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 co-emcees 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! an airline rep with a very flat affect 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 two months after i had spent three days there earlier that spring. funny how it goes, but there could be worse places to be stuck!