Life Aboard the Traveling Circus

Ever since I hit “book” for our SoCal plane tickets a few months ago, Mike has said we just have to go to Tijuana while we’re there. I wasn’t exactly opposed, but I was nervous.

There’s a pandemic, and I sure as hell don’t want to be trapped in another country where my Spanish is limited to what I learned through fifth grade. Also, on every Botched episode I’ve ever seen, all of the sad plastic surgery patients got their super shady procedures in Tijuana. And finally, if Mike spent many fuzzy nights there during his time as a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, it’s probably not the safest place to hang out. 

But once we were in San Diego, it seemed easy enough, especially when I looked up the drive – 20 minutes from our hotel. I told Mike I wanted to be back in the States by 6 p.m. and once we got to a parking lot that was very clearly marketed to people heading to Tijuana just for the day, I felt a little better. I felt even better when a bus parked in our lot agreed to drive us there and back for $20 round trip and we breezed through customs as some of the only people in the entire building. 

For two years, Mike, your typical Jersey guy through-and-through – loves a good slice of pie, isn’t afraid to tell a stranger that he’s wrong, curses way too much in traffic – was stationed in San Diego.

It was a long time ago – nearly 20 years – so he doesn’t mention it all that much. But I know he loved it, because when he does mention it, it’s as if it was heaven on earth. He loved the year-round perfect weather, the kind where here in Jersey, you say to a stranger, “What a beautiful day.” He loved the laid-back attitude that only seems to come with being near water. Oh, and the tacos. He really loved those.

But through our weeklong SoCal trip, he’s not especially nostalgic about any of the places we go or the activities we do. I think of when I went back to Florence, Italy two years ago, about a decade after a semester abroad, and how I nearly kissed my old apartment door. But Mike seems content to cruise by, not saying much, maybe mentioning a bar he had been to once on this block. 

I may not have a piece of designer clothes to my name, but I’m a sucker for anything glitzy and glamorous. My Netflix history says it all: Million Dollar Listing, Selling Sunset, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I love a 30-minute snippet where I can see the world from someone else’s eyes (whose loaded, obviously), where I don’t have to worry about finding another part-time job to pay my rent next month or think about our mismatched furniture. 

So, of course I was beyond thrilled to head to Los Angeles for one day during our weeklong tour of SoCal. Mike doesn’t share my thrill for chasing celebrities down Sunset Boulevard, so instead, I booked a food tour through downtown Los Angeles with Sidewalk Food Tours, figuring we could check out some cool foodie spots and I could scope out the scene I have so dreamed about. 

I am so dumb.