I put in 700 mikes today and have my tent pitched just outside of El Paso, IL. It started out pretty cold (and foggy) so I had my handwarmers on, but around Madison and Chicago it was a toasty 95 degrees. I liked the terrain around Eau Claire the most--very pronounced hills.
I had to get up at 6:00am on Friday to meet up for the taxi ride to the airport. It was $5.00 per person, with 8 of us in a big van for the 1/2 hour ride. I ate some donuts from 7-11 for breakfast, and some orange juice. I traveled with only my backpack which ended up pretty full. The plane flight was uneventful.
Then we took another taxi to the Quality Inn. When we were about 2 blocks away, we almost all died. Or rather, Matt, who was riding shotgun, almost died. Our taxi was making its way through an intersection, and crept forward in front of a bus. Of course he couldn't see around it, and was maybe going a little too fast. Another bus was coming. All of a sudden, we came to a sudden halt and the big, flat side of a bus was filling the entire front window. I think we actually bumped against it's front tire. (Matt almost died because the bus was coming from the right.) After that, we arrived safely.
For a late lunch we went to a pretty neat restaurant, and I had some excellent tasting "arrechara," or steak. It came with tortillas for making tacos I think, but I just ate the meat by itself. When we left there was a big line outside, which we had luckily missed.
Oliver, who's from Austria and lives down the hall from me, then took us on a self-guided walking tour of the surrounding downtown area around the "zocolo," or central plaza. There are 4 or 5 churches there, including one that's 500 years old. The biggest one was built around the year 1700.
That wore us out, so we found a nice cafe sort-of-place and I had a beer and Oliver and Sonya had a coke. Incidentally, a beer ended up being cheaper than a coke. Then I had a nap, and we headed up to the rooftop terrance at the hotel for a buffet dinner. The city was beautiful from up there, and the food excellent again.
Then we planned to attend the main celebration that would happen at midnight. When we headed to the plaza at 11:45, we were informed that the celebration had already come and gone. Apparently in Guadalajara, midnight is anytime between 11:00pm and 1:00am. But I did get this nice picture from a newspaper.
We were all pretty tired when we finally got to bed at around 4:00am.