I have too much of a story to tell to get it all down in one post, but I will try my best.  Barbara just finished her psych. rotation this weekend so it was about time for me to take a trip down and visit her.  I arrived in Houstin around noon to discover that they had overbooked the flight to Harlingen and consequently were offering $200 plus the value of the ticket.  They would get me on a flight that left 1 hour later.  I took the offer and walked off with my $300 credit that I will use o­n my next trip down.  This is the second time this has happened, and as far as I'm concerned, it can just keep o­n going.  Upon landing I couldn't believe what I saw:  It was downpouring in Harlingen.  This would become a theme as the rain was destined to follow us for the remainder of the trip, but it certainly came as a shock to me since it doesn't happen very often there.  Barbara picked me up promptly at the airport and we met up with Pablo, Caeser, and Roxie at Barbara's apartment.  We all piled into the rental car and were o­n our way to Mexico.There was little or no trouble going across the border into Mexico.  The only point of interest was that we were required to make copies of certain documents to register our car in Mexico, and of course, we had to pay to make the copies.  I know this is obvious, but on the other side of the border it really is a different country.  That doesn't necessairly mean that I like it any less, but nonetheless it is very different.  We saw live chickens on the side of the road and hoards of people getting onto buses to shuttle them home.  The roads and buildings were certainly less well kept, but there was a certain charm to the simplicity of everything that I saw.  It took about 2.5 hours to get to Monterey, one of Mexico's largest industrial cities, whoops, time to catch my plane back to Nashville. Gotta run, be back later