The Industrial City

The longer I live in Monterrey the more I learn about how unique and sweet of a city it is. On Saturday I spent the day with my friend Nelly, a girl I met through some missionaries that is from here. She recently got married and moved to Texas, but she's in town visiting and taking care of some things, so I've seen her a few times this week. She was driving me around near her mom's house where there are TONS of factories. She pointed to one and said, "that one makes soap. Many days when you drive by, it smells like soap." Really? How odd to drive down the street with the smell of soap in the air. She continued, "there's a Gamesa (cookie) factory nearby too so a lot of times when you drive by there it smells like cookies. AND there is a Bimbo factory (the most popular brand of bread in Mty and yes, its called Bimbo bread) that smells like fresh bread." She went on and on about the different factories in the northern part of the city, there's a Kraft plant, a huge steel plant, a huge cement plant, a Mary Kay Distribution Center, a York Peppermint Pattie Factory, and I just found out tonight that my favorite chipotle salsa is made there too. I've been told that Monterrey has some of the hardest workers in Mexico. I believe it.

New apt.

I wanted to give you Chiapas Part 2 but my internet is terrible. So, I leave you with the view from my apt. at dusk. This, my friends, is Monterrey. Or about 10% of it. There's a lot more to the left and behind the little mountain on the right.

And, on Sunday, while relaxing in said wonderful apartment, we started hearing water pouring out of somewhere. Awhile later I entered the kitchen and fell smack on the floor (bruised knee to prove it). The kitchen was covered in about a 1/2 inch of water...and we even have a drain in the middle of the floor. Sudsy water was pouring out of a random tube in the wall (I know that doesn't make sense. Just remember that sometimes in Mexico, anything goes). Come to find out our neighbor had hooked up his washer to the wrong tube, in turn causing it to flow into our kitchen through aforementioned mystery tube, reasons still unknown. He switched the hook-up and problem was solved. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.