A Little Mexico With My San Diego

So after a Friday night of recovery from my sickness and a Saturday night of sneaking in the back door to Venice's sold out show in Santa Monica (this was now a couple weeks ago, mind you, I'm a little late with this post), my guy and I headed down to San Diego on Sunday to visit my dear friend, Puerto Wagner, who was in town playing a show for this guy.

What began as a hotel visit in San Diego turned out to be a trip across the border to Baja. So we popped in Zach Broocke's latest EP, Last Call, (which you should reeeeally check out) and drove on into little Mexico.

Going down there always makes me a little nervous. In all actuality, Americans are all selfish bastards that take every single thing for granted. The people in Tijuana are living in tents on the sides of mountains. It's quite sad. Not to mention the lack of protection offered by the Federalis, the Mexican police force. Pretty much if they see you, they'll fine you for something, even if you didn't do it. Can we say payola?

At any rate...past Tijuana...past Rosarito...down the coast a bit is a little fisherman's village called Puerto Nuevo. It's a little off the beaten path...you wouldn't know it was there unless you had a bad ass Puerto Rican friend show you. Who happened to speak fluent Espanol. Which definitely helped.

The streets were lined with vendor after vendor...shawls, blankets, jewelry, food, etc. I think mostly there was silver jewelry...I spent the whole time scoping out some new turquoise action. I lingered a little too long at one shop in particular, and before we knew it the owner was trying to lure us in with free shots of tequila. As I gave him my usual go to hell look that I give when I think someone is trying to get something out of me, the guys waltzed right in. I stared at them from outside yelling that if they died it wasn't my fault. Who goes and does tequila shots from a stranger, in Mexico, no less, who says it was homemade by his grandfather?

Apparently we do.

Once I saw that they weren't being poisoned, they waved me in to check it out myself. It was more like a glass full than a shot, but that's beside the point. Probably the best tasting tequila that I've ever had. (Aside from the Don Julio we had later at the bar.) It was made with almond flavor and amaretto and was muy muy yummy. Went down like juice.

After promising our new amigo that we'd be back after din din, we ended up at the very end of the street at a highly recommended lobster restaurant. (Sidenote: I never have eaten food in Mexico, nor drank the water...but since our Puerto Rican friend had been there the day before and was still okay, I figured it was safe.)

It was one of the best meals ever. Three Tecates, three Don Julio's, three entrees (one of them being an entire lobster), appetizers and two DELICIOUS pitchers of margaritas later...we were presented with the $70 bill. For THREE people!!! Oh...and I forgot to mention that this place was right on the ocean and we got there just in time to see the sunset. Picture perfect.

I could tell you about how we made friends with the guitar dude from the Mexican serenader band, how we ate drank and were merry for hours on end, how the vendor fed us more of Grandpa's tequila as I was bargaining with him on a great ring and bracelet, how we sat in traffic for 45 minutes trying to get back into the States, how I ended up driving back to Hollywood in the middle of the night (and drove through a murder scene!) because I had to get up for work in the morning. But that's a whole other thang.

I think this is enough for now.