Day 2

Traveling from Mexico City to Queretaro, and settling in.

Day 2 was much less eventful than either 1 or 3, but it was still pretty interesting. I started the day off in the airport, which was also from where the bus embarked to Queretaro. So, it should've been fairly easy to navigate, since points A and B were in the same place. However, Benito-Juarez International Airport is freaking massive. I had to take a city bus and pay $10 (pesos... so ~$1 USD) to get to the other side where my actual bus left from. This process took a good 30-45 minutes. My Spanish is strong enough to ask for directions, but not strong enough to receive them. So, I paid careful attention the hand gestures, walked about 200 yds, and then asked someone else.

Once I actually found the bus, I had to pass through a bull crap security check, where I was called a gringo. And fair enough, the dude was spot on: I'm a gringo. Pero, yo puedo oir y entender... asshole. Anyways, the 3hr bus cost $256 MXD (<$20 USD) and actually turned out to be pretty luxury. We got bagged lunches that comprised a high-fiber granola bar, a drink, and a ham/cheese sandwich with mayonaise and jalapeños. Not bad actually.

When I arrived in Mexico, my friend's girlfriend picked me up and dropped me off at my house around 1pm. Well, actually she can't drive, so she and her friend picked me up and dropped me off. The plan was to tentatively maybe all get dinner together later that night. So, when I walked to the grocery store (~5 minutes from my house), I only bought enough groceries to make salsa/guacamole, milk for breakfast, and beer. Anyways, dinner fell through, so I ate guacamole for lunch and dinner. Obscene amounts of guacamole, actually. I probably should have pooped leprechaun green today, but everything looked normal (that detail is for you, mom).

The craziest thing that happened to me during day 2 was trying to light the hot water heater. After dinner, I did all my dishes. I noticed that while i let the water run for 45 minutes straight, the water temperature never even approached tepid, let alone warm/hot. I wasn't about to take a cold shower or no shower in the morning, so I industriously set about locating the hot water heater. After doing that much, I unsuccessfully fiddled with nobs and buttons until I smelled gas and decided I should take a different route: reading the instructions. Plan B held its own challenges though, as all the instructions were in Spanish. As my sister Hannah rightly pointed out, Rosetta Stone had failed to teach me the pertinent vocabulary. So, I looked up freetranslation.com and sat outside and typed the instructions into the website to translate them step-by-step. I laughed when I realized that there was a step for lighting the match, and then also another for putting it out. The freetranslation.com approach was actually pretty good, except one term kept getting translated as "GOATEE". It's doubtful that this was the intent of the author to address goatees, but whatever the case may be, I got the darn thing lit and was even able to take a warm shower. What is really confusing/bothering me today (Day 3) is that I just finished washing some dishes, and I still didn't have hot water in the kitchen... oh well. C'est la vie.