankering got mom. It had been a while since she had seen her relatives and she saw that her little grandnephew--and my godson:D--Ever was going with his uncle Saul to Mexico. (Pronounced "Sah-ool" for my European American brothers. ;).) So, mom, deided to go too and we all got together.

We all got into the car early one Saturday morning (actually while it was still night :sleeping:) and we drove all the way to Tijuana. Its just a few hours drive from where we live in Long Beach and we always go there to avoid the red tape involved in flying from the US to Mexico. It was a long drive but we finally got to Tijuana and the Tijuana airport. (Since that airport already IS in Mexico, you're just going to the same country.)

At the airport, we met my cousin Pepe and his son Ever and the rest of his family, including Saul. (Thing is, dad planned on staying in Tijuana afterwards--not for that:crazy:!--and thus we all decided to come and go seperately.) Mom and I were always very close even with me just over twenty-one and thus it was a real tearjerker when we seperated.:snivel:. Also, as a godfather (:rolleyes: Maybe not that ==> :blues: kind) it was my religous reposibility to lead godson ever in a short prayer before he left with his uncle, Saul, and with his Tia, my mom. Y'know good journey, behave on the trip, be safe. etc.

Soon enough the plane left and my father and I were off searching Tijuana for a brother of his that was staying in a hotel there. Thing is, we recieved rotten directions and we got lost! :O

[EternalMothra]

Actually two weeks.:p

I haven't been able to say hello as much as I would have liked too recently. I've been busy with a whole load of things.

My family and I live in sunny southern California (though it hasn't been too sunny with the recent storms:bored: ) and its great, we love it. But every now and then, you get a hankering for the old country and that hankering got mom. It had been a while since she had seen her relatives and she saw that her little grandnephew--and my godson:D--Ever was going with his uncle Saul to Mexico. (Pronounced "Sah-ool" for my European American brothers. ;).) So, mom, deided to go too and we all got together.

We all got into the car early one Saturday morning (actually while it was still night :sleeping:) and we drove all the way to Tijuana. Its just a few hours drive from where we live in Long Beach and we always go there to avoid the red tape involved in flying from the US to Mexico. It was a long drive but we finally got to Tijuana and the Tijuana airport. (Since that airport already IS in Mexico, you're just going to the same country.)

At the airport, we met my cousin Pepe and his son Ever and the rest of his family, including Saul. (Thing is, dad planned on staying in Tijuana afterwards--not for that:crazy:!--and thus we all decided to come and go seperately.) Mom and I were always very close even with me just over twenty-one and thus it was a real tearjerker when we seperated.:snivel:. Also, as a godfather (:rolleyes: Maybe not that ==> :blues: kind) it was my religous reposibility to lead godson ever in a short prayer before he left with his uncle, Saul, and with his Tia, my mom. Y'know good journey, behave on the trip, be safe. etc.

Soon enough the plane left and my father and I were off searching Tijuana for a brother of his that was staying in a hotel there. Thing is, we recieved rotten directions and we got lost! :O

Your two weeks sound pretty fun! I wish I could go out west , at least past the Mississippi River some day. The farthest west I have ever been is either the U.P. of Michigan, or Wisconsin.....:crazy:

[juan]

Well we got lost and we wound up on a sightseeing tour of the city. Things is, in cartoons, there is often a line and on one side of the line its complertely :thumbs: and on the other side, just across one little mark, its 100% :cursing:. Its true, its absolutely true with the blankety-blank border! :exclam: On the American side, its clean and orderly, all in English, a bunch of uptight rule for everything gringos. You cross the border, everything is in Spanish, the ads are tacky, you have to use the metric system (tantos litros al kilometro! So many liters a kilometers!), crappy roads, everything is claustrophobic, inner-city everywhere in the city, laid back do wahtever you want Hispanos.

(Indeed, the divide continues into the city. Its a remarkable juxtopsition of the rich and the poor. We drive on one road along a cliff and below, we see the shanty towns with hovels made of cardboard and tin, a while later se see the fancy place with paved roads, lights, clean roads, blockbusters, supermarkets. You'd have thought it was an american city if not for the spanish. (Though will all the spanish we speak nowadays, even that distinction is dissapearing. :laugh:))

There were odd things as father and I drove aropund looking for his brother. As drove looking for uncle, I saw that the stop lights are just like our--green, yellow, red--except that before turning yellow, the green blinks. Some roads were ok and some were potholed filled, unpaved dirt paths with gravel on them, it that much. At one, we had to go uphill on a road so bumpy that more than once was I hitting my head. The hits left me :dozing: .

We finally found uncle's hotel and it looked more like an apartment complex than a hotel. He deided to treat us all to eat... and we went to a Chinese restaurant.:O It was great, we were told how the owner had come from Taiwan, looking for a place to set up business, and not that he was dead, it belonged to his eldest daughter. We saw that there were paintings on the wall of dragons and gods and that the owner's family was painted into everyone of them.

Afterwards we went walking and we saw the sights, narrow sidewalks where more than two people can't walk side by side, no lawns or frontporches, the buildings go straight up from the sidewalk, a stray mule, newsstands with manga, DC comics, and native dirty books, smut.:devil: We saw the usual white tourists before we finally went back the hotel and said goodbye. (While there I saw TV in Mexico. Most of the same shows and channels. We have except translated or subtitled. "Caray, soy el casa cocodrilos!" "Krikey, I'm the crocodile hunter!")

[juan]

We left and more driving adventures. The roads in Tijuana are like Forest Gump's back, its a crooked as a politician. We have four way intersections here, they have six way intersections there. 90% cross angle turns are the rule here, they're the exception there. No street signs, no divider lines, no warning that another road is going to come ahead. Dad said that the city planners said "The bleep with the roads, put'em up whereever the hell they're going to go." Its easy to believe! :darklord: Driving in Tijuana puts hair on your chest--if it doesn't make the hair fall off your head first. :bored:

One thing we noted on the long and windy roads was the Glorietas. At the center of the intersection is a large circle, about sixty feet wide. Rising up from it is a grassy mound and at the top is a statue. People often guide themselves by them, it will be past that glorieta. It looks real nice and it give the city something to talk about, but it makes for wild driving. :crazy: (And yes, dad said you can drive around the thing in circles for hours and nobody can legally stop you. ;)) You stop at the red light, you get green you drive up to the circle, you make a right and go around it, you stop, you wait for a green light and then you go ahead.

I saw that one glorieta had a statue of an Aztec warrior. (Mexicans, such as myself :D, hate Spaniards and consider themselves heirs to the Aztecs and other tribes such as the Toltecs, Olmecs, Perpecha. Indeed, many are direct descendents of said tribes and speak the old tongue and worship the old gods as Catholic Saints.) :exclam: But one circle had a statue of... Abraham Lincoln :exclam:

He was there and we passed it twice. Second time, father and I saw the name written right there. Well, he was the savior and the deliverer, he was the best of the best! :rolleyes:

We left for home and there we passed through the long live. People were there oushing their carts hawking there wares as we and all the other cars were in line. Father and I bought from one woman a bottle of water. At the top were some people were selling candy, hats, icecream, religous icons, toys, maps, you name it. Below them were people juggling or doing acrobatics in exchange for some coins. Below them were people with rags and sprayer bottles who asked to wash your windows. And below them were crippled beggers asking for any crumb of bread. Poor guys. :confused:

[juan]

In any case, father and I crossed the border and were on our way. We drove and at one point we stopped and dad showed me where he crossed the US border. (When Dad first came, he forgot a smidgen of paperwork. ;) ) Seeing it, was like a religous experince for me. :O Quite the trip but we made it. We spent the following two weeks without mom and we had grandma (dad's mom) looking out for us. Cooked the food, washed the clothes, etc. She was actually quite spry.:eh: Ah, she was ok! :laugh: Had to run errands for grandma when not workiong or going to school and the weekends I spent helping my dad and my brother in laws repair the backhouse.

Our house has a smaller house in back which we rent and now that it has no tennants, we're fixing it up. Fortunately, my sister's husband is into machine shop and construction and he always comes to help us in these contruction things. (And with all the crazy home improvement schemes my father has, its alot. :dontgetit ) We would take out the junk, put up the walls, get new insulation, drink beer, take smack about woman--dad and brother in law, wild things are not exactly my deal. :blush:

There were other things such as how the old tennants left their car junked in back of the garage and dad tried to tow it with his truck. Slapped some chains on it and started pulling. It was a very touch job as the car had its steering locked and it kept crashing into the stone walls all across the back alley, and crashing into us and the truck literally burned rubber on the asphalt. I asked, dad why don't you just get a tow truck? He responded it was matter of pride, he wasn't going to let the car beat him. I accepted that, he is my father after all. Indeed, towards the end, I was :laugh: at his :cursing:!

There were more things like my :birthday:on the 16th. Sister got me clothes, brother in law's brother got me cologne. (Man if I could have had brothers, it would have been those guys!) Mom called all the way from Tia Pina's house and I was :intears:as she sang me happy birthday. I didn;t have to wait because soon after last Saturday, I was with the gusy doing construction work on the back house when mom came!

I rushed there and hugged her, I missed her so much! It felt like :xmas:! We were one happy family again, and that pretty much was my two weeks.

[Raptor]

You must tell us more about Mexico, Juan!

Here's an item via CBS:

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Authorities in northern Mexico are preparing shelters for evacuees from Hurricane Rita. In Nuevo Leon state, Governor Natividad Gonzalez sent a letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry offering to send medical and rescue crews. Gonzalez also said Nuevo Leon was prepared to set up shelters near the border.

Hotels in Monterrey have agreed to lower room rates by 20 to 30 percent for anyone from the Texas Gulf Coast wanting to take shelter. A toll-free line, 1-800-554-5123, is staffed with bilingual operators to help people find rooms. You think they're doing that in the U.S.? I don't think ours in the States are even offering the Red Cross discounted "government rates" to house the many evacuees they have footed the bill for when one guy reported they were paying his $100/day rate in some Holiday Inn or whatever... :angry:

Muchas gracias, amigos, to our good neighbors to the south! :thumbs:

[state alchemist]

hey, juan, long time no communicate buddy. ;)

what an adventure you've had. must've been exciting and fun. XD

[juan]

You must tell us more about Mexico, Juan!

Here's an item via CBS:

You think they're doing that in the U.S.? I don't think ours in the States are even offering the Red Cross discounted "government rates" to house the many evacuees they have footed the bill for when one guy reported they were paying his $100/day rate in some Holiday Inn or whatever... :angry:

Muchas gracias, amigos, to our good neighbors to the south! :thumbs:

I could tell you a hell of a lot of stories. :p My first trip there was when I was about four. (I'm over twenty now!) I can still remember going to sleep in a rickety old bed in my--maternal--grandparent's house when I heard something. I asked mom what it was and she said that the rooster was singing. (Remember, it was a farm.)

I--in all seriousness--asked what song was it?

Lot has changed since then, grandma's died:( grandpa is as as active as ever--sometimes I think the man will be active at ninety forever,:bored: -- cousin Pepe' who was a teenage kid living on his parents's farm when I first met him on that first trip now lives down the block from us in America and is raising his own kids. A boy, Ever age 12, and Mayra age 15. :)