San Diego - Day 4 - T.J.!!!

It's really Day 5 right now, but I'm just now getting around to posting day 4 info. Sorry about that, but tough poop, pal.

Training was pretty good yesterday, but I missed a fair amount of it while taking care of the MS patches for work (it was patch Tuesday in case you didn't know). Once training was done, we were off.

We hustled back to our rooms and dropped off our training stuff, then immediately headed towards the trolley station. We were at the border a little after 7:00. A fairly short walk later, we were in Tijuana.

We were fortunate to meet a guy who was American, but lived in Mexico. We were looking for a good tourist-type area where we could get some good food, drinks, and do some shopping for tacky shit we wouldn't normally buy. He pointed us in the right direction, and gave us some great advice about what part of town to avoid.

Before getting to the main drag, we decided to stop and have a cerveza. The restaurant was a sidewalk joint and we had a Corona for $1 each. Not bad. Looking up, I noticed that the edge of the roof had writing on it that read "do not feed the dog". Huh? What dog? Then I saw the dog. There was a chihuahua on the roof. Just walking around and looking down at people walking by...



File that under "things you don't see in Chico, CA". This guy that walked by noticed the dog and said, "hey dog, you don't have to make a run for the border any more, you're already there!". After downing the beer, we made our way to our main destination. When we got to the main drag, we veered left (heading right would take us into the red light district, which we had no desire to visit) and started looking around.

If you've never been to Tijuana, let me paint a picture for you. It's like a combination of Vegas & Bourbon Street, but much dirtier. And it smells pretty bad, unless you walk by a good restaurant.

In front of every business, one or two guys are trying to get you to come inside to sell you something. Whether it's some cheap souvenir, food, booze, or topless women. It's non-stop. If we happened to be there on a busy day, like a Saturday, it wouldn't be so bad because there would be a ton of other tourists for them to focus on. We were there on a Tuesday evening, and were pretty much the only people around. We were absolutely inundated with dudes trying to hustle us.

But we had fun with it. We even bought a few things. My friend found some nice jewelry for his girlfriend and I got a cool flask. We also bought some nice Cuban cigars (legal in Mexico) that we were going to take back with us. There are three things you need to know to survive in T.J.:

1. Always haggle. Their prices are always high to start. Decide what you're willing to pay for something, and eventually that's what you'll pay. For example, the flask. He wanted $48 for it, which was way too much. I offered $15. He came back with $36. This went on for a while. He was pouring us shots of tequila throughout the process and shmoozing us completely, talking up the quality, yada yada yada. So, I started to leave. That's when the price drops. Not as much as I wanted, though. I kept starting to leave, and eventually, I got it for $15. This is true for every vendor.

2. Before you agree to anything, whether it be a meal, a drink, ANYTHING, find out how much it will cost first (hint: Spanish word for "how much" is cuánto). They will try to screw you over, folks. I promise you. Get the money established, then proceed.

3. If you don't have exact change, count the money that is handed back to you before letting the guy leave. They will short change you without batting an eyelash.

We walked around for a few hours, then took a cab back to the border so we could catch the last trolley back home. Your last stop before hitting US soil is customs. Like the dipshit that I am, I had our Cubans in my hand when I walked through. The guy stops me and asks what I'm carrying and promptly confiscates them. $20 down the drain. Why I didn't just put them in my pocket, I will never know. That was the only bad part of the trip.

We found our trolley and made it back home before Midnight. All in all, it was a lot of fun, but not something I would want to do very often.