Yes yes! Though really, I need a website that has a brief explanation of the plot, because although I remember startling amounts of it, I last watched it ten years ago (ACK!).

Okay, so, you'd gotten to the point where Raquel had gotten to Mexico, right? Basically, Roberto - the newly-discovered grandson of the old guy - got trapped in a mine, then rescued, went to the hospital, was fine, got out. He, Raquel (the lawyer), and Angela (the granddaughter) trooped off to meet the old guy whose first name I can't remember right now. Castillo, anyway.

Their uncle - shoot, don't have his name in my head either, anyway Raquel's boyfriend - comes to Mexico City. So do Raquel's parents (to see her) and her old flame Luis (because her mother invited him, hoping he could rekindle a thing with Raquel, because she's worried about Raquel's thing for the Argentinian uncle. Not Raquel's uncle, Angela and Roberto's, and can I mention that being on this board and trying to type "Angela" instead of "Angel" is really hard?) Luis tries to pick up Raquel, but she shoots him down, because she really wants the guy from Argentina. She's not willing to leave LA for him, though.

Old Castillo is in the hospital, then he gets out. Angela and Roberto go to meet him. Old Castillo has doubts, which allows the show to spend several episodes recapping the plot. Then Angela produces half of the wedding cup that Old Castillo used in his wedding to their grandmother, he produces the other half, everyone believes they're related, yay. Oh, and the mansion doesn't get sold, they're going to turn it into an orphanage.

The Argentinian says he'll move to LA to be with Raquel. She's happy. Many hugs. The end.

Saves society untold burdens. Everyone who calls themselves an environmentalist and still owns one, choosing to live in a place where they "have to" have one, sort of looks suspicious to me.

Heh. You obviously haven't seen Seattle's public transit, have you?

It took my husband an hour and a half to make the approx. five mile commute from our house to his job via bus. And he often has "come in ASAP" situations.

We live in city, in a neighbourhood we could afford. But being as it's mostly a minority neighbourhood, we're strapped for city services, including bus. Anything close enough to not require using Metro was so far out of our price range that we couldn't even really rent there. My skillset pushes me into jobs twenty miles from home. With little bus service.

So, that's kind of insulting.

Just sayin'.

I know a lesbian who wanted to own a Hummer. I pointed out to her that no self-respecting lesbian should want to own a car whose name was also slang for a blow job. She laughed.

Aww! Yay! And I remember the mine thing...and her standing on a rooftop in Argentina talking to the guy...also remember the very beginning of the series when she goes to talk to people in Spain...heh.

Sadly, TiVo does not seem to recognize "Destinos" as a valid title choice, and typing it in as a wishlist comes up with nothing. Sniff. It isn't called anything else, is it?

I figure I do my part by not owning a car. Saves society untold burdens. Everyone who calls themselves an environmentalist and still owns one, choosing to live in a place where they "have to" have one, sort of looks suspicious to me.

Speaking as a moderate environmentalist who owns a car... you know, there comes a point where I'm not willing to throw myself on my sword. I live a mile from my workplace downtown and a half mile from the grocery store, I walk when the weather's nice and there's enough light, or if I know I'm only going to buy milk or whatever, but environmentalism through guilt and suffering on average just irritates people in my experience.

Sadly, TiVo does not seem to recognize "Destinos" as a valid title choice, and typing it in as a wishlist comes up with nothing. Sniff. It isn't called anything else, is it?

I don't think so. Let me see what it shows up under for me.

It's "Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish" so I guess you must not get it. Sorry. You know, seriously, they just did the first of the recap episodes (the one about Spain). I'd be willing to download the rest to tape if you wanted - I'm grabbing them anyway.

New York and London would get awfully crowded if you had to live in a place where you didn't need a car to be a real environmentalist. IJS. (I did live without one for four years in Philly, commuting on foot, by bike, or on the trolley, but I took advantage of a consultant friend who let me borrow his car when he was traveling on business if I gave him rides to and from the airport. Without Lee's car, grocery shopping and having a social life would've been a challenge.)

More to the point would be pushing for increased fuel efficiency, and for more viable mass transit systems in places like Seattle. DH and I would love to cut back to one car, and to be able to commute to work via mass transit, but it's not really an option with the current skimpy system.

Ah, no, thanks, Katie, I don't think I'm desperate enough to bother someone else. It looks like they might show it on my PBS station at some other point (like in the fall) or something. We'll see. (I googled, and found out you can buy a DVD of the episodes! But it's $500!!!!)

(Hmm, and further searching reveals it's currently on "WETA Plus", which is a PBS station only available on digital cable. Somehow, that makes no sense to me...)

But Susan, you'll have light rail in 2009! Or possibly 2012, I can't remember now.

I have this whole theory about the difficulty of injecting mass transit ex post facto into a modern city, and it being well-nigh impossible, though that may be unfair to Portland. It's kind of interesting, living in Yakima - small city, obviously, but it had a trolley system once upon a time and you can still see some of the tracks and the overhead wires. Amazing the dinky places that used to have that kind of hard-wired public transportation.

That's what I meant, though, PMM. With everyone using cars, the pressure to create a usable public transportation service for the outskirts of a major city is much less. And it's not a matter of rich or poor, either; the best-served neighborhoods in New York are currently inhabited by "minorities" (I use the quotes because as a white Bronxite, I'm in a minority of 14% in my county, which bothers me not a bit.) There's subway stops every three blocks in the South Bronx, for example. And when the subways were built, starting 100 years ago next year, they went right through the poor neighborhoods first, like the Lower East Side.

I think it ties in to what Gar was saying. It's much more wasteful and inefficient for the municipality to maintain all those roads, policemen, troopers, snow removal, etc. than to run a few buses. But they won't because people don't have the inclination to ride a bus because they take an hour and a half to get downtown. So they don't ride the buses, and they get cut because nobody's riding them...vicious circle.

How can it take an hour and a half to go five miles? Are there no bus or diamond lanes? And if it's because the highway's too crowded, well, sorta proves the point.

Oh, and I was just using hyperbole in my OP. But you have to admit somebody with an environmental sticker on their SUV is somebody who deserves to be laughed at. And don't give me the kids line, there were five of us in my Dad's VW's and we all fit fine.