los angeles, wtf, houston, wtf, austin, ok, san antonio, ok.

i’m listening to… tegan and sara’s “the con” album.

$15 cover? wtf. luckily i didn’t have to pay for it cause henry got it. but what the shit?!! i totally had left my wallet in the car initially, too, cause i figured! wtf! who pays cover on a tuesday night! but clearly i know nothing. not to mention the club was in the middle of nowhere (maybe?) in santa monica. took two shots of tequila and got kinda pretty drunk offa that, which is hilarity. friends, friends. henry also got grounded when he was 16 and his parents’ method of grounding was by putting “the club” onto his car. too funny. he also put an art installation / social experimentation project i guess on the campus of his college — and you put in a quarter, and the machine gave you back twenty-six cents. ummm, awesome? other than that, hung out with michael today and yesterday and watched movies and ate sushi, and went to the mall with jeanette and her friend jenn today! oh, and i saw jeanette get a manicure (and pedicure, but i wasn’t really watching that so much) which was weird, and scraping off cuticles kinda grosses me out, not gonna lie. now i’m at jeanette’s house, listening to music, at 2:21am, eating mixed nuts from costco. woo!

oh yeah, yesterday aaron texted me while i was still in austin and was like! there’s this weird shoperotic channel on tv that is marketing an extreme _______ (insert name of extreme dildo), and i was like, dude! i worked for them! funny.

austin was decent, stayed with one of my writers, matt, and did random shit……………. walked around a bunch, drew on the university of texas campus, ate yogurt, chatted with alex for hours from my itouch from a yogurt shop, etc. lot of public transportation and solo lameness. lots of frustration. saw a-ron and co. at the mohawk where they were performing. it was fun. the show had some techy probs and a-ron was losing his voice, but yeah. played the drawing game. got a bong drawn on my leg. it was all good. hung out with the brunettes for dinner which was interesting cause half of them were mega goofy and half were pretty serious. yeahhhhh. and stubb’s bbq doesn’t have vegetarian options really, as usual, but i had some wicked fried okra!! woo!!! from austin, i rented a car and drove to houston because some guy at the nurses show had told me that houston was better than san antonio. he was wrong and sucked.

houston was a fucking weird place which i hated kinda but it was interesting to go to because there was like jack shit there! really nice, new buildings on one street, really super ghetto boarded up buildings on the next street over. weirdness. also passed by one stretch of freeway where it was like every-chain-store-in-america-in-these-five-miles — i shit you not. i was beginning to think there were no more chains possible but new ones kept popping up. it truly blew my mind. i slept in my car in front of an apartment complex really close to the downtown stadiums. no problems with that really other than the fact that i really shoulda taken a shower, and what’s more — the pattern on the seat kinda left marks on skin!!!! also left the windows cracked a smidgen and it started pouring like a MOTHERFUCKER sometime in the night and started raining on my legs, woo! this is total rambling stream-of-consciousness bullshiz. there was this awesome outdoor car wash place in houston, though, called the “humble car wash”, and it was like pretty unfancy and the workers were all these black youths, like teenagers. so funny. i enjoyed it very much, and the sign was all rickity and funny and simple and there were like 15 teens hanging out there washing cars, only there were no freaking cars to wash!!!!!!!!!! took lotsa cool pics (well, some cool pics) and got lost a lot but it was pretty fun in that regard. there was a george washington monument which i tried to check out but parking downtown was absolutely fucking impossible, so i gave up and didn’t actually get to check out the downtown all that much. i also attempted to find a coffee shop to charge my electronics and i could NOT locate one even though i looked around and circled down every street ever. also attended church and found a church recommendation through couchsurfing — a catholic charismatic church — but unfortunately there was not any speaking in tongues. it was a little interesting because they adhered pretty strictly to catholic ideals and customs, but the father himself was so super lax and really kinda funny and kinda was dressed in green and purple, like a football player, kinda, as opposed to a father. interesting. but ultimately because of the lack of speaking in tongues, it pretty much did nothing for me. kinda interesting though cause the praise song they were playing when we got in was one i knew. i forget the name now. moo. oh yeah also ate dinner by myself — a highly-recommended texmex place according to chowhound — and it was kinda weird because it was a sorta party-like atmosphere (think chile’s) but i was alone. i got over that real quick, though, but texmex is not all that good. not particularly down with it, to be honest.

then it was onto san antonio, and i slept in the car again, but drove middle of the night to a rest stop and slept there. it was fine, but a little cold. kinda found san antonio a wee bit charming in a more interesting historical sense. the architecture was cool and the whole feel was less big city and hence more appealing. there was also a lot more mexican, including this outdoor mexican square thing with music and dancing and food, and was even a lot more mexican down to the… i got honked at… at one point, i got honked at by one car that slowed down and honked five times in a row! like hell yeah! i haven’t gotten honked at five times in a row even in mexico or peru! so you win! congrats!!!!! woooooo!!! oh yeah. the alamo fucking sucks. it’s no godamn lie. the shit is soooo pointless. why do people go to san antonio to see the alamo? i’ve no godamn clue!!!!

by the end of texas i was really fucking dirty and desperately needed a shower. luckily i got one really early on in los angeles. woo!

sleeping and brushing of teeth should happen.

or at least taking a nap on the couch before that happens. yeah. that sounds good. yeah.

mexico city, mexico.

The night before I left for this trip, I flew from Seattle to San Francisco and was picked up at the airport by my brother and his girlfriend. Not the best idea. Really should have just stayed at the airport, because all I did was get picked up at the airport at 9:30pm, sit around their house doing work online, and get picked up by Mihae and her mom at 4:30am. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t shower. I did eat a bean and cheese burrito and steal some Oreos, and I guess those were pretty cool things, but for the most part, I should have just stayed at the SFO airport

We got to the airport REALLY early and waited around, and I didn’t think we could check our bags all the way to Lima, but we actually could, so that was really exciting. It was really exciting because we had a day-long stopover in Mexico City and carrying around luggage would have been fucking ridiculous.

The flight to Mexico City was totally a blur of sleepy haze, but check out this freaking view upon landing.

We started “seeing” the city sooo far away from landing. I want to say like 45 minutes before landing, the city was already showing itself. And it’s soooo dense, as you will see from these photos. Maybe these photos don’t convey anything to you, but man. IT’S SO DENSE. Not dense like Japan, which rivals Mexico City in population but utilizes skyscrapers, but dense like Mexico City, where shit is sprawled all over the motherfooking place but just packed in really close together but rarely in high-rise form.

So, the new terminal of the Mexico City International Airport — the International terminal, I believe — is fucking super nice. Super modern, super clean, super well-designed. Even the area where they stamp your passport is extremely well-done and not at all intimidating; instead of the workers being behind these tall, square glass panels, they stand in these little circular pods, making it extremely less intimidating. We got asked a few questions mostly because we didn’t have an address that we were going to, since we were heading onto Peru. Ultimately, though, I think they were just amused by us. Oh yeah, and when you leave customs, you have to press this button. If you press it and get a green sign, you can move on without incident. If you press it and get a red sign, apparently every item you own gets taken out and put on display, and if you have more than two laptops or two cameras, security will take the items away from you, because those are the rules.

Anyway, we got a taxi at the airport, which was kind of honestly a confusing process because they have regular cabs and secured cabs, which are slightly more expensive but more trustworthy. We got dropped off at the building above, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, or Palace of Fine Arts. Actually made a mistake on going to this particular area; we should have gone to the great Mayan pyramids. ~__~ Next time, I guess T__T Big mistake on my part. I should say, though, that Mexico / Mexico City has truly a fuckload of American chain stores, such as Starbucks, obviously, but less obviously, Dunkin Donuts, Carl’s Junior, Burger King, and so on and so on.

Anyway, we got to the downtown area and walked around for a while in the SUPER sweltering heat. Then we got really hungry and ducked into a restaurant which was actually a Spanish-styled restaurant… not a Mexican-styled one! ~__~ Mihae got a tortilla de patata and I ordered some random dish that ended up having garbanzo beans, stewed onions, and lots and lots of meat which I basically ignored (including a couple of super disgusting-looking sausages).

This guy was passed out for eternity there. Like seriously, an eternity. Our ENTIRE meal, he was passed out on the table. I don’t THINK he moved. He may have moved a little bit, but I don’t think so. After eating, we just walked around aimlessly, honestly. There were a lot of street vendors we passed by, and I made a note to buy stuff from them later, but unfortunately never did. DAMMIT. Must return to Mexico City.

Mexico City has some amazing, amazing buildings.

… And the safest… playground… thing… ever.

This is the Zocalo of Mexico City, or its main square. I decided to choose this place to visit, but honestly, it was pretty pointless. There weren’t many tourists, which was cool, because it’s not a super touristy spot, but there also wasn’t really much going on. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable… because it was… but still.

Mexican flag in the square ^__^ I tried taking this photo 800x, because it was really difficult to take, because I didn’t want to look through the lens because it was so sunny and kept shining into my eyeball

What Tenochtitlan means, for the curious? So, there was a Tenochtitlan museum here, and there were leftovers of a huge Mayan pyramid, I think, but there was really nothing much left, so we didn’t bother to go. We walked around and found a SHITLOAD of religious propaganda shops, selling full-sized Marys, including a Hispanic one, and a giant life-sized plastic Christ on a cross. Fooking amazing religious iconography abounded… I really should have picked up some. Hopefully, it’s not too late.

There were also many, many self-help bookstores. This particular one also happened to be Christian, and offered a ton of Christian books

In our wanderings, we stopped into this really cool cafe / restaurant / bar / art gallery / film cinema / venue. It was bizarre and definitely tried to be all things at once, but it didn’t cost anything to get into, to our surprise, and was pretty neat. There was also free internet for us to use, which was super bizarre, but luckily we used it to e-mail a friend of Mihae’s roommate, this guy named Diego, who lived in Lima. We were hoping Diego could meet up with us in Lima, and this free internet here helped 100%. Anyway. I definitely wish we could spend more time in Mexico City, because the city seems quite amazing, to be quite honest.

Sculpture… guy.

Totally my type of thing.

So, we walked around and would sit down at various benches in various parks or in various convenience stores… at one point, when we were walking around aimlessly, Mihae noticed a bunch of mariachi dudes and said that we should cross the street. Best decision ever. (There were also a lot of strip clubs around this area )

This park had SOME kind of mariachi shit going on, because mariachi dudes were absolutely EVERYWHERE! This group of dudes was serenading some chick who was there with her boyfriend, and the chick was all bout it bout it, apparently giving out requests and most definitely singing along. We sat down in that square for a long while, trying to soak it all in and just relaxing.

Muy facconable.

Love the colors of these Latin American countries. Love. It.

It wouldn’t be Mexico without cute, grimy doggies lying in the streets.

One of the restaurants in the square. They all desperately were trying to get us to eat at their restaurants, but we turned them all down because we weren’t particularly hungry just yet. Unfortunate, really. There was a lot of asking us if we were Japanese, which, I think, Mihae was initially very offended by, but soon came to realize that it’s not in an offensive way, but that it is just a very obvious statement meaning no harm. I personally was used to it from Spain, where I was by myself and still felt not at all threatened by it all. I have definitely noticed though that elderly people in these Latin American countries are just so so so cute about telling us to be careful and to watch out… it’s cute.

Sunset in the square with the mariachi bands.

Massive Mexico prides. ^__^

We walked around some more and decided to head back to the airport around 8:00pm. Much to my extreme surprise, my phone fucking works abroad, if I want to pay for the roaming for it. But it’s cool to know that if I want to use it, I have the option.

Anyway, we walked to the Sheraton to catch a taxi from its doors because otherwise there is a chance that the taxis are not so safe. The Sheraton taxi that picked us up was more like a lady in a giant sooped-up truck, but since the Sheraton said it was okay, we assumed it was okay, even though it’s ultimately kinda weird. The lady was nice, though, and spoke very good English. We talked about how people jaywalked and how they were lawless.

At the airport, we finally noticed these GIANT ASS plant pots. They are super cool! I should also say that “super cool” is this term that this German CouchSurfer I hung out with the previous week used a fuckload, and that it sounded very funny.

The airline we took on the way in!

We were lame that evening and ate at Chili’s because we got to the airport muuuuch earlier than we needed to. The internet had told us three hours before for international flights, and I thought it might be possible since Mexico City is, after all, a very large city, but that was wayyyy too early, and it was a totally pointless thing to do. So, we ate at Chili’s, and even ate some of our leftovers from lunch (yes, we brought it into Chili’s because we’re classy), and then I did some writing and fell in and out of sleep while writing (because I was lying down on the airport benches). The notes got less and less intelligible as time went on, which was really quite funny.

After we were on the plane, Mihae and I were two rows off from one another because we’d booked our plane tickets at different times and therefore couldn’t get on the same flight. I asked the guy next to Mihae if I could switch seats with him, and he literally said he couldn’t because he was “comodo (comfortable)” where he was. Ass