We had an outstanding time in Aruba. We got there really early, and we had to roll out of bed early for an 8:30am tour. It was with the Pied Piper group, and there was some confusion in the morning because the bus was supposed to be private, and there were a couple of women on there who weren’t part of our group. They finally got them offloaded, and off we went. Our first stop was the Casibari rock formation, where we took pictures, but not the right ones to claim the cache I wanted there. We all piled back in the bus and went off to some lava rocks; Aruba is a volcanic island and people pile them up and make wishes, so we all did that too. We went to the site of the former Natural Bridge there, which had been created by thousands of years of water wearing away at the rock, but in 2005 it collapsed - around 5am, so nobody was on it! There is still a “baby” natural bridge at the site, but all you can see of the big one is that it’s collapsed. We got back in the bus and went on a drive around the island, and the guide rattled on and on about how great Aruba is. She told us some great housing prices, and when she drove us through a fancy golf course, the housing prices there were not that much higher. A and I got to talking, and we are seriously considering buying a home in Aruba - either to move to permanently eventually, or to rent out, or to start a business from, etc. We have even been talking about learning Dutch or the local language, Papiamento, because we are really interested in Aruba. Our next vacation will be a fact-finding mission there, I think. We stopped by a real estate office in the afternoon and were again bowled over by the prices!

Anyway, after the tour ended, we got off the bus and walked around in downtown Oranjestad. There are several malls there - including a fabulous pink one - and we cruised through them all. I fretted over which “Aruba” shirt I wanted to buy, and I ended up buying two! It is such a gorgeous place and we can’t wait to go back. Moving there would be more complicated than moving to Puerto Rico: we’d both have to learn the language, there is no VRS center there, it’s not the U.S. anymore, we’d have to make twice-yearly trips back home to get our teeth cleaned (not sure why A is insistent upon that one), we’re not sure what we’d do with the cats, etc. But it’s cheaper than Puerto Rico, and much safer and cleaner. (The guide pointed out that the Holloway case was done by an off-islander, a Dutch boy.)

After we walked all we could and came back on board, it was time to get ready for formal night. Dinner was uneventful except for the baked alaska parade at the end. We went to see the production show “Thoroughly Broadway,” but - this was really weird - we’ve seen it before. They tacked on a couple of numbers from The Lion King on the end, and I’m not sure if we saw the Hairspray parts before, but I know we saw most of that show before. It must have been in 2006 when we were on the Zenith. It was clearly a different presentation, because the singers and dancers weren’t the same people, but all the costumes and everything were the same! It was downright weird seeing all that again.

We spent most of today in Tijuana, Mexico. The one-hour trolley ride down to San Ysidro was fine, very pleasant. Crossing the border was easy, they don’t even check identification or anything - apparently the prevailing feeling is, “who wants to escape the U.S. and go to Mexico?” I wanted to get my passport stamped as a souvenir anyway, but the immigration officer didn’t seem to understand and kept insisting we didn’t need a stamp if we were Americans just coming in for the day. He declined to stamp it, oh well.

So we walked across the border and into downtown Tijuana. The high-pressure sells start instantly. Everyone you pass has something to sell you. It was supremely nerve-wracking for me…I have such a hard time saying no, I feel bad for declining because really they’re just doing their jobs. And there are little kids selling gum, bracelets, etc. but they are supposedly also pickpockets, so you have to turn them down too…and I just felt bad for that, like their parents would beat them if they didn’t sell all their trinkets that day. A says they wouldn’t do that, and nobody is starving, but it was still hard for me. I was kind of tempted to shop in some of the pharmacies…wouldn’t it be nice to have a supply of Cipro in case of anthrax attacks, or maybe some Flexeril or Ultram in case of muscle spasms or major pain? I didn’t bother, though. The only price I saw was Viagra for $4/pill, and that’s four times what it costs in the U.S., so none of these were a good deal anyway…it would just be a way of evading the need for a prescription. Plus, who knows what’s in that stuff?!

The only things we did buy were sunglasses ($7 down from $10, because I couldn’t SEE) and a handcrafted cat ($3 down from $5, though she originally said $1 and then said $5 after she had wrapped it up!). A collects little native cats from places she’s been, and even if this one was made in China, it still looks cute. We ended up having lunch at the Tijuana outpost of the Hard Rock Cafe, partly because the restaurants hassle you on the street as much as the vendors, and partly because I knew they would have something vegetarian - everywhere else would probably have lard beans, etc. The pedestrian line to get back into the U.S. was horrible, it was almost an hour from when we joined the line to when we finally made it through and got on the northbound trolley. Turns out Tijuana is one of the busiest border crossings in the world!

When we got back to the Old Town area, we walked around the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park for a while. I got a sweater that doesn’t really resemble anything Mexican, but I thought it was pretty anyway. It was $37 but I could picture it selling for $80 in a catalog. For dinner we went over to the North Park area, to a restaurant called El Comal that I read on Yelp would have good vegetarian options. Unfortunately it turned out they use chicken stock in both the beans and the rice, so I just ate my enchiladas with molé sauce (which didn’t have meat or anything, we asked). They had pretty good drinks…I had two and a half of their tequila, Midori, and pineapple juice drink…I forget what they called it. I couldn’t even finish my food, there was so much! I think tomorrow we are going to the San Diego Zoo before driving back to Los Angeles.