Bienvenidos a Laredo!

This is the view standing directly outside the French doors to my hotel room. I wish the lighting were better - there's an old mission steeple at 11 o'clock, but it's about the same shade of beigey gray as the overcast sky, and the light washed it right out of the picture. Then my batteries died. So, we're off to a somewhat unpromising start.

We got an Official State Toyota Prius for the drive down. Oddly, the interior smells like hamsters.

I don't know about the outskirts, but downtown Laredo does not feel like a U.S. city. The streets are extremely narrow, lined with tiny shops, and choked with nonchalant jaywalkers. Traffic is fairly anarchistic. It's cramped but clean, the buildings are scrubbed and brightly colored and cute, and there are lots and lots of palm trees. The hotel sits at one side of a big brick square with a gazebo in the middle; on the other side of the hotel is the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo stretching out into the distance. There's a lot of street noise up here. A couple of people looked hard at me getting out of the car and walking into the lobby to check in - there don't seem to be that many redheads about. I think I wouldn't go walking by myself here, but hopefully I can drag my coworker along for a spot of shopping.

We listened to Christmas music pretty much the whole way down. Did you ever notice that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" appears to be about date rape?

More pictures, observations, and ruining your Christmas favorites to come later.