Sophialife

So much argues about: Don't go to Tijuana, it will be the worst you've ever seen, it's dirty, soo poor and of course DANGEROUS. And it's not Mexico. For a while I almost felt like I didn't want to go anymore! Hey guys, once in a while I must disagree and say that a lot of people are mistaken about the whole Tijuana thing.

This is my experience:

We got there by taking the Greyhound bus down to San Diego. Even Greyhound has got bad critics. I have used it both here and on the east coast, I think it's like most other buses, dependent on the traffic, a little stinky toilet and not much room for your legs. But still faster (at least to San Diego) and just $29 roundtrip compared to Amtrak (the train) which is $29 one-way. Anyways you take the bus from the very very (not) nice parts of downtown LA and arrive next to The Plaza in SD. Then we took the Trolley (after some dinner from Ralph's) down to San Ysidro where the border is. Walked over the border and entered a completely different culture. First people we met were either police men or beggars (even kids) but I still felt comfortable. We started to walked to our "hotel" on the very broken streets people yelling after us. I still felt ok. We checked in at the hotel and came in to our room we had for our two nights. Must say that for the approximately $15/per night it was worth the money. Two single beds and an own bathroom with shower, the standard was not high - but neither dirty.

Time to explore Av. Revolucion (the main street). Well this street is probably the one all tourists see. If it's the only place you see in Tijuana I understand that you're disappointed. Even the nightlife is a kind of boring there. Also everything's more expensive. Anyways we spent our first night on that street and although we met some Canadian guys it was quite boring. The whole street was emty. After , dinner at Hard Rock Café, trying some different clubs, drinking and dancing we went back to our hotel where we slept and slept. Awesome!


So the next day (Saturday) we went out to Av Revolucion again and when standing, looking at the tourist map two guys come by. So I ask:

- Where are you from?
- We're from Germany.

All set. We got a very nice, safe and entertaining full day (night) with these guys. We walked out from the tourist area and dived in to the real Tijuana. We ate a vey fancy. nice meal at a Argentinian restaurant. Real Barbeque for the first time since I left home. Delicious! Such a good red wine too. And a lot of attention from the staff then Daniel (one of the guys) had been an exchange student in Argentina and could speak Spanish fluently (impressing btw). Once again, such great food! (Before we left we got some complimentary tequila shots of good quality!) So we kept on wandering around, back to the Av. Revolucion area again. As soon as we got there we all agreed we wanted to get away from there ASAP so Daniel asked one of these trade men where we could go. It's ridicolous, the parallell street just one block west of the main (tourist) street was Constitucion, the main (local) street. Over there it was crowded of all the locals, it was cheap, it was a lot of Mexican sweets, food, clothing etc etc and we didn't get bothered (probably because we were almost like couples).

After the "sightseeing" we all went to our place and while the guys were waiting Tammy and I did a quick make over. Changed some clothes and put some make up and simsalabim we looked ready for fiesta. I saw your faces when we came down the stairs guys ;-) So we went on facing Plaza Fiesta (the place we got to know was the place where the locals went out). Then it seemed like the Mexican days are longer (the time never passed although we had so much fun) I tried to sell my German friends the idea of going to a grocery store. I didn't give up and once we were in the store we all enjoyed it. I love grocery stores - whatever country (even Sweden) I have to go to them. It's so much fun. Always different stuff and once you know the assortment you can start comparing the products for real. So an hour or so, we walked out with Mexican fruits, Tequila and traditional sweet :-D Maybe all of them will carry the concept of a foreign grocery store in the future. Okey okey so we moved on to The Plaza Fiesta. We picked out a place called Beer Garden where we got to sit on a couch drinking some great drinks. Once again we moved over to another little "jail-like" place and after having some real Mexican burritos we went to a club (once again we had a couch). Anyways I guess some of the night is a little bit concealed ;-) A very nice day anyways. Thank you German people!


So the next day without much of sleep we went back a kind of in the same way we came (to pass the border went smoothly, they just confiscated our Mango ;-) ) Once in LA both of us needed to work - but it was a piece of cake, even driving was okey. I felt very attentive. The only bad thing was that I started to feel sick (my throat hurted a lot)..

Ps. Just so you know, Tammy has taken almost all these pictures, she's doing great with her camera. Look at here Death Valley pix here...