Eh Gringo!

I'm in Mexico, albeit for a very brief period of time, and it's not too different to southern Texas. El Paso, the city on the American side, and Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexican side, are virtually identical, only the mexican side is a little more run down. It's like a poorer suburb. There is, unfortunately, bugger all else to say about this place. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount to do, so I'm glad I'm leaving for the Grand Canyon tomorrow morning. I arrive in San Francisco on Thursday, with my Alcatraz tour booked for Friday, so look forward to that (because I definitely am). Hopeofully, San Francisco being the metropolitan place it is, I should be able to upload the photos, but I am starting to give up hope on that.

Anyway, Austin was ok, there wasn't a whole lot to do during the day, and almost all the clubs and bars wouldn't even let you in if you were under 21, even the music bars which I had heard would "brand" you with a felt pen to stop you buying drinks if you were under 21. Eventually we found a place that did let me in called Emo's, a (surprise surprise) Emo/punk-rock kinda american teen rock sort of place. We (we is me and an american originally portuguese guy from New Jersey called Rui who I saw again in Austin after meeting in the hostel in New Orleans) ended up seeing a band called Cruiserweight who seemed to be very popular, fronted by a tiny girl in her mid twenties, who could sing and was pretty goodlooking, if slightly irritatingly cutesy, which explains the success anyway... I don't know if they were signed.

I missed the first bus to El Paso so I ended up staying in Austin an extra day, then getting an eariler bus the next day, taking a wander round San Antonio to see the Alamo, then getting the bus here to El Paso. Tomorrow I'm off early to Flagstaff, the place on the Greyhound route nearest to the Grand Canyon, so I'll be seeing that on Tuesday, then off to San Francisco to arrive on Thursday morning.

Now I'm off back to the States, hopefully I won't get stopped at the border (It's actually just a big bridge where they charge you 35 cents to cross).