Wherever you go, there you are.

When my family lived in Italy, we were taught that you can never be prepared. Ever. You get to the front of a long line, they tell you to go to another line which then tells you to go back to the other...After which you will probably be missing the proper paper work or they're suddenly closed for this or that reason. There is no concept of time, no serious set of rules because they seem to change every minute or so, and finally, you just have to relax.

Turns out, this extends to Mexico too.

As with Italy, Mexico forces you to relax....even when the situation does not call for such nonsense.

I am speaking, of course, of airport staff and immigration.
We left our house in Melaque just a little bit too late due to...unexpected reasons (Ryan..) so Arturo drove us "Mexico City Style" to the airport 30 minutes away in Manzanillo. We arrived 30 minutes before our flight was supposed to take off. Jessy and I ran inside while the boys unloaded our baggage. We arrived at the check-in counter at the exact moment they were closing the ropes on us, and with a slight attitude, they let us in. We overheard them saying that we would be the last passengers allowed to check-in that day. OhMyGod. We stood there awkwardly with the disgruntled staff waiting, holding our place in front of the counter, waiting for our third passenger (Ryan) and our bags to check. Finally, we were all there. They took our check bags and completely unpacked them on a counter right in front of us. All my careful packing - all my fragile things - unpacked. They even took out every article of clothing from my duffle bag and stuffed it all back in. I frantically tried to coach the man re-packing our fragile gifts, which he let me do..but the other lady was a meanie-head.

Ryan and I stepped up to the counter first, handed the lady (another seriously perturbed lady in need of some spa time and maybe a Xanax and/or a hug. Not from us though, she blew it on that one.) ANYWAY, we handed our passports to her and she looked through them, la di da everything is fine, da da da, "Oh, do you have your visas?"
"Why yes, we do, they are right there in the passport."
---Silence---
"Mmm." After which she began telling us that we had not paid something and had to go back to immigration. See, we'd entered by Bus and we're leaving by Air, so we need a stamp in the shape of a little airplane. Seriously, I could have gotten that thing at a toy store and done it myself.
"So where is immigration?"
"Other side of the airport"
Good thing its a small airport. None the less, it felt like a mile. The gates were all closed, we were cutting it way too close. At this point, I resisted very hard the urge to say - but I will say it now, in the safety of non-face to face confrontation - I TOLD YOU this would happen.
Right.
So.
Now we're sprinting across the airport to the immigration room which was - guess what- EMPTY. After a moment of looking around for ANYONE who knew what was going on, someone nodded towards a button which rang a bell. A guy who was standing, seriously, like 3 feet away, came over and opened it up, told us to take a seat, and began the whole next process.

At this point everyone was speaking English, but Ryan, being used to speaking Spanish to people, made the mistake of speaking Spanish to him to which he said, "Oh you speak Spanish?" and continued the whole thing in the language that I DON'T understand as well as English. I mean, I can get by, but the words you use in immigration aren't exactly "Can I get 2 tacos please?"

So I understood this much:

"Where did you enter from? Ok you needed to pay this. You need to pay a bank - in Chiapas (where we entered Mexico)."

-Great. We're going to have to go back to Melaque to the bank. That's it, we missed it. Arturo came in to tell us that the people at the front desk were getting upset and we're telling them that we would miss the flight. Surprise, the desk people are upset. Turns out they were being dramatic drama pants' and probably just wanted to go home already, because the immigration guy said we could pay him here, and then he called the airplane people and they were fine, and wouldn't leave without us.
Right on.

So we pay him. "Hang on I'll look for some change"
This was my thought process at this point:
NO NO, WHERE ARE YOU GOING??? Don't disappear, we need to leave!!
And he left. Came back a few minutes later. No change. Oh, but there's a cash machine outside.
Seriously? Outside? Do you really think we have time to go take a walk to a cash machine? Because I really really think this plane is going to leave with or without us in about...oh, 10 minutes.
Antonio lent us 100 pesos and we were able to give him exact change.

We ran back to the check-in desk and faced that hateful hateful desk lady who took our passports, looked sceptically at them, began printing our boarding passes and said, "You really HAVE to go NOW." with her death eyes. Daggers. There were daggers coming out of her eyes. I said, "Yes, thank you, if you would just give us our boarding passes we will run our fastest. Thank you." So she sat there holding our passports and printing our boarding passes at her own pace telling us to leave. I'm like, Ummmm yeah, we can't go without boarding passes or passports so....your move.

Its a good thing it was a short flight, because we were sure people were going to throw tomatos at us when we got on the plane. Lucky for us, the airport staff just had some issues and everyone on the actual aircraft was dandy and the plane didn't actually get a late start. In fact, we landed EARLY. Yeah. Did you hear that, Manzanillo airport staff?
Early. Yeup.

The rest of the trip was more or less seamless. We landed in YVR which was lovely up until we stepped outside, at which point I saw my breath and retreated like the groundhog seeing its shadow. Unfortunately, I can't survive off airport food, and I really hate the color scheme in the baggage claim area, so on we went.
And now we are home.
It is still cold.
It snowed a little bit on and off with the rain a few times.
I couldn't help but keep saying, "I should have just gotten a job passing out flyers on the street and stayed in Mexico!"
I would have saved $30 that it cost to leave the country.

But I didn't.

And it was nice to get home, take a shower, drink from the tap, speak my native language, eat cheddar cheese... You know. The little things.

So until the next big adventure, this is more or less the end of part one of these Postcards. I might keep posting at random times, but until the next big adventure, life is probably just going to go right back to normal. Thanks for reading with me..

"Wherever you go, there you are."
Home.