So, in the morning, we went to the checkout place, naively hoping they would speak English. They didn’t. I used my data on my iPhone to look up how to say “check out” in Spanish. Apparently it was ‘dejar’ so Ricky went up to the guy and was like “quiero dejar” and I guess it worked because the guy seemed to understand and sent a guy to go look at our room before he could let us leave (at least this is what I gathered from what I thought he said).
After checking out, we started our trek to get back to the U.S. Our hotel was about 2 miles from the border. We used GPS on our phones to get us to the walking border. My phone suggested a much different way than Ricky’s and I was skeptical of the ways he wanted to go. But I am bad with directions to begin with, so I followed Ricky and we eventually made it (after a few U-turns, backtracking, and a stop at a street vendor selling tacos). The line to get across the walking border was SO long! It took like 2 hours! I was impatient the whole time, especially since our San Diego wedding reception was that night. Ricky bought me some authentic churros, which made things better of course. I went in the fast lane since I had a newer passport, and Ricky came with me. The guy at the desk gave Ricky a warning since he should have stayed in the longer lane with the passport he had. He let Ricky through though, and said to consider it a wedding gift since we said we were on our honeymoon. Finally we had made it to the U.S.! We met Ricky’s mom at a Jack-in-the box on the border and went home! What an adventure!
So before going to Mexico, I had never been out of the United States. We had heard from others that Tijuana is not a place for tourists and that it was one of the scarier parts of Mexico. I was pretty worried, but it was not bad at all with Ricky’s friend and his brother showing us around. They knew the area well and drove us around. They translated for us, ordered our food for us, and helped check us into the hotel we would be staying at. This was good because, despite my four years of Spanish in high school and one year of Spanish in college, I could hardly understand what anyone was saying. I guess I didn’t use what I learned enough to really remember much of it; plus, people in Mexico just talk really, really fast.
Anyway, it was an interesting experience. One thing that was super annoying was there were a lot of police cars around and they always had their lights flashing, even if they were not doing anything important that I could see. Our tour guide (Ricky’s friend’s brother) said they always obnoxiously leave their lights flashing just because they can. I guess they just try to show off or demonstrate the power that they hold.
Some of the things we did in Tijuana were:
- Walking around the grounds of the new Tijuana LDS temple
- Seeing the new Star Wars movie for cheap - in English with Spanish subtitles!
- Walking around a mall - very much like American malls but more expensive, and you have to pay for the toilet paper you use in the bathroom (literally, there is a woman sitting there and a big roll of toilet paper by her and you have to give her a coin and then grab some toilet paper before you go into your stall!)
I was a little worried when Ricky’s friend and his brother dropped us off at our hotel at the end of the night. I had enjoyed the day in Mexico and would rather just have gone back across the border with them. But, we stayed in the hotel that was such a “great deal” as Ricky insisted. It was like $30 a night and was actually a pretty nice place. Ricky’s post mentioned our favorite TV channel of a cartoon guy sleeping - haha, so funny! Checking out of our hotel in the morning, finding our way to the border, and crossing the border on foot is what I was nervous about.
In the hotel I decided to check out some Mexican television; after all, I did put down a $5 deposit for the remote. After surfing through some channels, I stumbled across a show called Alan y staff durmiendo. I watched... I saw a cartoon character sleeping, who I can only assume was Alan (although, if that was the case, where is the staff?). I sat for 5 minutes, wondering if anything would change. Alan made some small sleeping noises, but nothing else, Alan continued to sleep. This can’t really be a show, can it? I asked. It's just a guy sleeping. I left the show on for 20 minutes to see essentially no change, just a man asleep, snoring.
The next day we traveled two miles to meet at the Jack in the Box on the other side of the border. The line to cross was so long I could not believe it. I was under the impression it would be fast for two US citizens to cross by foot. When nearing the border, a man approached us. I couldn’t understand his spanish very well, but I thought he said he could get us across the border for $6 with no wait. I was extremely skeptical of this and said we were fine. We then walked all the way to the front of the line to see if we were at the right place. Then we went all the way to the back of the line. While waiting we bought some churros from a guy with a cart. It was $1.50 for a bunch of them. I was impressed. I wanted to get some real Mexican churros on the trip. The line was quite slow, and was at a complete standstill most of the time. They let people in in large groups. My wife complained that the line made staying overnight in Mexico not worth it, saying that a $30 room wasn’t worth it if we had to wait in a 2 hour line. I disagreed, “this is all part of the experience” I said. I gave her the churros to help cheer her up. It was in this line that we saw the first others that were clearly American.
The line was an interesting place, with so many people, all with their own story. I watched as a family said their goodbyes on the border. A daughter kissed her father goodbye before her and her mother crossed the border. The father stayed on the Mexican side and watched his family walk away. I didn’t understand a word that they spoke to each other, but I knew what was said.
