Having done nothing more today than get a haircut and wanting to do a quick entry, I herewith shall dispense a few more observations I've made during the last couple of weeks.

All Americans Are at Home
Seriously. I haven't met a single American backpacker yet. I mean I knew we're not the most adventure-prone people, but jeez. I mean nobody. Aussies, Dutch, Germans, Brits, Mexicans, Italians, South Africans, Portugese, Argentinians, even an Israeli for cryin' out loud. Not a single American backpacker.

I have met a few Americans who are on vacation, most of them from San Francisco for whatever reason. They've been very cool, but they're not exactly into the $7 a night hostel kind of thing. I'm not really complaining, though. It's been very interesting to meet people from everywhere and surprising to find less anti-American sentiment than I expected. At least no more than any reasonably intelligent human being has right now.

Mexicans Love Their Cell Phones
You gotta see and hear this one. I had no idea the ringers on these things could be set so loudly and obnoxiously. Or that the William Tell Overture at 120 decibels can be set for your ringer.

They ring without shame throughout movies and their owners proceed to carry on conversations there in the theater. They are worn proudly on the belt and used constantly on the street. Don't tell me there's no Mexican middle class. Maybe economists have missed the Mexican middle class because it's too busy talking on cell phones.

In Mexico, Movies Have Intermissions
Not much to elaborate on here except to say that during Catch Me if You Can, Christopher Walkin was delivering a line quite admirably and all of a sudden there's a slide telling me about popcorn. People got up and walked around for fifteen minutes and the movie resumed. I imagine the director would have something to say about that.

By the way, I highly recommend Catch Me if You Can... if for nothing more than the opening title sequence. Very, very well done. Too bad there's no Academy Award© for titles. Or maybe there is and it's given out in the "ceremony held earlier tonight." The movie ain't bad either.

Americans Have Big Napkins
I knew we're one of the fattest countries on earth... but we also seem to have the biggest napkins. See, I like to put my napkin in my lap... even if it's a paper one. And the napkins here are so small it's almost impossible to balance it on my thigh.

But don't let my discontent with small napkins take anything away for my loathing of people at home who must take a wad of at least fifteen napkins for each member of their BiggieSized© family upon every visit to Wendy's. We won't here discuss the issues of ketchup packet hoarding.

Two Things the US got right: Noise and Smoking Regulation
There's nothing more annoying than a muffler-less bike or car blowing by while you're trying to talk on the $.50 a minute pay phone.
And if you think anti-smoking is out of control in the US... wait till you're standing in line at the grocery and somebody fires up a Marlboro behind you, ashing into your food. Lovely.