Mexico Travel Journal: March 8th and 9th.

Please note: I rarely had much time to write, much less make anything sound good or even grammatically correct, so my journal is pretty rough. I have made a few minor changes to a couple of the posts, added stuff etc. but most of it is word for word. Please also note that my whole travel journal was handwritten, and my handwriting, although it looks nice because it is all pretty and small, it is also quite illegible.

Enjoy.



Wednesday, March 8, 2006

10:44pm
Near LAX now, flight was okay, my knee hurts. Everybody got a warm cookie. I drank tea and water as well. Got into a bit of an argument with dad at the airport, he left without saying goodbye, oh well. Had Thai noodle salad for dinner. Line-ups way too long. Had marble mocha macchiato at the gate and bought gum and a girly magazine. Nail polish girly. Just landed. Slowing down now. Been spending time with Amy and Anny. Very nice. They are in my group-thing. Learned a new card game from KJ. Plane stopping. Must go now. Will be spending the night in LA.

11:45pm
Mom lost her luggage. WTF.


Thursday, March 9, 2006

1:34am
Been hanging around on Amy and Anny's bed, talking and such. Nice hotel, though it's near the airport, so you can hear the planes coming in. The plaza is cool, with heat lamps, a fountain, and a canopy that is all leafy. Balcony-thing nearby as well, outside nice and warm. Took a couple pictures. Me in my sexy pyjamas. We're on the top floor, got confused on the stairs once and ended up on the roof, which was scary because we thought that we were on our floor. Currently eating crispers and drinking water. Animé show on TV, but none of us are watching it, so I don't know why it's on. Been talking lots, about stalkers, manly women, being spit in the face...also mama's boys. Anywadoesn'tom doesn't have her luggage yet, we're hoping to get it tomorrow, or else she won't see it all week. She is currently wearing my PJ pants and a work shirt that I borrowed from dad. I am wearing a tank top because it's too hot for my cross-country shirt and a pair of dark grey guy shorts. Ooooo, it's the first anniversary of my very first concussion. It's also What's-His-Name's birthday, but he's not here, so I don't care at all. Why do I always remember these things? Mom wants us to go to bed now, as we have to be up by eight.


Me, about thirty seconds from curfew.


The Hacienda in the morning.

10:13am
Had the last hot shower for a week this morning, probably the best hotel shower that I have ever had.

10:50am
On the bus now, took a long time to organize one-hundred fifty pieces of luggage. Heading to San Diego now, making a quick stop at the airport there to pick up mom's luggage didn't Apparently it didn't leave Vancouver until this morning, so they are sending it to San Diego for us. Breakfast this morning was okay, ate at Mariposa's, the coffee was really bad. Ate the only vegetarian thing on the breakfast menu. Amy, Anny and I found a gift shop and bought postcards, then discovered another courtyard thing and took pictures. Just went through a rather long tunnel. I see an In-N-Out Burger. Brings back good memories of stickers and piggybacks. I'm quite bored now. I am going stare blankly out the window and be antisocial. Ahhh, the bus.

12:46pm
My ass really hurts and we have at least an hour to go. Somebody brought balloons, and there are now blue balloons being hit around the bus. Almost everyone has taken a nap at one point in the last two hours. I probably should since I only got about five hours of sleep last night because we were talking so much. I really don't want to. I hate sleeping on buses. A while ago we went through Capistrano Valley, past Muffin's old high school. Ugh, finally almost in San Diego. After a could of hours there we will be heading to Tijuana. Tomorrow I get to start working. I will be so happy when I get off of this bus.

4:25pm
Bought sushi from Wonder Sushi. Yeah, that's right. More later.



Wonder Sushi!!!

4:58pm
Okay, went to the Gaslamp District and checked out the shops. Bought a hat. Bought chocolate from Ghirardelli's. My cherry coke had cherries in it. Walked to Horton's Plaza. Bought the coolest pair of shoes ever for ten dollars. Great for costumes. Wandered around and went to shops not normally found in Canada. Didn't buy anything except sushi. Anny tried on nearly every pair of sunglasses that she could find and Amy bought a hat from a kiosk. Leaving for Tijuana now. Will go to Costco when we get there to buy water and snacks.


Me sitting in a tree. Wait, that was obvious. I'm sorry.

One part of Horton's Plaza. I only took a picture because it looked cool.

My ten dollar shoes.

5:29pm
Rousing chorus of "A Whole New World" on the bus right now. Not sure who is leading it over the intercom, but it's funny. He knows all of the words. So random. Starting to get a little darker now. Caught in traffic.

5:36pm
Starting to rain. People in the back of the bus are playing Concentration.


People on the bus.

10:25pm
Crossed the border at 6:07pm. Went to Costco and bought our water for the week, fifty cases, one for each of us. We had a train of people on the bus loading water. Everybody had to sit on their own case. We also bought breakfast foods and snacks. The school itself is in a rather poor neighbourhood. We had police and the principal waiting for us to escort us inside. The school is already built, but needs a lot of work. The whole thing is walled, with iron gates, and there is a security guard present most of the time. There are about six hundred students that go here, from grades one to seven. Half go to school in the morning and half in the afternoon. They occupy ten classrooms. The bathrooms are...interesting at best, there's no toilet paper, we had to bring our own, and the stall doors are really low. Everything inside is very pink in the girls and very blue in the guys. There are no shower stalls, just two shower heads stuck in the wall, and when you turn them on, no one can use the sinks or two of the toilets. There is a little room about halfway between where we are sleeping and the washrooms, with a little stove and some table where we eat. We have a couple cooks, Anna and Mary, who are the mothers of a couple of the kids. They had something ready for us soon after we arrived. The son of one of them, named Juan, was hanging around. He is the cutest little boy ever. We are all staying in the "library," a medium-sized room with a tiled floor. There is one bookshelf with a set of encyclopaedias and one with toys and games, I am sleeping in the corner of the room that is farthest from the door, next to my mom. Next to her is a trophy case filled with different trophies, namely for soccer, but there are also a few for basketball and running. The fifty of us barely fit in here. Nobody really has any room to move. People are getting ready for sleep now; we have to be working tomorrow by 8:30. We will work for about six hours, then we will eat lunch and tour downtown Tijuana and Tijuana Beach. I haven't been feeling well for most of the day, I think it was the breakfast I ate this morning, so I hope to feel better tomorrow. Learned a new phrase in Spanish today, "no carne" (no meat), which is very helpful. The lights are being turned off now.

This is the "library" where we slept.

We had one hundred fifty bags in total.

Fifty cases of water for fifty people.

Some people started a soccer game as soon as they were unpacked.