Tijuana


I went down to visit my friend Alberto for the Mother’s Day weekend. His parents live in Tijuana and I was invited to spend Mother’s Day with his family. This was very interesting to me as a typical Mexican Mother’s Day is quite a bit different than in the States. First off, Mexican Mother’s Day is on Saturday instead of Sunday. Alberto and I drove down to Tijuana in the morning to go with his family to brunch. Brunch seems to be a pretty popular thing in Tijuana as I think Alberto’s parents go to brunch every weekend. We had a rather large group, (me, Alberto, his brother, his brother’s wife, his parents, and his sister’s 2 daughters) so it took a little while to get seated. The food was good, but what made the meal interesting was the fact that Alberto’s mother spoke to me the whole time in Spanish while Alberto translated the things I didn’t understand.

Alberto’s parents live in the penthouse suite in gated community in a somewhat secluded area of Tijuana. It’s 3 stories with 5 balconies, the largest being more than double the size of 2 of the smaller ones. The architecture is a little different as the original owner was Iranian and the entire building is Iranian style, including naked murals on the walls, a circular glass tea room, and miscellaneous Iranian style furniture (the penthouse was purchased furnished). Taking advantage of the nice weather, a lot of time was spent on the big balcony overlooking the ocean.

In the late afternoon, I drove Alberto, his parents, and his 2 nieces (yes, my car was packed) to Rosarito to visit Alberto’s sister and brother-in-law. They own a photo store there. Alberto’s sister’s husband is from Bulgaria, so we had some nice conversations about Bulgaria. It was nice talking about old memories and some of the small details I had forgotten about Bulgaria. On our way back to Tijuana, we stopped at the grocery store in order to get supplies for dinner. I saw a luchador trying to promote a sports drink. That was funny to me.

Dinner was grilled carne asada and beans and rice and tons of other homemade foods. Needless to say it was delicious! In the evening we went to a club in town. It was a pretty sweet club, very modern. The walls had fiber optic lighting behind semi-transparent white curtains, so the club would glow depending on how the lights were set. They also release a few hundred balloon animal balloons and a few really large ones. This was fun for a couple minutes, then it just got annoying as the balloons were everywhere.

The drive home was an experience. The Tijuana border is a bit nuts with cars everywhere. If you leave even an inch of space between you and the car in front of you, someone will squeeze in there. There are also people walking in and out of the rows of cars selling random shit, including but not limited to dolls, clothing, statues, trinkets, food, drinks, espresso, benches, trading cards, and world maps. I wasn’t kidding when I said random shit. All in all it was a very nice trip and am looking forward to going back. Alberto’s mother told me I’m welcome anytime. At the end of my trip I was a little sad, only because I would have liked to spend Mother’s Day with my own mother. Miss you mom!

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