the Lonestar State

Last weekend my buddy and Jon went up to visit his aunt who is a missionary in the border town of Reynosa. She works at a school for children with disabilities among other ministries and invited us over. The city itself is nothing to see, in fact, my buddy refers to the collecting garbage in the streets and river as "Reynosage", because it is a broken and dirty city, yet growing rapidly because of foreign industry taking advantage of the cheap costs in Mexico. After about 3 1/2 months in Mexico, I had a day back on American soil, which was pretty great. We went to a city accross the border in Texas called McAllen. It has all the comforts of an american town, plus some I hadn't experienced yet. We went out to breakfast at Crackerbarrel, which is super good. I had grits, friend apples, biscuits and gravy, and sausage-very tastey and so different than Mexico. We then shot over to target and I bought good cereal and granola bars, then a pitstop at Starbucks to buy pumpkin spice lattes...something that I have been missing here in Mexico. It was a beautiful moment when I put my lips to the cup-except she put whipped cream on my latte, something I am not a fan of. Luckily I have my buddy jon who is there to help me out in such times. I was able to call my parents from a u.s. cellphone, something I haven't done in a long time, and hear their voices over the phone. It meant a lot to me. After a day of indulgence I was pretty tired, I know, kind of pathetic, but its those things in life that you learn to appreciate after being out of the loop of things for so long.