We visited Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of "the biggest little state in the union." Our friend Brett found it "cute" and even "cutesey" at points. I suppose in contrast to Los Angeles, it could be so considered.

I thought it had that cool college town feel that many places do; both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are located there, right next to each other, in fact. We stopped to see the RISD Museum, which I suspected would have a lot of design-oriented stuff. They did have that, but they also had a bunch of more traditional art such as ancient statuary and European paintings.

The RISD Museum, Providence

That museum is on Benefit Street, which is an old historic street with lots of old houses. Shawn insists that I put in a picture of one of them, so as to give all you dear readers a sample of the old crap that one can see there.

Aston House (built 1790), Providence

In contrast to several other college towns, the college angle doesn't seem to be overdone in Providence. You do not have a lot of ratty bars that cater to the drunken carousing of students, nor numerous mid-quality fast food outlets that pass off sandwiches that are merely overpriced as "gourmet." It might be that this is because Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design are both top-notch schools, or it might be that the city's raison d'être is not just the schools. In any case, it is a very beautiful place with some very interesting offerings.

I wanted to specifically note a place called The Meeting Street Café (220 Meeting Street), because it was incredible. They are more-or-less a deli, but not of your specifically Jewish variety. They have soups and sandwiches, as well as some other entrees and desserts. Everything we had there was really tasty, and incredibly huge. Unfortunately, I was so overwhelmed with the eating experience there, I didn't get any photos.

Apart from the cutsey old homes, there are some killer buildings in the downtown. Among them are...

The Bank of America Building, Providence

...and...

Court House, Providence

...and...

Citizen's Bank/Apartments, Providence

...and...

Some Random Building, Providence

We also had some good Italian food in Federal Hill, and went to a pretty cool gay bar named "Mirabar."

I'd tell you about our shocking hotel fire alarm experience (5:30 am!), but I don't have time now. That'll probably be related in a summary of our hotel experiences in a later posting.

The above shot was taken in Chinatown, as was this one of a bilingual Dunkin Donuts sign.

Dunkin Donuts in Chinatown, Boston

The Theatre District is next to Chinatown, and one gets the "border effect" of sorts at the Wang Theater.

Wang Theater, Boston

Let's just say that I was greatly disappointed with that place. Not so with the Museum of Fine Arts.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

They have a great Asian section, as well as an incomparable section of portraits of several early Americans.

Portrait of Paul Revere, MFA

They have a lot of pre-American stuff too, like the British lion on top of the Old State House, seen below.

Lion, Old State House

This is one part of the Potato Famine Monument, which shows an Irish immigrant woman looking back to the Old Country.

Potato Famine Monument, Boston

This building has fire escapes that are all spiral staircases.

Buildings with spiral fire escapes, Financial District

These are homes in the South End.

Residences, South End

These are in the Union Park area of South End.

Residences near Union Park, South End

These last two were not taken in Boston itself, but rather in Milford, an outlying town where Shawn and I spent the night. This first one was such an oddity that I had to include it. I figured readers (apart from those who live in Oregon) have not seen full-serve gas for a long time. It was roughly the same price (or cheaper) than the self-serve gas places in neighboring towns.

Full-Serve Gas, Milford

And the former smoker in me has to gasp at these cigarette prices. Note that these are on sale.

Cigarette Sale, Milford

It's even funnier because it's an entrance for the State House.

I was snapping this very photo of a sign at a train station for a collage I'm going to make once we return to Mexico of signs telling of all the things Americans are not permitted to do when I heard a voice asking, "May I help you?"

"Oh!" I exclaimed, having not seen him walking over. "I'm just taking a picture of the sign."

"You're not supposed to take any pictures of the equipment," he told me.

"No photos of any equipment?" I asked, not exactly sure how a sign was equipment.

"No," he replied with a sigh, indicating a mild annoyance.

I suspected I knew the reason for this, despite its being utterly ridiculous. Recently, I have been stopped from taking any number of seemingly innoccuous photographs like the one above.

The first time we ever ran into the phenomenon, we were in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Shawn was going around to see the locations used in the opening credits of one of his favorite shows of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show - the house where she supposedly lived, the park where she walked, the street where she tossed her hat in the air. When attempting to take a photograph of the escalator she rode in the Nicollet Mall, he was stopped by a private guard that wouldn't allow him to take a picture "for security reasons." At that time, it actually took us a while to figure out how a photograph of an escalator could be a threat to anyone's security, but by now, we've heard it as often as we've heard the one about putting your liquids in three-ounce bottles in a clear Ziploc® bag in your carry-on luggage.

All the same, I like to hear them say it. I put the camera down and asked him.

"Why is that?"

He looked at me for a moment with a corner of his mouth raised and issued a brief snort, and replied simply, "9-11." He stopped just short of following that with, "...smart-ass."

I thought I'd try to lighten the mood a little, so I asked him about what caused us to notice the sign in the first place: to reach the exit of the station, one has no choice to cross the tracks (visible at the lower left) about five feet from the location of the sign telling riders it is FORBIDDEN. I asked him how one was to get out of the station if they adhere to the mandate of the sign.

He was not amused.

"You exit down there, in the yellow zone," he said, pointing to a strip painted on the ground.

It was late. He didn't need some joker taunting him about the rules; people probably hassle him about the contradictory signage on a daily basis, each one thinking they're the genius that was the first to notice it. I abandoned my hopeless mission to turn his frown upside down and exited the station as he had indicated.

In my defense though, I wouldn't have joked with him about it if I could have just taken a photo of the sign. In his defense, he seemed, by his manner and tone of voice, to realize that it was ridiculous that I couldn't take a picture of signage at the station.

It made me wonder exactly how long people will continue to actually enforce such ridiculous knee-jerk prohibitions in the United States that were pushed on them in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I mean, honestly. Even if I took a photograph of the entire station, it's a train stop in a suburban town in Massachusetts. It's unlikely to be a high-priority target on even the most unambitious terrorist's list. I would be open to consideration of the idea that high-resolution photographs of more serious targets (Grand Central Station, airport terminals, Fort Knox) might be of aid to those wishing to do harm to the United States and its citizens, but one would be an idiot to think that a tourist's snapshot taken in a train station, especially one that simply shows what a sign says, is helping terrorists.

I know, it's easier to just write a blanket law that uses language like "transportation facility" and "equipment" than to exhaustively list which manifestations of those things are subject to a law and which are excused from it. I understand that such vague terminology has certain advantages to legislators writing the laws and those who enforce it. Yet when will the old chestnut of selective enforcement of such laws start to kick in and give people a little relief from the martial law effect in the United States?

Even the guy that told me to stop taking photographs seemed to find it ridiculous, but he had to do his job. Will life in the United States be like this for the rest of my life?

Two and a half days in Toronto is not much time. It is not enough time to experience a decent sample of what the city has to offer, let alone to get a good feeling of what the city is really like.

Given that our stay at the Sheraton Centre Toronto was the worst part of our trip (I won't go into that here; let's just say that the $18 veggie burger was not the only rip off there), I wanted to talk about some of the great things I liked about Toronto.

View from the CN Tower, Toronto

Toronto is a huge city. It is big not only in population and area, but in vertical space as well. Unlike Shawn, I am not a huge fan of high views, so I let him go on his own to the CN Tower to get his fix. The pictures he took there show how massive the city is, in terms of big, tall buildings. I have yet to reach New York City, but Toronto is in many ways how I picture it: skyscrapers cluttered together perilously close and teeming with surging masses of people betweent them.

View from the CN Tower, Toronto

I also liked that the people here are of all different types. Half of the population here is foreign-born. We had a cab driver from Kenya that told us about being thrown into jail in the United States at a border crossing and being held for six hours in a crowded cell just because the country where he was born (but hasn't lived for more than 20 years) is on "the list." We heard all kinds of different languages on the radio here, many that I couldn't identify, and of course, the ubiquitous French.

Multilingual Signage, Royal Ontario Museum

I love Mexican food. I have found a number of places in Guadalajara that have tasty delights that I miss already, having been on the road for a couple of weeks. Yet the ethnic diversity results in a great diversity of ethnic restaurants, the likes of which I'm not even sure they have in Mexico City. We didn't eat there, but yesterday we passed an Eritrian restaurant. We were so taken with Full Moon Vegetarian Restaurant (638 Dundas Street West, 416/203-1210), a place that serves a huge selection of all-vegetarian Chinese dishes, that we ate there twice. We also had great Indian and Thai food too.

Full Moon Vegetarian Restaurant

This was a sauteed eggplant with vegetarian ham, which had a beautiful palette of rich colors.

Eggplant with Vegetarian Ham, Full Moon restuarnat

Big cities always have the best graffiti, and Toronto has some of the best I've seen in a while. Moreover, one doesn't tend to see all that many boring, crappy tags, but when there is graffiti, it's almost always the elaborate kind that demands real artistic talent.

Graffiti, Toronto

I don't like to see Shawn in pain, but this was one of the funniest unexpected things I saw on the trip. I looked up from taking that last shot and saw him bent over and rubbing his back next to this sign. I quickly snapped another shot just because the symmetry was so funny.

Shawn In jured, Toronto

Shawn and I are in Toronto, where we are enjoying a beautiful view from our 33rd story view at the Sheraton Toronto Centre Hotel.

What we're not enjoying is the nickle-and-diming. They charge guests an additional CAD $9 to use the pool, hot tub or gym, and a CAD $2 access charge (plus CAD $0.15 per minute) to make toll-free calls. They give you coffee in the room, but apparently they only give you two packages (enough to make two cups total) for your entire STAY (not per day), and if you want more, you can buy it from them.

But what really got us was this CAD $18 veggie burger in the restaurant. Of course, it's $18 for fish and chips too...

We also thought we'd need considerable time to visit the renowned Cleveland Museum of Art and the Contemporary Museum of Art in Cleveland. Yet as our luck would have it, neither one is open to the public at the moment. The former is closed for renovations; the latter is closed for the installation of their next exhibit. Go figure. That exhibit opens the day we leave town.

The Cleveland Museum of Art closure makes us really mad. It's lame to close the whole musuem at once. Usually places will renovate in sections so they at least have something open at all times. Instead, they suggest that you visit one of their traveling exhibits. That's all well and good...if you're in Nashville!

We will end up going to see the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum at Case-Western University, and that will be cool. We hope to join the leagues of people that claim that they expected the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to be lame (as do we), but were pleasantly surprised to find it both interesting and cool. We have tickets at will-call to see the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, considered one of the top five orchestras in the country.

So we won't be without things to do, but it is a pretty big drag for us that both of the big art museums will be closed while we're here.

The person at reception that checked us in upgraded us to a larger room, which is, I believe only the second time that we've really been upgraded at a Starwood property, despite the fact that we've been members of their frequent stay program for a few years. That perhaps tipped our perception of the place toward the positive from the start, but I have to say that this downtown W seems a lot cooler than the Lakeshore. The staff is a lot friendlier, the location is killer, and the hotel itself is dazzling. It was formerly the Midland Hotel, and still retains the vaulted arches in the lobby and the gold, silver and bronze plaster-cast ceiling on the mezzanine. Yeah, it is kind of dark, but in a good W Hotel sexy way, not a dim, seedy, too-cheap-to-buy-decent-light-bulbs kind of way.

That can be fun too, I guess, but after our return flight experience and the Chicago zombie tour of our first 24 hours in town, it is good to be in a cushy spot. In addition to the featherbed and down pillows, this hotel softens the blow of being in a strange land by providing a concierge. In our experience, the W Hotel concierges range from being so well-informed you fear their falling into the wrong hands and being used for evil, to having such a lack of knowledge that might be similarly dangerous, if they actually had any follow-through whatsoever. Luckily, at the W Chicago - City Center, we had the benefit of Li Feng.

Li is the kind of concierge that can tell you the street addresses and hours of operation for a restaurant in town at the mere mention of the name. He pointed us to the incredible experience we had at the Green Zebra, and he sent us to the fabulous Lou Mitchell's diner for breakfast today, after we'd slept through it here at the hotel. He explained that the latter is kind of a greasy spoon kind of diner, although it is really very good. "People actually line up there in the morning to get a table," he told us as he wrote the address out on one of his W business cards. "If you get there and there is a line, just go in through the door to the hostess, give her my card and she'll get you a table right away."

We went to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture on Saturday, then that night we went to see "The Strangerer" at the Chopin Theater. Sunday we're checking out of the W Chicago - City Center and heading down to Effingham by train, where my father will pick us up and take us to Olney.

I cannot begin to relate what an amazing experience it was for me. I have long griped about how vegetarian restaurants are prone to overlooking flavor, taste and artistic merit for other, less interesting criteria. Vegetarian food often gets a bad reputation because those that make it do not approach it as chefs approach regular food. Too often "vegetarian food" means simply "health food," and while it most certainly is not the case that food that is tasty must be unhealthy, it is presumed that if vegetarian dishes are more healthy than your average dish, they will be appealing to vegetarians. This is not true.

Vegetarians appreciate presentation, balance, complimentary flavors, texture, just as much as meat eaters, but rarely do we get the same attention paid to these details by chefs cooking for us as those cooking for omnivores at the finer establishments. Often vegetarian dishes are accomplished by merely omitting the meat from dishes that normally contain it. This upsets the integrity of the dishes, and often leaves such plates thoroughly unsatisfying. Dishes so prepared are about as rewarding for vegetarians as girl-on-girl scenes in heterosexual pornographic films directed by straight men are for real-life lesbians: they may achieve a technical accuracy, but they have no real depth or soul.

Green Zebra does not get overly concerned with being a vegetarian restaurant as much as it just makes great food from products that are not meat. There is no effort to substitute anything to replace "missing" meat. Green Zebra's dishes do not originate from a position of inferiority because they start out already lacking some aspect for which the chef must compensate. They are just well-designed dishes that are made from the wide variety of things that fit into the category of not being meat.

There are plenty of dishes that are vegetarian in the traditional cuisine rosters of various ethnic foods. Italian has lots of pastas and polentas, Greek has salads and spanikopita, and Asian has tofu and tempura vegetables. These are all great, but they are not necessarily exciting. The stuff at Green Zebra made me go, "Wow! That's really brilliant!" Fresh burrata cheese, grilled mango, haricot verts and shaved fennel. Hawaiian heart of palm, cape gooseberries, pasion fruit cream and szechuan peppercorns. Poached Prospera Farms egg, smoked potato puree, served with country sourdough toast. It doesn't all work equally well, but enough comes together in an unexpected way to make it a truly exciting experience of eating vegetarian food. And when was the last time you thought of eating vegetarian food as exciting?

Sure, this is a place for foodies without a doubt. If you can't imagine spending ten bucks on a plate of vegetables, no matter how well they're crafted, this place is not for you. Yet if you are a vegetarian who appreciates culinary artistry, this place is arguably the most important restaurant in the world.

I'm not kidding.

Read the New York Times review.

Given my previous apprehensions about returning to the United States, it was fitting that we got our first taste of just what I was talking about before we even left Mexico.

To get to Chicago from Guadalajara, we had to go through Mexico City. Getting from Guadalajara to Mexico City was uneventful enough. We took off, we were in the air for about 50 minutes, we landed and we walked for what seemed like 5 miles to get from our domestic arrival gate to our international departure gate. We waited for the announced boarding time, and at about five minutes before, the doors to the jet bridge opened and out marched a small army of private security personnel, each armed with a folding table and pair of rubber gloves. In near-perfect synchronization they set up the tables and donned the gloves, while an airline employee rigged the nylon-belted posts around them to restrict entry to one central point.

Shawn and I were confused, since we'd not left the secured area of the airport while switching planes, and we'd already had to go through an additional x-ray of our bags when we crossed from the national terminal to the international one. The gate attendant made the call for the boarding of the flight and people started lining up. We were about to have our carry-on baggage inspected for a third time.

Shawn and I couldn't believe it, and we were discussing amongst ourselves what the possible cause could be for having to go through this yet another time. None of the other passengers boarding flights in our area - one to Frankfurt, another to Buenos Aires - had been subjected to this special treatment. We were trying to figure out why we were so lucky when a voice behind us spoke up in English.

"It's because we're flying into the United States," he explained. "The US requires an extra security check for foreign flights going into the country now."

"What?" I asked. "We've already been through two other checks already, one just 500 meters back. Is this some new thing? We haven't flown into the US for a little over a year, but they didn't make us do this last time."

"Yeah, it's getting worse there every day," he said.

They also made us throw away any bottled water we had before boarding the plane.

We landed at around 1 am at O'Hare airport in Chicago. Clearing immigration and customs was a breeze, and then we got to spend the next four and a half hours in the airport, waiting until the shuttle service started running so we could get downtown and drop off our bags at our hotel.

At the airport, there were two places open. One had such American delights as veggie burgers, onion rings and root beer, all things we can get in Guadalajara but they're hard to find and expensive. Well, scratch that. They cost about as much after being specially trucked in to Mexico as they do here, what with the relatively high prices here.

The other place advertised having drinks like espresso and latte, but it turns out they only offer brewed coffee at night. One has to wait until 6 am to get expresso or latte. They also had a range of nine different sandwiches, including stuff it seemed strange to advertise the way they did, like "corned beef on white." One of these sandwiches was a veggie wrap, and it was the only item of the nine offered that one couldn't get between 10 pm and 6 am, continuing the idea that seems to be a worldwide misconception: vegetarians do not eat after sundown.

It was also the first example reinforcing one of the recurring themes we always notice about the United States when we arrive: it's the land of nitpicky little rules. No loitering. No skateboarding. No smoking within 50 feet of the entrance. No bills bigger than $20. No music past 9 o'clock. No food or drink. No substitutions. No minors. No shirt. No shoes. No service.

Eventually we were able to get a shuttle from the airport to hotel, but since we had nine hours to go before we could actually check in, we left our bags and went out to kill some time in the city. We went first to the Tempo Café (6 E. Chestnut Street), a 24-hour diner-style place with excellent food where we got omelettes. We went to get more coffee at a Starbucks, then did some browsing and buying at a Border's.

We took a cab to Chinatown, where Shawn took a few pictures and we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for some spring rolls. They normally had meat in them, but they were happy to make them vegetarian on our request. The only problem being that, when they arived, they were nothing but lettuce and a sprig of cilantro rolled up in a sheet of rice wrapper. It was still only noon, and we had three hours to kill, but I was starting to hallucinate from being up so long. We walked to the train and took it downtown, where we walked a few blocks and stopped at another Starbucks for more coffee and to pass another hour.

We were really dragging on the walk back to the hotel. We crossed Michigan Avenue, and what seemed to be a couple of blocks that took us about 10 minutes to travel when we were going in the other direction in the morning, seemed to be several miles that took forever to traverse in the afternoon. At last we arrived at the W Chicago - Lakeshore and checked in. We had made a special request on our reservation - that they secure a copy of the Wallpaper City Guide for Chicago in advance and give it to us at check-in. Sure enough, they'd done it.

We took a nap and showered before going down to dinner, where we were reminded of one of the things we miss about the United States while living in Mexico: the great diversity of great ethnic foods available here. At the Mediterranean-style restaurant in the hotel, they are running a special series of dishes from various Asian regions. We had a vegetarian pinkabet, a dish popular in the Philippines, and ordered some smaller plates: spanikopita, hummus and mixed olives. I got a couple of Manhattans, made with Maker's Mark, a label we just can't get in Mexico, where the only non-Scotch whiskies places ever seem to have are Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. I'm not sure which was more intoxicating, the bourbon or the vast selection made possible by American-style capitalism.

Still reeling from the conflict of the love-hate relationship I have with the land of my birth, I retired to a matress that was 10 times softer than any I've ever had a Mexican hotel, paying 10 times more than I would for a hotel room there. I switched on The Daily Show, where the brilliant Jon Stewart was somehow able to make me laugh my ass off over Americans talking about how they won't vote for Barak Obama because he's not white, because they have somehow been convinced that he is a Muslim, and because he's "Hussein."

One day down. Sixty more to go.

I already have mixed feelings about the trip.

On the positive side, it will be great to see the folks and our friends, and to catch up on what is going on. I will delight in going out to a bar, being able to choose a whiskey from a list that has more than just eight Scotches and one Bourbon, then sitting back to enjoy some real jazz played on a real piano, not a synthesizer with a built-in drum kit. I will revel in the cool cascade of iced air that pours forth from the open freezer case as I try to decide which of the ten varieties of Morningstar Farms® burgers I want, or maybe I'll just get a box of Boca® Bratwurst, some sauerkraut and pumpernickel buns. I might just buy some electronics without the 270% markup.

Yet while I look forward to basking in the unrestrained consumerism that is perhaps the best remaining aspect of life in the United States, I fear just being there. It is funny to us that gringos coming to visit invariably ask if it's safe here in Guadalajara, because it's so quiet and calm around where we live. Here one has to be cautious about the occasional cab driver that wants to overcharge you by ten pesos, the government official that promises to fix the roads and then absconds with half the funds for the project, or the sharp pieces of metal that jut forth from the crumbling remains of some neglected building, started long ago but never completed. There is danger here, but it does not seem to have the same violent, lethal quality that danger in the United States has.

Sure, Mexico has some dangerous places. News stories appear with an alarming frequency about the escalating war between the narcotraficantes and the authorities. Charles just recently reminded me that, while I fall in love with Mexico City every time I visit the Zona Rosa for a few days, in neighborhoods of the capital that have not been sanitized for public consumption, people are afraid to walk the streets at night or wear jewelry outside. There are parts of Mexico that are dangerous, but in general, for most people, Guadalajara just isn't. It is a big city where one should be cautious, but overall, it's a nice, quiet place.

In contrast, in the United States, it's the nice, quiet places that scare me the most. It will be a long time before I forget the experience of driving across the United States with Shawn about a year before we left, going to Massachusetts to get married. Along the way, we got our fair share of weird looks from front desk clerks when we checked to a reservation for only one bed and caused many an eye to roll when we asked for the salad without the apple-smoked bacon or the flame-broiled chicken breast on top. Yet it was the public opinion we heard on the radio driving through nice, quiet places that finally got to us.

"Them immigrants come here tuh steal awr jobs, 'n' they don' even bother tuh learn them some English!" one caller to a talk show railed. "They needs tuh learn the language if'n they wanna live here."

Another, calling in to answer the host's question about how the audience would feel if Condoleezza Rice ran for president, said, "I don't think America is ready for a black woman to be president." She was not the only caller to have such sentiments, although other callers said, "I don't think America is ready for a black woman to be president."

The last time we visited the United States, in April 2007, while stuck waiting in an airport, the TV monitors were showing an Anderson Cooper special on CNN. Despite plenty of ongoing real news (a bomb set by Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq in the cafeteria of the National Assembly of Iraq kills eight people, 33 people are killed and 29 others wounded by shooter Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin dies at the age of 76), Cooper was immersed in an hour-long, special presentation investigating the gay question.

Once again we will be driving across the United States, and I hope that this time we find that Americans have gotten tired of discussing whether homosexuals and people of color deserve any rights and have moved on to discussing what new direction they want the country to take. I hope that we are surprised to find our fellow citizens engaged in a respectful and intelligent debate about things like the economy, education, or technology instead of fiercely arguing the source of the next great threat to life and liberty and the best way to snuff it out entirely before it takes over.

The last time we were traveling across the United States, the whole place seemed like one big paranoid science fiction film from the 50s, where people are threatened by some metaphoric mouse and end up razing entire cities in their fearful panic, trying to cleanse the world of the menace that never really was. The events of September 11, 2001 were not yet five years past, the War on Terror was blindly lashing out against inappropriate targets, and the American public was too numbed to give a damn that their government was torturing prisoners, wasting billions and illegally monitoring their communications. Maybe enough time has now elapsed that Americans are ready to get back on the horse and take their place at the reins of one of the most powerful countries in the world, tackling difficult problems and returning the nation to a place where at least the ideas of truth and justice have some value. Or will rising inflation of key goods, a collapsing housing market and an impending recession bring out the worst in people?

If history is any indication, I'm afraid we are to be disappointed.

They lack the vitriolic signage of some facilities in the United States, but Mexico has its fair share of toilets where one has to pay for entry. These are especially common in bus terminals, like the one in Querétaro, pictured above.

In most cases, they cost MXN $3, which is roughly USD $0.28. The machines as shown above make change for 10 or 5 peso coins, but they do not accept 20 or 50 peso notes. If there is a human standing or sitting outside the entrance of the facility, they usually can make change for smaller bills.

The theory is that the money goes toward the upkeep of the bathroom and to provide things like toilet paper, hand towels and soap. I'm not convinced that there is not some serious skimming off the top going on.

I do not expect scented terrycloth towels and a foot massage for that price, but I have been to several such bathrooms where it seems like a rip-off. At times, an attendant will give you three squares (yes, three individual squares) of toilet paper for your MXN $0.30 as you enter. It's better if they have an actual roll of toilet paper you can use as you need it, but often, when these are provided, they're not in the stalls where you use it, but rather out by the sinks where you wash your hands. All the stalls share one big industrial roll from a dispenser mounted on the wall, and the user is supposed to tear some off as she enters. I do not understand where the economy is in that. I think the idea is that they only have to pay for one dispenser that way, but when faced with the decision in advance about how much toilet paper one is going to need when the actual time comes, the tendency is to over-estimate. No one wants to get caught with his pants down, literally, in such a situation.

It doesn't hurt when traveling in Mexico (and probably anywhere, for that matter) to bring one's own toilet paper. It seems odd to me that no company has come up with any kind of product for this here. I've seen Charmin travel rolls (small, packed in a hard plastic case) in the United States, but to my knowledge, they don't sell those in Mexico. Go figure. The best commercially-available product that I've seen here are moist wipes that are used for babies, and those seem to be available everywhere here. Otherwise, you should try to remember to wad up a bunch and stick it in your bag or pocket before going out and about.

Sooner or later, you'll be glad you did.

I wanted to see the place where Emperor Maximilian was executed, El Cerro de las Campanas, or "The Hill of the Bells." We set out on foot this morning before noon to check it out.

It was already hot, and I was in semi-dressy clothes. At first, it wasn't so bad. Walking down Avenida Hidalgo, I saw a bunch of stuff that struck me as funny or cool, and I was able to snap some photos of them.

Lavandería/Tintorería Veronica, Querétaro

I don't understand the one below. It's a sign for a place that sells medical implants and prosthetics, and I'm sure their products help their clients to live fuller, more satisfying lives. Yet I suspect most of them do not go on to be communications directors on the crew of an open-wheel, off-road racing team.

Adventures in Prosthetics, Querétaro

I mean, where did they get this photo? Did they make it themselves? It looks like a poster for a Hollywood summer blockbuster about a racer that loses an arm in a terrible accident but whose courage allows him to take his former teammate to the championships as the tough but caring crew chief that inspires everyone that gets to know him.

A reward is being offered for this lost dog.

Perrito Perdido, Querétaro

Why, I'm not exactly sure. It looks like Darth Poodle to me, but then again, I'm not a big dog fan.

Is it just me, or does this...

I AM A MONEDA!, Querétaro

...remind anyone else of Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected"?

This isn't entirely unusual in Mexico, but one would think that, at one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city, they'd have signs telling you where to go to buy your ticket to get in. Of course, our friends Larry and Joseph would argue that this is where you make your first mistake, presuming that people think about such things here.

We finally got to the top, and found that we were in a big empty parking lot, unable to get in through the fence that encircles the whole park. Luckily, Shawn spotted a gate that was ajar, although it said (in Spanish), "EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE ONLY!" They can't afford the time or expense to put a sign up telling you where to get in, but they can somehow manage one to tell you to keep out. I was annoyed, hot and sweaty by this point, so I squeezed in through the gate after Shawn. I wasn't about to go back down the hill just so that I could go back up to get to the proper gate.

View from El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

While climbing the hill, I was quickly losing interest in the park, cursing our even thinking of going there. Yet once inside, I was glad to have made the effort, because it was quite verdant and beautiful.

Shawn at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

There is a great, enormous statue of Benito Juárez in the park, which is kind of funny because he was a pretty short man.

Monument to Benito Juárez, Querétaro

Shawn commented that it looked so severe as to seem Russian.

Monument to Benito Juárez, Querétaro

You can't really tell in the above photo as resized for the blog, but Shawn's giving old Juárez the Lynndie England.

The Lynndie England, Querétaro

Emperor Maximilian was Austrian, and had been appointed as Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon during a period when France had conquered Mexico. His reign was brief though, as Juárez and the resistance movement overthrew the monarchy and had Maximilian executed. The family of Maximilian sponsored the building of a chapel to commemorate the re-establishing of diplomatic relations between Austria-Hungary and Mexico in 1900.

Chapel at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

It is a nice little chapel, but it does not seem like people are allowed to enter, but they do have the doors open so you can see inside. When we arrived, a bunch of school kids on a field trip were all bunched up at the entrance checking it out.

Chapel at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

There's also a fountain that is dedicated to children, their learning, and being the future. Yada, yada, yada.

Child Reading Sculpture at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

We didn't notice until posting the picture, but it looks like the kid in the above sculpture is missing a foot. Maybe he needs to visit the prosthetics store and make something of himself, instead of just moping around reading all the time!

We exited the park, buying the entrance tickets as we left. I suspect they thought we were crazy, but I didn't want to explain our whole gate-crashing earlier. We hailed a cab and went to Harry's, a New Orleans-style restaurant and oyster bar in the Plaza Constitución.

Shawn at Harry's

Harry's was a pretty nice place, and they had a handful of things on the menu that we could eat as ovo-lacto vegetarians. Meat-eating fans of Cajun and Creole food would probably enjoy it even more.

I was delighted to discover that they had pecan pie listed as a dessert on the menu, but I was disappointed to find that it was more like a Mexican pay de nuez than a southern US style pecan pie. Instead of having a layer of glazed pecans over that delicious sugary, gooey filling, it was more or less all crushed up nuts in a crust. Not awful, but not at all what I was expecting (and craving).

Harry's of Querétaro

It's in the same building as the Gran Hotel, and seems to be the most happening night spot in the Centro Histórico. We went back later at night, around midnight, to have a nightcap and celebrate our last night in town, but there wasn't a free table in the whole place.

Yet before all that, still in the afternoon, we walked over to try and hang out for a while in the Alameda Hidalgo, a huge park with lots of trees and grassy areas. We had driven by it last night, and it looked beautiful. Yet when we got there, we found it closed. There were maintenance people inside, but all the gates were locked up tight.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

Again, there were no signs anywhere telling visitors why the park was closed, or when it would be open.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

We suspected that, since they had maintenance crews inside doing things like watering areas of the grass and sweeping the walkways, they do open it up at some point.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

Yet since we had limited time in town, we didn't stick around to find out. We took photos through the fence and then decided to get our shoes shined. We asked the shoeshine guy what the deal was with the Alameda being closed and he explained something about how it actually is open at certain times, but he was old and a bit mumbly, so we didn't fully understand his answer. We think it's open on most days but only after a certain time. If visiting Querétaro, and if you want to visit the Alameda, be sure to inquire as to when it is open, or you may be very disappointed when you show up and can't get in.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

We hoofed it back to the center and walked up Anador Libertad, a very pretty street that is now a pedestrian walkway, to reach the Plaza de Armas.

Anador Libertad, Querétaro

Shawn went about taking photos of the plaza while I got off my feet in a seat off to the side of the plaza.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

We had coffee at Gloria Jean's Coffees, where the staff was exceptionally friendly.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

As we were leaving, Shawn spotted a restaurant next to the coffee place that said, 'COCINA HINDÚ' - an Indian restaurant! That's our favorite national/regional food, so we were thrilled to find such a place. They were obviously not open, as they had all their tables and chairs stacked outside, and were doing some remodeling inside. Shawn went in and asked if they would be open for dinner, and a man told him, yes, at 8 pm.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

We were excited and immediately decided to return for an Indian feast that night for our final dinner in Querétaro.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

As we left the plaza, we were surrounded by a bunch of school kids who wanted to interview us in English for a school project. They had some 20 questions about genetically-modified foods. It was incredibly hard stuff for non-native speakers, but they did a pretty good job.

We walked back to our hotel and relaxed for a while in the air conditioning. Eventually we showered (again), shaved (again), ironed our clothes and went out for our Indian delights. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the restaurant, the furniture that had been piled up outside was piled up inside. We entered and a bunch of people were all sitting around talking. We asked if they were open, and they said that they were opening on Friday. I was a bit miffed. I said that someone there had earlier told Shawn that they would be open at 8 pm for dinner, and the woman that seemed to be an owner apologized to us. We were really bummed because we were really looking forward to Indian food. It's very hard to find it here in Mexico.

It was nice however, to actually get an apology for being misinformed by someone on their staff. That usually doesn't happen. Normally you get a shrug and a laugh, and nothing more. Because people think it's better to tell you what you want to hear rather than to tell you something that will disappoint you, people lie to you all the time here, and nobody thinks there is anything wrong with that.

While we didn't get the chance to eat at the place because we're leaving Thursday afternoon to return to Guadalajara, I submit to you the information on the place in case you are going to Querétaro and would like to try it out. The place is called "bhaji" and is located at Pasteur Sur #8, in the Plaza de Armas. Their phone number is (442) 224-2814.

We ended up taking a chance on an Italian place called Trastevere (16 de Septiembre #28; 212-1472) and were positively surprised. Instead of the exact same boring three or four vegetarian dishes that they offer at seemingly all the Italian restaurants in Mexico, this place had interesting dishes that we have never seen anywhere else in the country. We had a cheese fondue with artichokes and grilled tomatoes that was out of this world, followed by a spinach and cheese ravioli in pecan white sauce for Shawn and a spinach lasagne for me. The service was excellent and the atmosphere quite nice: an open courtyard adorned with several interesting paintings. After our Indian disappointment, it was an absolutely delightful end to the evening.

Tomorrow we head back to Guadalajara, but we have had a great time here in Querétaro. I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in a good mixture of the historic charm and modern 'conveniences.'

I just wish they would get a little better about their signage telling visitors details like where the entrances are and when places are open so one doesn't end up wasting a lot of time.

I am delighted to have discovered yet another Mexican-made soda that has somehow thus far survived the Coke®/Pepsi® holocaust that has killed off nearly all the independent soft drink manufacturers of Mexico: Victoria!

It is manufactured about 32 miles southeast of Santiago de Querétaro in San Juan del Río, Querétaro, the second largest city in the state. It is also imported to the United States by The Victoria Beverage Company, Inc., Conroe, Texas.

I saw it at the Oxxo, and selected the unusual red currant flavor over the more typical lime, apple, sangria, and orange. At first, I thought it was a little funny tasting, but the more I drink, the more I like it. It seems a little weak on flavor, but it's certainly not weak on sweet.

I was unaware of the Spanish word for red currant, which appears to be grosella.

Refresco Victoria, de San Juan del Río

Black currant is grosella negra.