It does feel like I'm breaking the law, or at least acting suspiciously subversive. In the two miles trip, I saw only two other people walking. There's a self-consciousness here that makes me feel like the driving Houstonians look up from their texting to stare. Houston feels like a city under siege by plague. There is no life on the street other than the sterile hulking masses of trucks. The strip mall with the AT&T store looked entirely lifeless. I wanted to see a tumbleweed roll across the parking lot.
It was therefore a little surprising to find actual humans inside of the AT&T store. I have an iPhone which is unlocked, a dumb phone, a sim card, and a contract with AT&T as a customer for over seven years. They told me that they could cut the sim card and move it to the iPhone, and wouldn't charge me anything for it. However, they also said that AT&T would immediately add a $30 monthly charge for data. I told them I didn't want a data plan, that I wanted to use the unlocked iphone as a regular phone. They told me that AT&T didn't allow it. I said, thanks but no thanks and left. AT&T evidently still is clinging to the days where Ma Bell owned your rotary dial telephone. It's just irritating.
Anyway. I caught Saori on skype for a few minutes just before Neri and I took off for the airport to go pick up Tay. Traffic was horrible. It's normally about 15-20 minutes to the airport from here. It took us an hour. Tay ended up waiting for us about 45 minutes out at the curb.
I would have to think very carefully about where I was living and working if I lived in Houston. At this point, I don't think I would ever want to live in a city where you spend two hours a day in traffic. In a typical month, this means you are spending 40 of 480 waking hours behind the wheel, or 8.3% of your time.
After we brought tay back we all changed for dinner and then went out to Hugo's for dinner. Hugo's a really upscale Mexican restaurant. It was really good. I had fish tacos to start with, and then I got a kind of carnitas still on the bone with jicama salsa, guacamole, and black beans. Churros and hot chocolate for dessert. Was it Authentic Mexican? It's kind of like asking if a dish in Europe is authentic American. Mexican food has always been a hybrid, contentious, malleable. Mexico is really culinarily diverse-each village has its own speciality and preparation, and within Mexico there are really four or five major regional divisions with totally different food culture. Even within these regions, there aren't standards as much as there regional ingredients, methods of preparations, flavor combinations, spices.
What we had was delicious and well-prepared, meats and sauces and flavor combinations which are familiar to Mexico. The only things that seemed amiss were that the tortillas were not like those in Mexico City- these ones were smoother, whiter, much higher flour content and the corn meal they used was a lot more finely ground than the ones in Mexico City. These also felt and tasted a little old, like they'd been made in the morning and simply been sitting all day before being re-heated. Once you have a hot, fresh tortilla off the griddle, you never mistake it. I think there's also the knowledge of how to keep tortillas fresh and hot without them getting soggy from the steam that may be lacking here.
Also drank some mezcal and tequila served with sangrita to go with the meal. I just don't see how wine and Mexican food can mix.
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