Day 1

And now we're here.

It's around noon, and I'm sitting in our hotel room in Zacatecas, Mexico. I'm pretty hungry, as my only food over the past 24 hours has consisted of an apple, crappy nacho chips and tic-tacs. Not even coffee. Miriam's asleep, as I probably should be, but as I said, I'm pretty hungry.

I'm looking at the spot on the floor where our other two bags would be if they'd made the trip with us from Chicago. The truth is, it was a hell of a lot easier getting from the airport without them, than it would have been with them, due to their insane weight, which we paid dearly for when we checked them in at LGA.

I'm thinking about showering, but I'm also thinking about having to shower without a drop of water getting my mouth. And now I'm thinking about not showering for the next year. Oy. Did I mention all our various medications are in the missing bags, including the one for la turista? Yeah.

The flight was uneventful from NYC, after a 5 hour layover Chicago. We were the only gringos on the plane, which was interesting. It did occur to me that in an emergency, we wouldn't have a clue of what to do. The english announcements were pretty useless. I guess we would have followed our instincts and soiled our pants. That may be a cross-cultural reaction. Kind of like a Heal the World for scared people everywhere.

The airport here in Zacatecas is obviously a small one. Customs and immigration were fine, there were no questions asked about what we're doing here or anything else. We now have 180 day visas. I really don't get what the big deal about getting through the US-Mexico border. We had no problems at all.

So, we took our bags, got in a taxi and headed into town. It's only about 20km or so, and the roads were just fine - at least in the sense that they were there. Crazy motorcyclists going really fast, pickup trucks full of commuters, and a monument built in the middle of the highway that you have to drive around.

Coming into Zac., we were thinking it looks like parts of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico and parts of Israel (poorer areas). The hotel is in the historic district of Zac., so the streets are cobblestone-ish and hilly, the buildings are old-looking and beautiful, and it's pretty nice looking.

I think this is it for now - maybe that shower and a walk around to see if and what I can eat.

Oh, and my absolute zero-knowledge of Spanish? Really, really unhelpful. It's going to be a bit rough, I think, until I get some skills.