Todd’s school is right down the street, so he came by and we walked around this area of Mesa, which I’ve come to call Little Mexico. We walked into the sleaziest, cheapest looking taqueria on the block. The two proprietors were the only people in there. There was some meat product rotating on an autodoner in the window. Todd ordered a burrito and two carne asada tacos. The woman at the register nodded, but continued playing with receipts and money. The guy in an apron walked off, but returned a few moments later and returned to stand at the counter. I could only read about half the menu since they’d propped various things in front of it. “What is best?” I asked. The guy shrugged and pointed at the woman counting. I repeated the question, and she said, “Al Pastor,” and returned to her rummaging. After about 5 minutes of Todd and I standing there, Todd ordered again. “Dos tacos al pastor, y dos tacos carne asada,” he tried. “Si, si!” and the guy started carving at the meat product. The woman at the register muttered, and continued playing with receipts and $1 bills. I ordered dos tacos al pastor as well, and asked for a Coca. I didn’t see any in the glass case, but thought maybe I’d try. He produced a can of Diet Coke. I asked for aqua, he shrugged and pointed in the general vicinity of a doorway into the neighboring establishment, an ice cream shop. Two people, who appeared to be customers, sat at a table. No one was in there. I stood there for awhile, the guy in the apron walked in, walked around, and walked back. I gave up and sat down with Todd and ate two amazing tacos al pastor, with some great salsa and fresh taco makings at a little salad bar.

After that, we wandered into the Mexican grocery store, which is just as Mexican as the Chinese place was next to the other hotel. I bought a Boing! drink, which was like orange soda, but not carbonated. Todd got some weird looking Mexican candy (even if the Mexicans aren’t as advanced in candy technology as the Asians) and an Arizona Sweet Tea. We perused a music store, with Todd finally purchasing a couple of mandolin strings. Then we went for a short, aimless drive with the top down because the weather was so amazingly nice. We came back, picked up Todd’s car, and drove into Phoenix and ate Greek gyros with his girlfriend. Actually, I got a souvlaki pita, I think their real gyros were probably better, but it was good. The Greek place was showing scantily clad Arab women in Arabic music videos on some strange TV channel, with phone numbers to call in and vote for every middle eastern country. Todd and I decided the whole thing was very strange, and Todd said he was waiting for a bearded guy to jump in the screen and blow them up for being indecently exposed.