Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!haven!uflorida!gatech!bloom-beacon!spdcc!dyer
From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: Things to do in San Diego
Message-ID: <2452@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>
Date: 19 Jan 89 19:30:55 GMT
References: <462@megatek.UUCP> <10741@shamash.cdc.com>
Reply-To: dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 35

In article <10741@shamash.cdc.com> jwabik@shamash.cdc.com (Jeff Wabik) writes:
>Is anyone familiar with the policies regarding visiting Mexico?    I'll
>be hanging around the weekend after USENIX, and would like to roadtrip
>to Tijuana for a day ..  Is it OK to drive rental cars into Mexico,
>etc?   How far is it?

The Mexican border is only a short car trip from San Diego proper; if my memory
serves, it must be less than 20 min away.

In general, car insurance and rental car contracts are not valid
in Mexico.  However, there are acres of parking lots on the US side of
the border designed to accomodate day travellers, who park and then walk
across the border.

You won't need a passport or a visa, though you should have proper
identification.

>We northerners are only familiar with how
>to get into Canada. . 8^)

Prepare for a shock.  I never understood just how close to the surface
lay my bourgeois, protected roots until I took a day trip into Tijuana.
The poverty and squalor are overwhelming, and make the poor border
towns on the US side look like country clubs.  I couldn't understand
how US tourists could shop for bargains when there was poverty all
around.  Walking on Revolution Avenue, you can see the San Diego hills,
planted with neat suburban homes, rising over the border.  The social and
physical effects of an artificial political barrier were never so clear to me
before.

Of course, you just might like to go shopping...
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
dyer@arktouros.mit.edu