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We rolled out of Irvine around midnight on Friday. We stopped by a few places and consolidated cars till there was all five of us in one Focus sedan. On the drive to the border we listened to George Lopez playing on DaMan's iPod. We flew past Camp Pendelton, went right on through Del Mar and San Diego and arrived at the US/Mexico border. The place was empty, it being two in the morning. There are two lights in each lane, green and red. Green means you can just go through, red means you have to pull over and they're going to search your car. So of course we get the red light. Off to the side we could see the drug dogs in their cages, to the right we could see the border guards lounging and smoking. Ahead are the dirty white little rooms that they use to strip search people. We sit in the car while our driver gets out and they poke through the bags in the trunk. They must have realized we really were passing through for a weekend vacation since they didn't look too hard and then sent us on our way.
Tijuana is the city on the border, it smells like piss and shit. Very poor people live in TJ, they cater to American teens crossing the border to get drunk at the downtown clubs and to people wanting to "visit mexico" without actually caring about mexico's culture - they just want cheap pinata's and trinkets. Ahead we saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, as we passed by we saw a body on the ground, covered with a white sheet. An old celica with Colorado plates was nearby. We missed the turn to Rosarito and had to double back, trying hard to not get stuck or busted by la policia.
We weaved our way towards Kelvin's grandma's beach house south of Rosarito. The guard had us on his list so we got right in and to the house. We were still awake from all the caffine consumed at the IVU meet so we donned our swim trunks and headed for the hot tub. There was only enough beer in the house for one apiece but it was nice to chill in the tub by the ocean. We headed back after 45 minutes or so, it was past three in the morning so we quietly found our way to the living room and set up to sleep. There wasn't much room there so Petrol and I laid out in our sleeping bags on the deck. The house was right on the ocean, the surf loud as it crashed to shore nearby.
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The morning came with the fresh sea air, the sound of waves crashing down, and the shrill voice of the 80 year old lady living next door. She was threatening to call the police, we weren't allowed to sleep on the porch, didn't we know that? I kept my mouth shut, not really caring what she was threatening. Kelvin's grandmother heard the commotion and came out and had a talk with her, we didn't even see her for the rest of the weekend.
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We headed into town to pick up more beer to replenish the fridge. We got some lunch and a haircut, then headed to the bazaar to do some shopping. I picked up a big pewter hummingbird with glass wings, the other guys got gifts for their wives. We got lunch at a taco stand, remembered to get the beer on the way out, and headed back to lounge around at the house all afternoon.
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The day was quite nice, we sat around drinking beers and talking about everything. We had taken a picture down by a tatoo shop of us showing off our new IVU tat's and we needed to add the actual tatoos, so DaMan whipped out his Titanium PowerBook and opened up Photoshop. We spent hours tweaking and fiddling with the image trying to get it to look just right. Eventually we called it good and got set up to post the photo back to the IVU message board to see who we could fool.
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We got ready to go to a sports bar and then out to the clubs for the night. The Mosley vs. De La Hoya fight was that night so we figured it would be fun to find a place to watch it at. We were almost the last one's to be allowed in and we were still two hours early. We got some food and some drinks and found a table to watch the prelim fights at. As the headline fight started there was a huge fireworks display going off outside the window. All illegal in the states it was still an impressive display of pyrotechnics.
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The fight ended around 9:30 so we headed out right away, aiming to get to Papa's & Beer before the 10pm cover charge started. We got there right on time and headed in. The place is just amazing, like they jungle cruise area at disneyland but with drinking as the focus. The building has an open center and the floors are all sand. A volleyball court and mechanical bull are out there, and dancing areas surround it. A huge place, very open, nice lighting, very cool. I had waaaay too much to drink. We headed back around 2:30 where we passed out on the living room floor.
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We awoke with the sun and decided to get ready to head back home. We went through the border with no problem, and got back home by early afternoon where I lounged around all day in air conditioned bliss.
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