Our First Race

Today Jose and I ran our first race together!  It was put on by Frontera, a Tijuana newspaper.  It was pretty close to our place. The best part of all?  The race was free.  I love free races.

BEFORE THE RACE

To be completely honest, I wasn't entirely sure we were going to do the race until Jose got out of bed this morning.  He sleeps more than just about anyone I know.  The race started at 8am and we had to get up at 6am so we could find our way to the race, find parking, and register.  I don't think we've been up before 9am in the past three weeks. But Jose knew that I really wanted to go and it wasn't too hard to get him out of bed.

The day started out really cloudy and gray.  But clouds are fine for a run. By the time we were done, the clouds were parting and the sun was shining. This could be how Tijuana mornings usually are.  I wouldn't know.  But the day ended up being just as beautiful as they normally are here.

There were all different kinds of people at the race: old, young, serious runners, and non-runners.  I love seeing people at a race.  Seeing people out and enjoying running and exercise is very inspiring to me.

This is me and Jose warming up.  There were quite a few people running circles in the parking lot next to the start.  My unsolicited advice about running a race is:  warm up by jogging a little bit. My best 5k was at the 2008 Chicago Half-Marathon/5k.  That race is in Hyde Park and I decided to drive there.  I ended up having to park 2 miles away and it was raining.  So I jogged the 2 miles from my car to the race start. And it was the best I'd ever felt during a race.

AFTER THE RACE

The race was really packed at the beginning but it didn't take too long for the crowd to thin out. This is Jose and me at the finish with our complementary orange halves.  I finished in 25:29. I think that is pretty good for me considering I haven't been running real consistently lately.  Jose and I have been running together for the past week and a half.  (It's awesome having a running partner!)  He finished in 22:20.

I have been using these shoes, the New Balance Minimus, since the beginning of this year but this is the first time that I have raced in them.  I have a question for other people out there using minimalist shoes.  In the middle of the race, my feet got really hot.  Has this happened to anyone else? I don't know if it is because the shoes slide around on my feet more than normal shoes or what.  But let me know if anyone else has this problem and whether or not there is any way to stop it.

It was a really fun day.  At the end of the race, a guy was handing out fliers for another free race in August.  I hope we make that one too.

My Neighborhood

I love my neighborhood.  Almost everything we need is within walking distance (and the weather is always awesome).  And for the other stuff, we can go to a Wal-Mart and an outdoor mall about a mile and a half away.  Our "sub-division" is on a hill and there are only three roads that access it.  So I think it's a little secluded and a little safer.  But there is a lot of Tijuana I haven't seen, so I could be wrong.

Every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, there is a tianguis that spans several blocks.  It is an outdoor market and seems to be a cross between a farmers' market and a garage sale. You can buy all kinda of fruits and vegetables, meats, eggs, used furniture, used appliances, cleaning products, toiletries (there are literally towering stacks of toilet paper), and underwear.  And that is just to name a few.  Most things are cheaper at the tianguis.  It feels a little bit like a block party, but maybe that's just me.

This is a big pile of underwear.  They say it's all new even though all the bags are opened. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), Jose couldn't find his size.

One tent was selling old books.  Most of them were in english.  This one was a blast from the past. Anyone remember when the three Lawrence brothers had a show?  I was a big fan of the middle one, Matthew.  I wonder whatever happened to him.



Some of my favorite places in the neighborhood are...

The ice cream shop.  I saw a lot of Michoacanas in Mexico City.  In fact, there are two here within a couple blocks from one another.  Their specialty seems to be the paletas (fruit and ice cream bars).  They also have this dish called the Tosti-Loco.  It's a big bowl of ice cream with spicy Tostitos chips around the edges and with lots of toppings like peanuts and this spicy red sauce.  It seems very mexican to me.

The bakery.  This bakery makes this part of the road smell amazing.  I want to go in and buy something every time I walk by. We've only actually gone in a few times though. Unfortunately, this bakery is on the way to and from the park where we run.

This little corner store. Only because it is one of the two places within walking distance that sell Dr. Pepper.  This place only charges 6 pesos a can.  The other place charges 8 pesos.

The park where we run.  It has a sidewalk/track that goes around the perimeter.  It is approximately 3 laps for a kilometer and 5 laps for a mile.  At first I didn't think this park was much to look at.  But I've really come to enjoy it.  When we run in the early evening, there are a lot of people there. It's nice to see so many people enjoying being outside.  However, some of the kids can be really annoying.  At what age do they learn to get out of the way of someone who is running?

This gazebo is at the center of the park.  I don't know if they ever have any public events here or not. But it's cute.

I can't get over the trees here.  A palm tree next to an evergreen-like tree.  I'm not sure exactly what kind of tree it is, but it has needles.

Here are a couple of the houses that are across the street from the park.  They are definitely the nicer houses in my sub-division. I'd like to see the insides.

This house is the type of house I would've expected to find in Southern California.  I wonder what that rooftop area is like.

The local mall?  I'm not sure what to call this building.  It houses a lot of shops.  But as you'll see from the picture below, most of them are not rented out.  I think it's quite sad.

But it does have this little supermarket. We go here for quick trips.  It doesn't have as much stuff Wal-Mart.

This is the internet cafe where Jose would go to video chat with me.  I also visited the first couple weeks I was here until I got the internet in my apartment.  It is named "Mau," like what a cat says.  Like "Meow."

The internet cafe is really cheap.  The prices are in pesos, but they use the dollar sign, too.  (It can be very confusing sometimes.) One dollar US is about 11 to 12 pesos.

This is a restaurant I stumbled on.  It was really good.  They have a daily special that is 40 pesos.  It is a few different prepared foods that you can choose from.  Jose and I tried to go there last Saturday. But I guess it's more of a lunch place. When we got there at 6pm, they had already closed.

This is the Wal-Mart.  It kinda makes me mad to shop here because the prices are often not next to the products and it doesn't seem to have that much variety for being a supercenter.

This is the outdoor mall right next to the Wal-Mart. I bought my hat here at Mundo Del Gorros.

For all of you that like the book The Shack, I found the spanish version in the book store at the mall.

This is a view from my backyard.  Not much green, but I like the mountain/hills.

This is a garden one of my neighbors has made.  I'm assuming this area is supposed to be for all the tenants.  But the lady seems to have claimed it for herself.  In fact, she blocks off the entrance when she isn't there.  I can kind of understand since she was the one who did everything for it.

I love my neighborhood. The weather might have something to do with it. Sorry to everyone who has been suffering through the midwest heat.  Can't say I miss it though.  Every day of the past three weeks here has been sunny with temps primarily in the 70's. You can't beat that.

A Word On Food

Most people in the US love mexican food.  A seemingly unlimited way of combining tortillas, meat, and beans and smothering it in cheese and sour cream.  I don't know what part of Mexico this food originated from, but it is definitely not Mexico City where Jose was born and raised.  It's hard to describe the difference.  In Mexico City, there seems to be a much wider variety of food, but it seems more simply put together than your typical mexican restaurant in the US.  Meaning its just a couple ingredients and salsa instead of being smothered in cheese and sour cream.

In Mexico City, there are people making food in stands on the side of the road.  It is very inexpensive to eat in there.  You can get 5 small tacos for less than two dollars.  The traditional taco is made with meat, onion, and cilantro.  But many stands have a rather large selection of different types of meat in different marinades and fixings.  And they don't just call beef "beef" or pork "pork."  It seems to be named after the cut of the cow or pig.  It always amazes me that Jose knows exactly what part of the cow the meat we are eating came from.  Of course, they don't just use the meat of the animal.  You can get a tongue taco.  Or a soup with pancita (stomach) with tripe and tendons.  You can buy an entire pig's head at the market.  Something I can't get over is chicharron.  I'm not entirely sure I understand what it is exactly.  Jose has described it as the fat underneath the pig's skin.  If there were a food shortage, I could understand eating the fat of an animal.  But when you can buy meat, I don't understand eating chicharron.  I once told Jose that we weren't poor so we didn't have to eat these kinds of foods.  He got mad and said that in some restaurants pancita costs more than a meat dish.  I'll have to trust him on that.

Chicharron is often puffed with air so that it is crunchy.  If you have ever eaten pork rinds, then you have eaten chicharron.  A food that I associate closely with chicharron is this dish.  Jose says it is called cueritos de puerco.  Although the base kinda looks like chicharron, Jose says it is actually made of flour.  I have seen Jose's family eat this more as a snack, bought from a street vendor when we were out.  I've never seen them prepare it.  It is topped with lettuce, a red sauce, sour cream, maybe some avocado, and this transparent meat.  I think it is just the fat of a pig.  But Jose says that it is the skin of the pig.  I can't understand why it is transparent.  The other day, at a convenience store, I saw little packages of that transparent meat swimming in a red sauce (I'm assuming a spicy sauce).  So I guess  it is pretty popular.

Obviously, this is all very different from what I grew up with.  So it can be strange and hard to get used to.  But there is a lot of food in Mexico that I do like.  Pozole, huaraches, tamales, tortas, carne asada, quesadillas, and tostadas.  We live a few blocks from a bakery and I love just walking by it because it smells so good.

But we haven't been out to eat much since I've been here, so I don't know how Tijuana food compares.  Jose has been doing most of the cooking over the past few weeks.  He made this really great soup last night with ground beef, carrots, potatoes, and chipotle chilis.  He has made several creamy soups.  Cream of spinach, cream of carrot, cream of pinto bean.  He has made a vegetable stew.  I guess a lot of the stuff he makes end up being soup like.  But we have had tortillas at every single meal.  You really can't beat a fresh corn tortilla. Jose and his brother have been kind and have made their salsas on the side.  I have a hard time with spicy food.  Jose also makes really good crepes.  And we put cream cheese and strawberry jelly on them.

Jose has only made one thing so far that I refused to eat.  He made a chicken soup with vegetables and a broth.  But he used the lungs, heart, and throat of the chicken instead of the meat.  He had bought a package of it at the grocery store.  You gotta give them credit for not being wasteful.

After that episode, he said that I needed to start making dinner.  So the next night, I made spaghetti and meat sauce with a side salad.  I bought the spaghetti sauce from the store, but added ground beef, onion, and garlic.  It was a bit different from the spaghetti they normally do in Mexico.  Jose's brother, Luis, took one bite and decided that it needed salt and lime.  I couldn't believe he put lime on spaghetti!  They love their lime down here.  The next day, they mixed the leftovers with lime flavored mayonnaise.  They also love mayonnaise.  I also made a curry quinoa stew and a "Mexican" pinto bean stew and those went over better.

Another big difference is the grocery store.  I had always suspected that we were spoiled in Chicago with low food prices.  And now I know.  It seems like everything at the grocery store here is a lot more expensive.  You can't get a gallon of milk for less than $4.  And there are certain "staples" that they don't seem to have here. I couldn't find coconut milk or kidney beans for my curry stew.  I have to get some red and white wine vinegars tomorrow.  I hope they have them.

They also have this thing called Nutri LecheNutri Leche, we buy milk.  From what I get from the package, they have removed the natural fat and replaced it with vegetable oil.  I found something online that said it is milk concentrate mixed with vegetable oil and water.  I find this just as unsettling (and as poor tasting) as using margarine instead of real butter.  And if you haven't seen the documentary Fat Head, you should go to YouTube and check it out.  Jose likes real milk better anyway, so it wasn't too hard to get him to switch.

Overall we've been eating pretty well.  Jose and Luis like sweets almost as much as I do.  There are even a couple of places that sell cans of Dr. Pepper close to our apt.  I bought a 12-pack in San Diego.  But it was pretty expensive and Jose and I go through it too fast.  California charges an extra 5 cents as a deposit so you will recycle the cans to get the 5 cents back.  I hope they will accept cans from out of state because I plan on getting more than that 60 cents back.

The Apartment

And so I live in Mexico with my husband, Jose, and his 15 year old brother, Luis.  We have a 2 bedroom apartment.  It is ridiculously cheap.  We pay approximately $165 per month.  The owner is really nice, but it's amazing how many little things that were overlooked here that I don't think would've been overlooked in a Chicago apartment.  Like shelves in the medicine cabinet or light fixtures over the bulbs that hang from the ceilings.

This is the building.  Our apartment is on the first floor and is on the other side of the building.  There is a little store out front.  The woman that runs it is a tenant and she sells junk food and soda.  I found it very convenient today when I was craving a pop and some chocolate.  It is also very typical for a Mexican host to run out real quick and by a 2 liter of pop when visitors drop by.  So having these little stores makes that easier I guess.  She also sells us water from the tank on top of the store.  I'm assuming that it is purified because I haven't gotten sick yet.  She fills our 5 gallon jug for 8.50 pesos, about 75 cents.

There are 20 apartments in our building.  However I don't really see that many people going in and out of the building.  Jose guesses that 10 to 12 of the apartments are occupied.  The apartments are really small. I couldn't imagine having more than 3 people living here.  Jose's aunt and uncle live in the same building and have 6 people in their apartment.  I haven't been to their apartment yet, but I have trouble imagining that many people and that much more stuff in the apartment.  However, these apartments are pretty luxurious compared to some of the places I saw in Mexico City.  So I guess I can imagine it, but I wouldn't want to live it.

This is the kitchen.  That is all the cabinet space that comes with the place.  And all the appliances.  Jose had to buy the refrigerator in the picture below.  I just realized today that the oven doesn't seem to work.  Or at least I don't know how to use it.  We light the stove burners with matches.  I tried lighting the pilots (or at least what I thought was the pilots) and that didn't work.  I have no idea where we would light the stove.  I can't get the bottom part of the stove to open.  But the stove dial doesn't have any degree markings on it.  So even if I could get it to work, I'd probably burn everything.  We're going to have to talk to the landlord about that.  As nice as he is though, I'm not too hopeful.

We purchased that pantry/cabinet my first week here.  It was just slightly over $30.  I think it was a good deal and holds all of our cookware.

During that first week, I gave the cats some cat food from a can and put it in the floor in the kitchen.  By the next morning, there were thousands of ants in the kitchen, lured there by the food.  I was appalled.  And surprised that they didn't carry off the bowls.  We told the landlord, but I'm not sure he has done or will do anything about it.  But after several trips to Home Depot, we fixed the gap under the back door and Jose sprayed around the building. We haven't seen any ants in a week and a half.

The bathroom is unique in that the sink is outside the bathroom.  It certainly ruins any feng shui the apartment might have.  But it is actually really convenient for the three of us when one person wants to shower and another wants to brush his teeth.

The bedrooms are pretty simple.  I absolutely love the tiger cover that his aunt gave us.  It's really soft.  Addison is that little bump under the cover at the foot of the bed.  She loves being in the bed when I make it.  I would like to get some sort of bedside table.  I haven't found anything I like enough yet though.

The rooms have built-in closets and drawers.  Which is great because we don't have to buy dressers.

This is Luis's room.  Jose jokes that I gave him the ironing board as a gift.  But really, there's a lot of space in his room.  He's a pretty simple kid.  He doesn't have a lot of stuff.




I have not taken pictures of the living/dining area yet, so those pictures will have to be in a later post.  After we got cable and the internet, I decided I wanted to change things around a bit.  I think I'll do that tomorrow morning before Jose and Luis get up.



This is our "back porch/patio."  It has our water heater and our gas tank.  I guess there are not gas lines that go to the apartments.  So we have to buy gas by the tank full.  And every time I want to shower, I have to come back here and light the water heater and wait about 10 minutes.  It really isn't so bad.  But I typically forget to turn it off.  Jose has to remind me.  I do love that we have a "utility" sink back there.  I find them so convenient when you don't want to use any of your indoor sinks to rinse stuff.  And I also love that I have a place to hang my running clothes when they are sweaty.



You may have also noticed that we have several different colored walls.  Jose thinks that the landlord didn't want to buy more paint and had just enough paint left over to make all our walls different colors.  Jose wants to paint some of the walls.  I don't mind as long as he doesn't want any help from me.  We don't know if we'll even still be here when our lease runs out in 4 months.  So it's not really worth it to me.

As much as I seem to be ragging on this place, I actually love living here.  As long as the ants don't come back anyway.  I had the chance to do some organizing last week and that was when I started feeling like it was my home instead of Jose's place where he's letting me stay.  It will be home for the next 4 months anyway.

Road Trip to Tijuana

My dad and I spent two and a half days driving from Central Illinois to Tijuana.  I took only what could fit in my car and my two cats, Perla and Addison.  

My dad and I drove about 13 hours
the first day and stopped in Amarillo, Texas.  The next morning, we left before the sun was up.  That was when the trip started to get interesting.  As soon as we crossed the border into New Mexico, the landscape changed to mesas and small mountains.  We decided to go a little out of the way to visit the Grand Canyon.

I was so grateful that my dad was along because I never could have done this trip by myself with the 2 cats along.  It was a very warm day and I couldn't leave them in the car without leaving the air conditioning running.  So we took turns getting out of the car at the viewing spots.  The Grand Canyon is beyond words.  I'm sure my pictures don't do it justice either.

At the end of the second day, we stopped at Kingman, Arizona a few hours past the Grand Canyon.  It was a relief that we only had about 6 hours to drive on the third day.  But we still left early.  We didn't want to have to drive too close to L.A. if we didn't have to, so we decided to take the scenic route through the California deserts.  That was really beautiful too.  When I think of California, I definitely don't think of desert.

We reached the Mexico border around noon July 1st.  I was told my someone in the US Embassy in Tijuana that I might have to declare the cats.  So I made sure to get in the declare line.  But they were much more interested in my plates and glasses than the cats.  They didn't even ask to see them or their papers.  I didn't realize it would be so easy to get into Mexico.  I guess getting out of Mexico is a lot harder.

My dad bought me a GPS (which was an awesome gift for a road trip, thanks Dad!) and we drove right to the apartment without any problems.  We got there so early in the day, we surprised my husband and his brothers.  They weren't quite ready for us.  It felt really surreal to finally be there.  Tijuana, BC, México.