Thursday, May 6th, 2910

What a weekend! I'm only on sentence number 2, but I'm going to go ahead and try to make a committment to myself to split this weekend into at least 2 separate blog entries to make it slightly more readable.

I'll start at the beginning of the weekend -- Friday morning. Sammy and I decided to get a decent night's sleep in our own bed Thursday night and catch a train early Friday morning to Fűssen. Our original plan was to take an overnight train on Thursday in order to get to Fussen on Friday morning and maximize our weekend time. But we got out of the house a little late and made a mistake on the way to the train station and we were under the impression that it might cost us a good bit more to reserve a sleeping car, so we more or less decided that Friday morning made more sense.

So on Thursday night, when we didn't make the overnight train, Sammy said she was in the mood for Mexican. Those are words I haven't heard in 4 years of knowing Sammy, so I busted out the GPS and found a Mexican joint without hesitation. Alice (our GPS) came up with the closest places, out of which I picked out a place called, "Viva Mexico!" -- it seemed like a more Mexican name than some other places. The thing with an entry-level GPS is that it doesn't differentiate between a 5-star restaurant and a greasy taco stand.....and it was raining and COLD. But I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. As long as Marcus wasn't working there, it couldn't be that bad . . .

So we ended up on a pretty dark street on which nothing looked open. Then I saw it -- the Viva Mexico name painted on an old wooden shingle. From afar, I sensed a faint light in the window -- and when we approached, the door was open. Nice -- at least it wasn't the greasy taco stand I had envisioned. When we stepped inside, there were two people cleaning and no one was eating. The lights were dim. The two people were an older (maybe mid-40s?) dark-skinned woman and a young guy. She immediately said, "Hola!" when we walked in -- much to my surprise. Ok, yes, it was a Mexican joint. But I'm Puerto Rican and I didn't speak much Spanish until recently -- so it isn't altogether impossible that these were two Mexican-Germans who only spoke German. I asked the woman in Spanish if she spoke Spanish and she told me, "Un poco". "English?" I asked sheepishly. Then she replied in Spanish, "This is a Mexican restaurant, of course we speak Spanish!". I laughed and asked if they were open, to which she replied that they were. I asked if we could sit anywhere and she said of course. This was more or less the longest conversation I've had with anyone who wasn't Sammy or my family in a couple of weeks. It felt good. We sat down and the young guy served us and we were able to ask questions and order and make conversation -- and it was nice. During dinner, Sammy and I both mentioned how much we miss Latin American culture. We're having a good time here in Europe and we've seen some downright magical things already -- and there is still a lot more to come. But I think that we jointly came to the conclusion that beyond the places we'll see and things we'll do in other parts of the world, it will continue to be hard not to miss the friendliness, openness, and acceptance of Latin America. We miss the people, the music, the Spanish, and the ability to itneract in another language.

As I said, this is not in any way to minimize the sheer awesomeness of our weekend. It is just to say that we were lucky that we started out in Latin America. I think it gave us a deep appreciation for people and human interaction and connection. I think we enjoyed being two of the few (or often only) Americans around. The more we see Americans as we travel, the more we understand why people don't like Americans. But that's a separate, third blog entry. For now, let me just say that our Mexican meals were decent and the service was great. I think it was just dimly lit and the music was a little soft because we were there on May 6th -- I'm sure the place partied itself out for Cinco de Mayo and was a little more low key the night we went. The prices weren't great and the food wasn't fantastic, but it was a nice slice of our home away from home. Obviously America will always be our first home, but Latin America is a close second. Whenever I hear people speaking Spanish here, I want to join in . . . . nos extraña, Ecuador!