Mexico and borders: No longer a speedy crossing

by Jamie Rhein on

When I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, heading to Juarez, Mexico for the day was a fun day outing. I didn’t do it often, but at least twice a year we’d walk across the border at El Paso, Texas, have lunch, shop for presents at the market, buy a bottle of Kahlúa and Jose Cuervo and head home. Going across the border was a snap–quick. There was nothing to it. I found the same thing when I went to Tijuana for the day from Los Angeles.

According to this New York Times article, those days are over. It’s taking up to three hours to get back into the United States, even for American citizens. The borders are stopping people more to ask for identification papers in an aim to be ready for January when traveling by car across the borders requires a passport.

As you can imagine this is causing a tourist dollar damper. If you can’t hop over the border and back in an easy trip, there’s no such thing as an easy day outing. Eventually, the system should smooth out, but it’s going to take awhileas in a couple years. The people who are probably going to come out ahead with the slow down are the vendors who sell items from car to car. Thanks to All the Colors who took this picture at the Juarez border crossing and posted it on Flickr.

Unicef Stores in the U.S.: Going, Going, Gone?

by Jamie Rhein on

When I’ve describe my house, I often say that it looks like a Unicef store without the price tags. If you’ve ever been to a Unicef store, you’ll know what I mean. They are filled with high quality crafts from around the world and the profits go towards Unicef’s humanitarian projects. Or perhaps, I should say, the stores were filled with quality crafts.

I’m not saying that all the craft items in my house are high quality, but they are from all over the place and if we sold some of it, it would be hard to tell what’s missing. What is missing is a number of Unicef stores. I’m hoping it’s not all of them.

Unicef stores are having a hard time making ends meet. I just found out that the Unicef store in Sacremento, California closed a few months ago because the greeting cards sold there weren’t the new stock. It has something to do with a Hallmark cards taking the card production over. This article explains it. According to the article, other Unicef stores in the United States have closed also because people aren’t as drawn into the stores without the cards.

Darn it. I looked at the Web site for Old Town in Albuquerque, New Mexico to see if the Unicef store I used to go to is still there and I didn’t see it in the list of merchants. I loved that store. It was intimate and gathered much of the world on its shelves.

It’s too bad Unicef stores might not exist any more. They have that feeling about them that if you shop there, you are doing good. You can still buy Unicef cards year round at Pier One and 100% of the card sales go to Unicef, but still, shopping at Pier One does not feel the same.

Albuquerque Turns 300

by Erik Olsen on

New Mexico residents we hardly knew ye. If youda
asked me how old the city of Albuquerque is, I might have said a hundred or so years. I’m picturing cowboys roaming the
range, settlers in Conestoga wagons. Well, all that is true, but it all goes back much further than a century.
Albuquerque, it turns out, is gong to be 300 years old in just a few days, and you, dear friends, can go there and help
her (him?) celebrate.

Yes, Albuquerque’s Tricentennial Birthday Party
takes place April 20-23 featuring the premier of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra’s original opera for the
Tricentennial. the opera is called "Time and Again Barelas," which in English means Barelas, the Time and
Also More. The event, should you decide that there is nothing better to do, will be held on Thursday at 8 p.m. at the
National Hispanic Cultural Center. So get your mountain bike, head to New Mexico and ready your lungs to blow out one
helluva lot of candles.