MONTERREY TRAVEL JOURNAL

by Debbie Gattoni

My husband Bill and I, together with our two teenage sons, left home at 5:30 am on Friday, July 31. A 3 hour layover in Houston placed our arrival in Monterrey, Mexico at 11AM, CST. Situated in the Sierra Madre Mountains, Monterrey is the third largest city in Mexico, a mere 3 hour drive southeast of Laredo, TX. Although the daily temperature hovered at 105 degrees, humidity makes our home base of New Jersey feel a lot hotter.

This heavily industrial city is complimented with numerous art museums and cultural amenities. The only thing lacking as far as we could tell, are adequate road maps. None of our GPS systems worked there and the AAA map and Hertz did not have detailed street maps of the city. So, after stopping for a quick lunch, it took us almost 3 hours to find our hotel, which is only 17 miles from the airport. We did ask directions; some people didn’t speak English; others were unfamiliar with the financial district where the Quinta Real Hotel was located. By the time we arrived there, Bill had become an expert at ‘Retorno’. Needless to say, we had quite a few laughs, some so hard we were crying. Our destination, arranged for us by Tec de Monterrey and ALS WORLDWIDE, proved to be an old world, beautiful and comfortable hotel, well worth the lengthy drive to find it. You will be happy to know that by the time we left ten days later, it only took us 25 minutes to get back to the airport from our hotel. Almost natives!

I have to preface this story by saying Bill took 2 years of Spanish in high school, William 5 years of Latin, Michael 3 years of Italian and 1 of Latin, and myself 5 years of French, 1 year of Latin and 1 of German (and I can’t talk period!). Get the picture? On the plus side, you will be happy to know that Bill has become proficient in saying “buenas dias” and “gracias” all over, right down to the US Customs agents in Houston and our Russian limo driver from Newark....

Read Debbie’s complete travel journal here.