What NOT to do in Mexico

Well, it's taken a few days, but here is my final post from Rosarito -- just a few tips on what I would wouldn't do if I were to go back to that area!

1. Don't worry about changing your money Everyone accepts US dollars -- they seemed to prefer them in many places -- so it wasn't worth the hassle of going to the bank and getting all of that done.
2. Don't hire a mariachi band to play for you at dinner A lot of restaurants have this and it just isn't worth it. We didn't do it, but we did have to sit through a few loud dinners where the people next to us had...
3. Don't sit next to anyone who looks like they would hire a mariachi band to play for them at dinner I know that this is hard to actually follow through on, but still.
4. Know how to properly cross the border US Customs appreciates it and you won't risk missing your flight. I read a lot of books but none of them mentioned which lane to use or any of that, so just make sure you ask someone before you go through the wrong lane.

And that's it, I guess. Pretty simple stuff!! Go to Mexico and go wild, everybody!

Home Again

In Mexico, my dad brought up the fact that I've never done any conclusion posts after any of my trips, so this is it (ok, there is going to be one more on my tips for traveling in Mexico but this post will sum up my last day in California and flight home).

I last wrote about our misadventure in crossing the border and seeing our dad off to the airport, after that, we took a shuttle to our hotel, The Declan Suites. Our room was on the 20th floor, which I think is pretty shnazzy. Whitney utilized Siri to find us a place for lunch and we ended up at Hodady's, scarfing down monster burgers and burning hot onion rings.

I wish I could say that we did something super awesome during our afternoon in San Diego, but we really just watched TV in our room -- which was still pretty awesome. It was a nice lazy day, that ended with a walk to the Ghiradelli chocolate store and a Bride Day marathon.

My direct flight home left hours before Whitney's, so I was off before the sun was up. I got to the airport far too early for my liking and was forced to listen to a middle-aged couples loud and bigoted ranting. Nothing compacts a fear of flying and a fear of ebola quite like sitting in an airport listening to people talk about various related conspiracy theories.

Things did get better though -- I was seated next to that couple on the plane! They weren't as bad on the plane, the husband spent most of the five hour flight -- I kid you not -- reading the Bible.

I was flying Alaskan Airlines and instead of having legitimate movie screens, they allow you to rent what are essentially tablets. I went ahead and got one of these and ended up sleeping through most of X-Men Days of Future Past.

After sleeping through most of Epic as well, it was time for us to land and me to go home, which is where I am now!!

Whitney is having another difficult travel day apparently and might have started another Twitter war with United... We shall see!

Mexican French Toast and Border Patrol

The prime objective of today was to get back into America and we almost screwed that up... But more on that later.

The first task of the day was packing up and shipping out, plus breakfast. We returned to our hotel's restaurant for the latter and that is where I got "Mexican French Toast." Technically it was just listed as French toast on the menu, but I wanted the novelty of French toast from Mexico. It was pretty standard French toast in the end.

After that, we hit the road. At the top of the week, Chuck had had some difficulty finding his way to the border and then crossing it. He'd wound up in the ReadyLane for people with passport cards instead of passports and was told that the next time he came through, he needed to use "the other lane." Once again, he got lost, but this time he was determined to redeem himself by taking "the other lane." We got in the "Sentri/Solo" lane. Well, this was not "the other lane." This lane was designed to be thr EZPass of border crossing and there is apparantely a third lane that no one knew how to get to from where we'd come from!

They take going through the Sentri Lane a lot more seriously than they take going through the Ready Lane, so while my dad got a verbal warning on Sunday, today they put a cone on our car and made us pull aside for further inspection. We drove through an X-ray machine and then we were left to sit there. *Cue waiting impatiently montage* Eventually, someone came to our service and they were thorough -- checking every inch of the car and our bags and basically everything they could besides us. We werI may or may not be an international criminal now. What have you done today? We were given a warning and told that if this happened again, it could be a $5000 fine and with that lovely thought hanging over us, we were free to enter the country.

We returned our rental car and took the shuttle back to the airport with our dad. We helped him check into his flight and I looked like a crazy person as I carried a jug of water we'd bought in Mexico but hadn't finished around the San Diego airport. Now Whit and I are off to figure out what to do with the last night of our vacation.

Last Day in Rosarito

This morning, we went for a horse ride on the beach. I guess this is viewed as romantic by some people, obviously not for the three of us given our circumstances but definitely not for me, EVER. Note to future suitors: this is a horrible idea and will not, in any way, endear you to me. Horses on the beach might not seem humane to some and it definitely wasn’t… for me! How the horses felt about all of this is debatable but I might actually hate horse riding as much as I hate airplanes.

Whitney, however, is all about the horses. She decided that hers was named Theodore. I decided that mine was named a string of unbloggable swear words… Chuck knows all about horses after spending summers on his uncle’s farm growing up, so he was ok too. The only person who thought that a gentle trot along the beach would kill them was me. 

Happy

Happier

Happi... No.

Once I had returned to the ground, I was a happy clam – and I found more clam shells! (These clams weren't happy, because they were dead…). We also found more sand pesos – I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with all of these sand dollar/pesos yet, but I have a lot of them.

Then it was pool time! Pool time was further improved today by combining it with wine time. After pool time, it was lunch time… and then more pool time. (Tan game is going so strong at this point).

We returned to the beach for one last swim – or in my case, one more time where I tried not to drown. The good news is that I obviously did not drown or else I wouldn't be blogging right now. The other good news is that it was a fantastic time!

After that, we de-sanded and then returned for one final west coast sunset over the ocean. Final authentic Mexican food was required for dinner and now it's time to pack up and say goodbye -- we're leaving here at 8:30 tomorrow to take Chuck back to the airport, Whit and I will have the whole day in San Diego and then it's back to the east coast on Saturday.

Sunset selfie! Peace and love from Mexico!

Another Day, Another (Sand) Dollar

Today started off pretty gray. Whitney and I hung out in the pool while our dad did work (because apparently there are still a few responsibilities that don't evaporate when you go on vacation).

The clouds broke around noon and we ventured down to the beach. Whitney, apparently, has a gift for finding sand dollars (otherwise known as sand pesos, since we're still in Mexico) and we found more today -- including whole ones -- than we had during the rest of our trip combined. If Whitney could find real money the way she found sand pesos, we would be rich by now. I found more shells -- I think I'm getting close to my quota, but it's hard to tell.

Whitney took this to get insta-famous. So artsy.

After the beach, we went out for more tacos. Whitney and I not only accidentally matched each other, but the restaurant as well...

This is what all of the cool cats in punk town are wearing.

More shopping followed -- I'm happy to say that the vendors in Rosarito aren't nearly as aggressive as the vendors in Ensenada -- and then we were back in the pool for a few hours.

Dinner was in Puerto Nuevo, which is famous for it's lobster. I went with the standard and had lobster for dinner and the rest of the family had different variations of sea food for dinner. We also had an awesome view, but we couldn't eat that.

Post dinner, we watched the sunset before heading out to Mexican Dairy Queen, where we could not go through the drive-thru because Whitney "doesn't know the Spanish word for sprinkles."

Taco Tuesday!

Also known as Freedom Friday... but still on a Tuesday!

Yes, today was Taco Tuesday, which meant a lot of tacos, but there was also a lot of wine, shopping and just food in general. 

We started our day nice and early -- with a wine tasting. Yes, 10:15 am is a totally acceptable time to start drinking! The cool thing about our first stop of the day at Vinos Fuentes (also known as glasses 1-6) was finding out that I'm already famous here in Mexico! I have wine named after me!! Vinos Fuentes makes a wine called Ruby Red Thom(p)son and although there was some discrepancy between the spelling on the bottle and the sign, it is clear that the wine was made in my honor -- the wine is 14% alcohol just like I am! We didn't actually get to try my wine during the tasting but we did buy a bottle to bring home.

See? I'm famous!

Stop #2 was Sol de Media Noche (glasses 7-10). Unlike Vinos Fuentes, this place had cheese to go with the wine, so it was basically just like what happens when I go out to dinner and ask the waiter for "the cheesiest dish and strongest drink." We bought another bottle here, this time it was a white that we actually did try but due to poor labeling/poor translation, all we know about it is that mango is involved in some way.

Our final stop was La Cetto and we finished out the day at 12:15 pm with a final tally of 14 glasses.

Next, we arrive in Ensenada, the birthplace of the margarita! Having been wined out for the day, we didn't actually get any margaritas while we were there, but we did have tacos! Whitney and I both ended up having one fish taco (it was a fish stick in a tortilla) and one shrimp taco (shrimp and cheese and a whole lot of other stuff). Our dad had a different type of shrimp taco. After that, it was time to shop! I put an exclamation point there, but I'm not sure this was the greatest shopping experience; there was a lot of stuff to buy and a lot of people who really wanted to sell it to us. While I know being hassled is a part of the experience, it isn't necessarily a part that I like. I ended up only going into the rare stores that left me alone (or had really, really shiny stuff in the windows). All of the harassment aside, I did make a few purchases, although I didn't find new friends for my South African elephant figurine, Nelson, which is something I'm looking to do here. We also got another taco before our time in Ensenada was over.

After that, we drove back to the hotel and although the roads here are not as narrow as the ones in Capri, they're still pretty terrifying. Whitney wasn't worried though, she slept in the back seat, cradling her bottle of wine in her arms like a newborn baby. Typical.

Finally, we returned to the beach for another sunset and some more shell collecting. I promise that my obsessive shell collecting does serve a greater purpose, but that purpose is a secret, so just trust me. I found a barnacle today too! Whitney found a knife that had washed up on the beach.

But look! Sunset stuff...

Aww, we're so cute!

I don't even know...

We then ate wayyy too much at dinner and are going to sit in the hot tub for the rest of the evening. 

Whitney wants everyone to know that her butt got sunburned

She really does. She even tweeted about it.

Dayummm.

Title says it all

Tan Game Strong

First full day in Rosarito!

The day started off with bang, or should I say a series of piercing beeps, because we set off the fire alarm in our kitchen not once, but twice. We didn’t actually set anything on fire, but considering the alarm went off because of toast, I think it might have been more respectable if we had.

We visited the hotel lobby to get some information on how we could spend the day (and access the WIFI) and this is where denim struck again and Chuck ripped his pants. Yes, Spongebob Dadpants ripped his jean shorts today. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), there is no photographic evidence of this event. 

This event led us to everyone’s favorite superstore, Walmart. Nothing too spectacular happened there, except that I wondered what the neighborhood kids would think if we handed out Mexican candy on Halloween.

More driving and shopping took place – Whitney bought a bag and almost bought a poncho – before we finally headed back to the beach.

Before actually getting to the beach, we sat in the beach chairs that our hotel has overlooking the beach and yes, you should be jealous. After baking for a bit, we returned to the sand and walked along the beach until we returned to Rosarito’s main drag for lunch (tacos for me!).

We walked down the street, planning tomorrow’s adventure… We didn't just discuss options, we literally planned the day by walking into the booking agent we’d found through our hotel. Wine tasting and Ensenada tomorrow, people!

Circling back to our hotel, we jumped in the pool. The pool was pretty nice for my twitching, spazzy muscles, what I did after that, however, was not… because next, we returned to the beach.

Yesterday I had been on bag duty, which meant watching our stuff while Whitney and my dad went swimming but not today.  The waves here are pretty big and occasionally violent; Whitney spent most of the day complaining that she was sore (and still sandy even after a shower) from yesterday, but I still needed to go in. Whitney waged a war against the ocean, screaming “stand your ground” and expletives every five seconds. At one point, she said that she was water-bending, but after the next big wave broke, she said she just had water in her face. I just tried not to lose my swimsuit or drown. Whitney also coined the term, SBSS or Saggy Bathing Suit Syndrome, not that I had it or anything, but like I said, my prime objective in the water was to keep my clothes on...

After all that, I had some well-deserved Mexican M&Ms. They’re the same as American M&Ms except the bag is in Spanish AND there was a surprise inside. Boom! Guess who got strange sticker-like things?! Hint, it’s me.

P.S. As the title of this post suggests, my tan game is strong, really strong.

Post-ocean selfie

Happy Birthday, Christopher Columbus!

Today, we (or people in America) celebrate the achievements of Christopher Columbus, who discovered America (then slaughtered thousands of people, captured more as slaves and generally sucked all around).

Isn't history fun?

Little Dead Crabs Lying on the Beach

We found the beach! And lots of little dead crabs, but more on that later.

Our hotel isn’t on the beach, but it is pretty close to it, so it was only a short walk between us and the ocean (which we can see/hear from our room). We started off by walking towards the pier – on our side of the pier, the beach is pretty much empty, but on the far side, things are very different. It is all the hustle and bustle you would expect from a beach getaway. Lots of people doing lots of different things. You can also ride horses on the beach, which is something Whitney is drooling over.

To make a long story short, I’ve recently had muscle spasms that make walking very painful and walking on the beach almost impossible, but do you know what makes things easier? Tequila. We stopped for a drink, where my dad and I both said, “tequila in Mexico, sign us up.” Whitney, however, decided to try a daiquiri. She had a very romantic notion of it apparently, but it didn’t live up to her expectations. My dad told us of the time he had his first daiquiri – he was 13 in the Bahamas – and how he immediately hated it and said that he’d prefer ingesting fecal matter to ever having another one. Whitney agreed and didn’t finish the drink.

We started to walk back towards our side of the pier and I started to collect shells. Although there are plenty of shells on the beach, they are outnumbered by dead crabs, so I wrote a song called “Little Dead Crabs Lying on the Beach.” You officially know all of the words now, so congrats! My dad and Whitney didn’t really appreciate my composition, but they clearly don’t know genius when they see it.

I also found fragments of sand dollars but my dad said we had to call them sand pesos because a) we’re in Mexico and b) because none of them are whole, so they are worth less than a dollar. There’s some nerd humor for you!

After washing away all of the sand, we went out for dinner, or as I would like to call it, more tequila!!

La Gran Aventura de Coca-Cola has continued with the discovery of Coca Cola Life. We bought it without a clue of what it actually was since we don’t, ya know, read Spanish, but apparently it is Coca Cola made with natural sweeteners. The taste test is on hold for now though.

*Please note that photos were selected to be uploaded but then life happened and the internet was slow, so no photos for now (or maybe ever, who knows? I don't).

La Gran Aventura de Coca-Cola

Because I am an odd human being, I once went on a six hour hunt for three bottles personalized Coke bottles with "Kyle" on them. That quest was named "The Great Coke Adventure."

As we got our food, we realized one major difference between American Coke and Mexican Coke -- the names on the bottles. Let La Gran Aventura de Coca-Cola commence!

What we are actually adventuring for has yet to be decided... #StillNoThomson

San Diego/Rosarito

In our original plans, Whitney and I were supposed to arrive at the same time. I arrived early and Whitney arrived late...very late. Whitney had a little bit of trouble with her connecting flights. This led to a mini Twitter war with United Airlines.

So sassy! I'm so proud!

I obviously had to get in on the action...

Since we had hours to burn, we went on the hunch for lunch (well, lunch for me, breakfast for Chuck -- thank you, time difference). After that, we went on the hunt for a grocery store since we have a kitchen in our hotel in Rosarito. Apparently, however, grocery stores do not exist in San Diego because we drove around for a long time before finally ending up at a Vietnamese grocery store. I stayed in the car and let my dad handle what was apparently a unique experience.

Then it was time to get Whitney and hit the road. Driving over the border is probably the least exciting thing to happen, ever... Crossing the border into Canada is a more adventurous experience. The most exciting part of going into Mexico was Whitney deciding to read all of the signs we passed in very bad Spanish. I'd forgotten what it was like to travel with the girl who took a selfie with Napoleon's tomb...

First matter of order upon arrival, WIFI password (ok, well, unpacking and then WIFI password) and food!

Planes, Trains and Oh Wait, Just Planes

The totally brilliant thing about traveling with a laptop is that I can write out my future blog posts in transit. Well, on the airplane at the very least. In the past, I took notes on my iPod of what I was doing during the day or jotted things down in a notebook, but being able to express my feelings at 60 wph (I assume that I type at least that fast – I was the fastest typer in my fifth grade class at 34 words per minute and I’d like to believe that I’ve improved in the past 12 years) during a five-hour flight without a movie or any other form of entertainment is pretty great.

The first flight of the day departed at 5:30 am and brought me to Philly. As previously documented, one of my greatest fears is airplanes (strangely enough, ebola is another one of my greatest fears, but that predates the current epidemic by about eight years) and do you know what is better than putting me 40,000 feet in the air? Putting in an exit row! “Are you ok with being in an exit row, ma’am?” Well, considering the fact that there is nowhere else to go, then yes, I guess I am.

I was supposed to be in seat 11B, meaning the middle seat. I was almost ok with this because being in the middle seat meant that there would be at least one person between me and this civic duty. So, I’m sitting in my seat, about to partake some serious masochism by actually looking at the safety packet (because let’s face it, even when I’m petrified, I’m an overachiever) when a tiny Korean couple comes up the aisle and I can just tell – I’m destined to be the deli meat in their airplane sandwich. This would be the point where I truly doubted my sanity as I immediately offered to let them sit next to each other, putting me up close and personal with the emergency exit. Given the obvious lack of any breaking news reports, I think anyone reading this can tell that my plane made it and I was not required to jump through an airplane window or save any lives today, but still.

I spent a good portion of the flight wondering why people give toddlers iPads. While waiting to board, I saw a kid that couldn’t be older than three totally engrossed in one while he was trying to walk with him mom. The child almost got left behind! Does this actually make sense to anyone? On the plane, I sat behind a woman and her son and immediately after sitting down, the mom asked him if he wanted “his iPad.” This was a child who wasn’t even old enough to buckle his own seatbelt, but apparently he has his very own iPad. I DON’T EVEN HAVE AN IPAD! What exactly are these babies doing with all of this technology? It’s not like they’re on Twitter because they haven’t even learned the basic 26 characters in our alphabet, much less how to make a succinct, grammatically correct, witty post in 140 characters or less. One time, Whitney and I spent the majority of a 5 hour flight playing with pillows. Just regular pillows! And we were WAY older than these kids… Hell, even on our flight to Europe, Whitney’s turtle pillow pet occupied a good half hour of our time.

After landing in Philly, I had to find my way to my next flight. Mid-flight to Philly, I realized that I didn’t have any headphones with me, so I bought some in case there was a movie on the plane (there wasn’t, so now I have some spiffy pink headphones and absolutely nothing to do with them). I was also on a hunt for the latest Vanity Fair which has Jennifer Lawrence on the cover, but nope, my hunt was in vain. I got a little bit lost which doesn’t make any sense because all I needed to do was walk in a straight line and then I had a pretzel for breakfast. Go ahead and judge me, I don’t care! Pretzels are delicious.

I really believe that traveling brings out the worst in many people. Case and point: Despite the questionable hygiene of these things, I think that lying down on one’s tray table is one of the more comfortable ways to sleep on a plane. Unless you’re sitting behind a jerk like the guy in front of me who really wanted to recline in his chair. I will admit that my preferred sleeping position might impede a fellow traveler from partaking in this luxury but how many times are you going to wake me up by slamming your back into your chair? I’m sure we could come up with a compromise that would include a traumatic brain injury! In case you think I’m being hypersensitive/paranoid (which are most traits that I most certainly possess in spades), I caught this guy looking at me as clearly as I caught the guy who was “just trying to read my shirt” earlier in the day. I truly hope that these guys have great moms because I can’t see how they’ll ever get another woman to love them when they act like this. 

It's Almost Here!

I have been awake since 3 am. Roughly 19 hours.

Given our bizarre travel schedule, I had to get up to drive my dad to the airport. I shall be following in his footsteps and leaving the house in 5-6 hours. My dad took a suitcase for both of us, so most of my luggage is already on the west coast, but have I finished packing my carry on? Absolutely not.

On a separate note, this is the first time I will be bringing my laptop with me to blog -- I used an iPod in South Africa and Whitney's laptop in Europe. My laptop is named Chip and he is very excited to be going on vacation with me.

I am bad at packing. I am good at binge-watching The Mindy Project. I should be able to do these things at the same time, but I am also bad at multitasking.

Things I should be doing: packing
Things I am not doing: packing

To be fair, there are more items on both lists, but few of them are quite as time sensitive, because my luggage leaves with Chuck on Saturday at 3 in the morning. I have two days to get my act together... this might be a national disaster.

Let's not even think about the natural disasters, because thanks to the Smart Traveler's Enrollment Program, I was notified of the Category 3 Hurricane in Tijuana over the weekend. The ten day forecast is looking good now, but still! Not exactly what someone is looking to get away from the depressing grey of constant rain wants to hear. Fingers crossed for warm!!!

We just went ahead with our currency conversion! I'm not going to lie -- ordering pesos is a lot more satisfying than ordering euros. Pesos make you feel rich while euros just remind you about the sad state of our economy.