Crossing the border

Randy and I drove all the way down from Los Angeles to Tijuana airport starting at 8:30am. I said goodbye to Maggie and Zack. They looked puzzled, I swear. It was a fast and nice drive down. Randy didn´t show any signs of sadness. He sounded very excited for me and I prefer that way.It made my departure easier.

Arriving in Tijuana was interesting, as soon as we zoomed through the border I felt funny, I knew I couldn´t return from that point. Not that I really felt like going back...
Randy got anxious for lack of signage and turn into the first exit which led us directly into downtown. The traffic was awful. Little filthy white and blue buses changing lanes and cutting in fron of cars right and left. The average speed at that point should be about 1 mile/hour. I could feel that Randy was a little insecure driving under those conditions, and that was when I feared for his return. If he got lost there was no way he would be able to communicate. Fortunately when we got back to the right way, it was pretty straight forward.

Back on the awful traffic I rmember telling Randy how ghetto that part of Tijuana looked and it actually reminded me of some bad parts in Rio. Then he mentioned it reminded him of a street not too farr from where we live now - Alvarado street can be very much like that as well.
I thought about my friend Thaissa, who lives in Redondo Beach. I thought how I don´t think she will ever be able to adjust to Brazil again, for the unorganized traffic , the unadecated drivers, the noise, pollution and of course, lack of security. I started wondering about my own ability on adjusting to living in Brasil again.

When Randy dropped me at the aiport it was less emotional than I expected. We hugged quickly and I rushed inside despite the 5 hours of antecipation. It was weird but it was definitely better for him to go from there. When you first go inside the airport it is a little messy, there is a big glass divisor where only the passenger go through to do the check in. Randy would not be able to wait with me for check in and in his own clever words he would not be able to help with anything. I had to start practicing my spanish, which was way rusty... I longed for my days in Montebello when I could actually argue on the phhone in spanish... uhm, not really, not long for, but sometimes I wish I could have kept my fluency on that language somehow.

The check in was easy and there was no line, however the seucirty held only one checking point and it took me a little longer. The aiport perse is very clean and nice. I tried finding a phone booth but couldn´t find one compatible to the phone card we had just bought. I really wanted to talk to Randy to know whether he was okay... That was frrustrating. I guess I will have to wait until I get to the hotel tonight.

I exchanged 20 dollars, that was the same as 200 pesos. I have no idea where those 200 pesos can take me. we will see...