Buenas Dias Me-hico
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2006
1
30
33
Trip End
Jul 10, 2007
Tijuana, Mexico
Monday, June 11, 2007
Also while in this neck of the woods, we checked out the USS Midway museum. This is an aircraft carrier that saw action in 'nam and the first gulf war. It docked in San Diego in 2002, and has since been converted into a naval museum. The thing is massive, and the tour is pretty interesting, if you can stomach the 'honour our american heroes' rhetoric. When you see something this big, and how much it must cost to operate, you can maybe begin to understand how they spend all those billions on their military every year. Didn't spend much time in the city centre, really. All the hostels were already filling up with J1 students and we had to relocate to a cheap motel off the motorway. I dunno if I could stay there for the whole summer if I was them. San Francisco is easily the best place in California to stay, looking forward to getting back there now.
Next on the agenda was to hop over the border to Mexico, in the end, just an overnight in Tijuana. According to a banner over a bar in town, Tijuana is 'the most visited city in the world'. I'm sure that has nothing to do with it being the first place you set foot in when you leave California. Anyway, I've seen this before, but never more so than this crossing. That is, as soon as you cross a border, your surroundings change completely. First thing of note was the lack of a border control entering Mexico, know what they have? A turnstile. Yep, a wee twirl and you're in Me-hico. Looking around, I couldn't help thinking of a movie set from a spaghetti western or something. It actually resembled a part of the Universal Studios backlot we were on last week. Slightly less surprising was the amount of hassle you get from the guys in the doorway of every bar "Hey guys, only one dollar beers upstairs. Don't keep walking by, yada, yada, yada". They didn't actually say yada yada yada, that was just the point I stopped paying attention. After an authentic Mexican meal, we hit the town, even though it wasn't actually hopping on a Thursday night. We picked one of the hasslers, who brought us inside and 'looked after' us for the evening, including coming past every half an hour and pouring tequila straight down our throats. This was fun, until we realised he was charging us a couple of dollars each every time. Afterwards, (what with the beers and the tequila and the sangrias at dinner) I wasn't quite right for a couple of days, but still ever so glad we got a little flavour of Mexico.
Heading back north next for the last stretch of the USA bit. Only one month left. Flip.
