Home Again

This trip left me with the feeling I still need another day off all to myself before going back to work. I'm tired.

I had alot of notions rolling around in my mind about what it was going to be like in Mexico. I'd assumed everything was filthy and destroyed. Turned out many of the neighborhoods were just as clean and quiet as the neighborhoods where I live. Houses there were meticulously maintained and plenty of people in Mexico had brand new American made cars to drive. I expected every vehicle on the street down South would look like cars from the film "Road Warrior". I did see some crazy shit cruising around on the road, but nothing that far gone. Tijuana had some of the worst filth- and stink I've ever smelled in my life. I think that was pretty close to what I imagined it would be like. Many other things surprised me. I'd like to go back to Mexico sometime, go further South, far away from the US border. The whole time we were there everything was paid for in American dollars. I'd like to see pesos buying my meals and souveniers instead of the old familiar greenbacks. I think I only got a small glimpse of what Mexico is really like.

While we were still in San Diego Autumn bought me a really stylin' bowling shirt, black with a single red stripe on either side of the buttons. She picked it out for me at a goofy little shop in a section of San Diego called Hillcrest. We also went to see a collection of World War Two memorabilia that was on loan from Russia. Most of it was captured by the Russians as they pounded their way into Germany. Amazing amounts of captured Nazi gear and weapons were on display behind plate glass. They even had partial aircraft in the collection, and when I say partial I mean it because it appeared the shit had been shot out of the sky. Of particular interest to me was getting to see the famed MP44 up close and personal. Right after the war ended a Russian engineer took the MP44 design and re-worked it from the ground up to create what we know today as the AK-47. I was surprised how different, and yet oddly familiar the MP44 was when I saw one behind glass in a cabinet with an alarm attatched to it. Guess there was no stealing of vintage weapons, darn it.

Autumn studied Russian and spent some time living there while working towards her degree. She told me how much the Russians seem to love museums and how they happen to have a museum for just about anything you can think of. Once she got talking about how they have a museum of bread. I laughed at her like that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard in my life. Museum of bread, hah! She had to be making that junk up. Our conversation about it was months before coming to see the WWII display in San Diego. While we were wandering through the self-guided tour, Autumn motioned me over to an uninteresting looking pedestal enclosed with glass which had a single black brick under a track light. I walked over to it and read the card explaining what it was. It said the nasty brown-black brick was a loaf of bread made by starving Russians during the 900 day siege of Leningrad. They ran out of food supplies while the Nazis were trying to crush their city, so the Russians used wallpaper glue, sawdust, and a little flour to make loaves of bread like the one sitting in front of me. It looked like it would taste awful. To top it all off, the end of the information card said that this item was on loan from the Museum of Bread.

Next time, I'll believe Autumn when she tells me some random fact about Russia. She knows her stuff. When we left the Russian WWII museum attraction we passed by a bum with no arms who was panhandling in the park. He played a guitar with his feet. He was pretty good too. I didn't give him any money though 'cause I was pretty much broke by then...