Anastacio is a 26 year old guy from Toluca. He was orphaned when he was 9 years old. He started to work for a living, yet he had a strange motivation to study, the fact that nobody from his family had gone past 7th grade was motivation enough for him to go past that. From the moment he was 15 till he was 20 he worked from 7pm to 6am as a bodyguard and then from 8am to 3pm he would attend High School then a community college where he got an associate degree in Chemistry. He liked to travel around Mexico randomly and one day he got a bus to Queretaro and started walking randomly. He walked for 12 hours before he reached a gas station where he met his future wife. He has a son (Jaciel) and another kid will be born this week. He worked as a manager selling stuff and had a good living, but he was curious about why so many people immigrated to USA. He decided to go and see what it was all about. For three days he walked to cross the border. He wasn't afraid of police because they would just deport him and he wasn't afraid of the wilderness. He worked for a couple of months then went back home. After being home for a while, he decided to go back to America for another trip. This time he crossed with coyotes. This time instead of three days walking it was 7 hours, yet it was 7 hours running. This time it wasn't alone. On the river, a Bolivian guy climbed on him because he didn't know how to swim. For seven months he worked in construction. He earned $700 a week. He sent several stuff back home (washing machine, toys for his little kid, drying machine and other little tech stuff), this was sent with a guy whose job is to send stuff. He said he won't be back to America, now he has enough money to start studying law in Queretaro.

These and many other things did Anastacio tell me. We discussed politics, life, books (he loved the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings series). I was humbled by how much a person can do with a motivation to work. Even if you're born in the wrong side of life you can work your way to be a good person. Incredible how the conversation got started just because I said "It's cold in the bus." (when I noticed he was shivering). Those type of comments can lead to boring small talk or to very interesting glimpses of another person's life. For those glimpses, I think it is a good idea to talk to other people.

On Friday after watching the World cup game, going to Milagrito and having a two-hour nap, I went to Greyhound and took a bus to Austin. I had some trouble at the ticket counter since when I got there it was 6:01, so they couldn't sell me tickets for the 6:00 bus, I had to buy for the 8:00 one. I bought the 8pm one, but I took the 6pm one. With buses the time on your ticket doesn't really matter, you can board any bus as long as it's not full.

Tyson picked me up in Austin and we went to Fuddruckers while we waited for Jay to get out of his lacrosse game. Tyson and I talked about a lot of things, mainly his future plans. It was enjoyable, but not as much as the rest of the night or trip would be. We arrived at Jay's house at 10:30pm and we planned our night. It was going to be a night of nostalgia. Playing SMASH Bros. Jay had lent his game, mine got stolen and Tyson left it in his house, so we decided to rent one, since Blockbuster was out of SMASH, we had to buy a new one (I got to keep it). Jay wanted me to join in the beer consuming, so I joined in, Jay also made some queso (it is kind of strange how they call it queso instead of cheese). I kicked their butt in SMASH, winning all of the rounds. Jay was rusty, with a couple of more matches it would have been closer. After that, we watched Scrubs (five episodes).

On Saturday, we woke up at 10:30am, the idea was to wake at 8:30 to get ready and head to the bar Fado's to watch the Eng-Por game, but we overslept so we watched the game at Jay's house (we missed 30 minutes). After the game we went to Fado's to watch the Brazil-France game. It was really fun to watch the game there. Jay convinced me to have a couple of pints of beer, and I got a little tipsy. The game was really good and watching it surrounded by a lot of international fans was fun.
After the game we were supposed to be headed toward Greyhound for the bus of 4:50pm, but I told Jay, we need to eat at "Golden Chick", so we went. I love this place, another trip on memory lane. We went to Heather's new house and were amazed at how old we're getting. Her house looks like that of an adult, she decorated the house beautifully. I liked this thing she sewed. We went with Kristen, Sheeba and Heather to a restaurant and then Tyson, Ashlee and Sarah met up with us there. Jay and I had just ate so we didn't eat again, but we were there to join in the conversation. After dinner, we went to "Amy's Ice Cream" which is a famous place in Austin which I had never eaten there. I ate "Raisin N' Rum" with Reese's peanut butter mixed into it. It was delicious. Then we went to Heather's house and chilled. Jay and I left to try to catch the 11:55pm bus, but we didn't make it, so we went to 6th Street and had fun. 6th Street in Austin is amazing, full of people wanting to have fun and music everywhere, I loved it. We went into a little bar to talk, but we had to leave early to catch the 2:25am bus. We had to run from 6th Street to 10th Street to get to the car, we ran (or jogged) because we were running late and if I missed that bus I would have to catch the 6:15am bus. I had a flight back to El Paso at 11am, so waiting any longer would be pushing it.

I made it to the bus and had a very interesting conversation on the bus worthy of the next LJ post...