at the end of june, my sister got married! ann and i went to
my hometown of grande prairie, alberta for the wedding, which was excellent. we
were also honored to be the mc's for the reception which was a lot of fun. in
classic maria form, my sister had procured some indian-canadian guys who worked
at the local tim hortons to cater curry and rice for the reception meal. it was
nice to see a lot of people from our childhoods again!
ann then had to head back to the east coast for a summer
language program, but i had a few more days off, so flew down to central
america. i was supposed to have a short layover in mexico city before
continuing to panama and then nicaragua. i went through customs as i was
required to, and was given a customs card. after security i figured i was done
with my customs card, and threw it away. i availed of some luxury lounge access
i have through one of my amazing credit cards, and there filled up my backpack
with some free canned beers for the rest of the trip. then i went to the gate to board
the next flight. however, i wasn't allowed to board without my customs card! a
flat-faced airline rep continually reminded me despite my pleas that there were
"no exceptions." if i wanted to get on the flight, i would need to
get a replacement customs card, outside of security. so i exited security and
ran around the bowels of the massive terminal three of benito juarez
international airport trying to find the applicable office. evidently, this
happens to unsuspecting stupid foreigners with regularity, as there were a
gaggle of others trying to do the same thing. they don't make it easy though -
you can't just pay the $30 fee for a new customs card at that office, you need
to pay it at a specific bank elsewhere in the airport. so i ran to that bank,
but you need to have mexican pesos to pay. of course i had used all of mine,
and the atm at the bank didn't work, so had to try a few others to find some
cash. back to the bank and back to the customs form office. new form in hand, i
rushed through security, only to be pulled aside for having 20 cans of beer in
my backpack. lol! the guys were pretty nice about it; hope they kept them.
finally made it back to the gate as the airplane was pulling back. missed it.
procuring my checked bag after missing my connecting flight
was another adventure, but it worked out. they let me into the underground
baggage sorting area to wait while they located it, which was kinda cool. i was
supposed to be in panama that night, and go to nicaragua two days later, but
obviously needed to come up with another plan. new flights were prohibitively expensive,
and missing mine was my fault. spent much of the rest of the day trying to
figure out a plan. kind of exhilarating actually. flirted with all kinds of
wacky ideas for getting to nicaragua before i finally found a multi-leg flight
for the next day through panama and managua, nicaragua, with an overnight
layover there before a final leg that i would skip, which saved a bunch of
money. thankfully the next day they were amenable to checking my bag just to
nicaragua, and it worked out! spent the night in mexico city, and ate some
really great tacos multiple times. this was just 2 months after i had spent 3
days there earlier that spring. funny how it goes, but there could be worse
places to be stuck!
