Mexico has the potential to confound, frustrate, bewilder and amaze unsuspecting Americans. We continue to marvel at the innumberable contradictions that not only coexist but thrive.

This is a culture "freed" from any collective or individual sense of adherence to rules. With this "liberation" comes an incredible randomness that can prove disorienting to folks who feel comforted by the expectations and order of a First-World upbringing.

This is quite an adventure, and we often remind ourselves, and each other, that problems only arise when one relies on one's American common sense and "gringo logic" in a land where reality runs on a wholly different world view. We've nearly completely struck phrases from our vocabulary such as, "It would make sense that . . . " or "But yesterday you told us the opposite . . . ".

Instead of listing the many ways in which a situation doesn't make sense (to us) we just say, "I figure that if the serape and sombreros don't detract from the solemnity of our photo with the Virgen of Guadalupe, I may as well climb on the plastic donkey too."

- Steve & Ed (still laughing their way through the Mexican bureacracy)