¡Vamos a México!

Dave came to visit me this past weekend, which rocked. We went to Mexico, it was hot as hell, we ate lots of meat and I discovered the new love of my life, Mexican popsicles, or paletas. I got made fun of for my Spanish, got a little drunk, made a friend, and ate bacon wrapped hot dogs. Thank god Dave pointed out to me that the most obvious way of getting rid of my "friend" was to say "adios amigo". It was like he taught me a new Spanish word. It had never even occurred to me. Hermosillo is a pretty and clean city, with not a ton to do, but it was fun anyway. Dave and I both experienced the hottest weather we've ever been in - 109 with 40% humidity that weather.com said felt like 135. How Dave didn't die of dehydration I don't know, because I drank about 4 times as much water as he did.

Oh, I also forgot within three seconds of entering Mexico that I wasn't supposed to drink the water, and got an agua fresca made with Mexican water. Other things that rocked about Mexico: our hotel was $20, there was a store devoted solely to selling backpacks, we didn't get stung by scorpions, Dave coined the phrase "contemporary ruins" to describe crumbling modern buildings, tacos, how nice people were to us, watching a movie in Russian subtitled in Spanish on the bus TWICE, buying two spanish language cookbooks, the bus driver who was joking with us about marijuana as we went through US customs, and the fact that people kept bringing us bowls of key limes with EVERYTHING we ate.

Overall, the Spanish speaking went better than expected, everyone understood me, and we got everything we needed taken care of. The only thing I couldn't quite handle was getting a straight answer on what to do with our tourist permits, but as it turns out, it seems no one actually cares about the tourist permits. The trip did make me realize just how limited my Spanish language skills are though, and I really want to make an effort to get better.

There's a paleteria down on South 6th Ave. here in Tucson, and they make some rocking popsicles. I'm going to see if I can buy the supplies (plastic bags that are used as molds and sticks) from them to try some at home. They're $1.50 each from the paleteria, so being able to make passable ones at home would be awesome.