(no subject)
We returned from our trip one day early, and on the way from Memphis to Ames, I saw the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. I don't think I've actually ever watched a sunset while being on a plane.
Yesterday my family and I went south to Nogales. It was really interesting because the border patrol was everywhere. I don't know if any of you guys have seen it, but the border is just like a metallic fence. It's pretty high but it doesn't look sturdy at all. There were a bunch of the border patrol men on bikes talking in a little circle right in front of the Mexican border, and so my dad wanted us to take a picture with them. I started talking to them, asking them about their job and all the different things they have to do. These particular guys basically just ride around the city and along the border all day looking for illegals. I asked how often they catch them, and like 5 out of the 7 guys had already caught at least 1 illegal at that time, and it was around noon probably. They said that it gets pretty violent sometimes.
We crossed the border and went into the Mexican side of Nogales, and there were a bunch of little street shops. We walked around for a while, just looking around and shopping. I bought my brother and myself my first legal beer, which we thought was pretty cool, lol. Then we were in this one little shop and I was looking at mariachi hats, and one of the guys working in the store came over and put on a hat too, and offered to have his picture taken with me, to make it look authentic. So my dad was like, yeah cool good idea. And the Mexican guy put his arm around me and as my dad was taking the picture, he grabbed my ass. My dad couldn't see it, and I froze up. Normally I would have punched him in the stomach or something, but I couldn't do anything for some reason. Right after my dad had taken the picture I left. I felt so violated. Things like that have happened before, but I've never had that feeling. I don't think I can describe it properly.
But anyways, so when we were returning to the American side of Nogales, we were crossing the street, and all of a sudden the sewage pipe cover in the middle of the road came off. 2 Mexican guys climbed out of it, left it open, and ran across the street. The bike border patrol just happened to be riding by and they saw them, so they chased them down, started yelling at them and asking them questions, and ended up handcuffing them and taking them away. It was so crazy and weird and interesting to watch. We looked down the sewage pipe and there was a lot of clothing in there, so I bet there were more of the illegals still down there.
After Nogales, we went on this scenic route through a small town along the border of Mexico. It was really beautiful, and there were like 3 different horizons of mountains. We took lots of pictures, as usual, and I really wanted to see a ghost town. There was one along the path called Ruby. We got there, and there was this big sign that said "Ruby- Pop. 2". I thought that was pretty funny. But they charged 20 dollars/person to go in there, so we didn't do that. When we got into the small town, we stopped there for dinner. It was a nice little restaurant, and the waitress was extremely friendly and kept on talking to us. She told us that she was from New York and that one of her relatives passed away, and that was when she decided that life was too short, and that she should do whatever the hell she wanted. So she quit her job, and moved to Las Vegas to start up a restaurant there. On her way there she stopped in Green Valley (that's where we were) and fell in love with it there. She set up her restaurant there, and now is happier than ever. She also told us that she would never have taken that route we had taken earlier that day. The scenic one. She said that there are a lot of illegals there that try to steal tourist's cars and there are a lot of drugs that get smuggled along that way. For a little while while we were going, there was a border patrol car following us, so I bet that's what he was checking for. So I think that we were very lucky and it's pretty scary because something bad happened. But it was good to see that there was so much of the border patrol there. Surprising.
This all happened in one day! It was a looong day, filled with adventure and excitement. Unfortunately all of the pictures we took in Nogales didn't turn out, because we accidentally forgot to put the memory stick into the camera. It sucks, but oh well. The rest of my break was pretty much watching tennis and hanging out with friends and family in Phoenix. Which was fun too, but nowhere near as exciting as southern AZ. I still can't wait for school to start again though. Yeah I'm a nerd, oh well. Spanish 311 is next! My birthday is coming up too, so there will be BIG celebrations this coming up weekend, becasue I think there are a couple more people with birdays this week. woohooo.