I’m back from Mexico now. Well, actually I came back last night, late last night.

Friday morning I got up at 4:30am and went to the Airport. My brother made a big deal about showing up on time and all that, and I actually got there 10 minutes early, an hour before we were supposed to board. What time did he show up? Oh… 15 minutes before we were supposed to board our plane.

As we went through security trouble struck. The metal detector went off as I went through. I went back and searched my pockets, but I had nothing else on me. Before I went through again the guard told me that if it went off again, I would have to be searched. I had nothing left to remove, so I went back through. Wouldn’t you know it… the darn thing went off again.

So I spent a good 15 minutes being searched and frisked. He went through my bags and unfortunately I forgot I had put something in there that wasn’t supposed to go on the plane. I had a bottle of Jean-Paul Gaultier perfume in my bag, still in the metal can. The limit on liquids you can bring on the plane is 3 ounces, and the perfume was 3.3 ounces. Paco had given it to me to give to his friend Paty in Mexico and I should have put it in my luggage that I checked, but I forgot.

The guard told me I had some choices. I could check my carry-on bag, I could leave it in my car, or I could throw it away. Hrmmm…. What to do? I didn’t have time to go back through the line and check the bag, and also I had already checked two bags, so I wasn’t going to pay $100 to check this one because of a bottle of perfume.

I just stood there for a while staring at him trying to figure out what to do. He must have felt bad for me because he took the bottle and went to ask a supervisor and luckily because it hadn’t been opened yet, they let me take it on the plane. SCORE! I was very happy, but this had me worried about getting searched for the rest of the trip.

I barely remember flying to Mexico. I guess I was still mostly asleep. I was looking out of the plane as we were over Mexico City and it was disgusting. The smoke in the air was gross. There was just so much smog! I took pictures and you can see in these pics the light lines in the sky, that’s the clean air… the rest was a dirty brown.

We had to take a bus from the airport to Toluca, about a 2 hour ride. I starting getting bad sinus pain the instant we landed in Mexico City. That smoke in the air was killing me. The ride from their to Toluca was interesting. What I saw of Mexico City was nasty and dirty with graffiti everywhere. As we left the city and entered the mountains the view was better. I could see some nice views from up in the mountains, but mostly of really poor, run down, houses. It was kind of sad seeing all those people living like that.

Richard (my brother) called Lulu (his wife) from the bus and told her something, I’m not sure what, but something about our ride and when we’d be at the bus station. I didn’t pay much attention. Well, we get to the bus station and we wait outside for about 5 or 10 minutes and then he decides to call her again, and apparently she was still waiting at home for him to call her and tell her to come get us. She was under the impression that he would call as we got close and she would meet us there.

So we stood out there at the bus stop for about another 20 minutes just waiting on the street. Then it started thundering and lightning really bad and it was about to rain, and then it started sprinkling. We went back into the bus stop and it started pouring, like flash flood pouring. Lulu didn’t show up for about 20 more minutes. By the time she got there the roads were flooded and it was pouring hard.

Richard loaded up the bags while I waited in the bus station, because he had the only umbrella. The ride to the hotel was crazy. The water was up to, and past, the bottoms of most of the cars on the roads. Mexicans already drive crazy down there, so this just made it all that much worse. I was surprised we made it to the hotel without being in an accident or getting washed away with the rain.

The hotel was nice, which was a good surprise. The hotel key chain was HUGE. It couldn’t put it anywhere that was comfortable, so I just kept sticking it in my back pocket. Not only was it big, but it was also thick.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant while Lulu went back home for the baby. The food was ok and it was nice to relax after having traveled for 9 hours. Lulu met us in the restaurant and I took some pictures. She was surprised that Diego (the baby) instantly liked me and was letting me hold him and play with him.

We went over to our rooms to get ready for the costume party. I didn’t bring a costume because I didn’t have room for one. I knew I was going to have to bring a lot of stuff back for Paco and for Gina, and I had to take a lot of stuff for them, so I just didn’t have the room in my bag for a costume. Pity. Richard was supposed to bring one for Lulu and for him. Turns out that he brought his and left hers. Oooooh… she was NOT happy with him.

When we got to her house it was all kinds of drama over her not having a costume. Her entire family was telling her to go buy one or to wear an old one, and generally just making it a big deal. So I told her to go as a pirate and wear what she had on. All we needed to do was get her some gaudy jewelry and paint a patch on her eye. She was happy about that and the “no costume” situation was resolved.

She started getting Diego ready for the party and dressed him up as a little devil, which what actually the perfect costume for him because his is quite the little devil.

After he got dressed up he was running around the living room getting into things and being the little devil he was dressed up to be.

I took a picture of myself sitting on the couch waiting for everyone to get ready. You can see in my face how exhausted I was. It was about 10 o’clock I think, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I was so tired from traveling for 9 hours and having been awake since 4:30am.

Lulu’s sister, Lili (it’s actually Lourdes and Liliana) needed help with her makeup, so I helped her out. She gave me a picture of what she wanted and I did the best I could with only a red lipstick, a white lipstick, and black eyeliner. I think I did a pretty good job or making her look scary ugly.

The party started off slow and I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it because I was so tired and people were smoking, which just made my sinuses hurt even more. I just sat in the corner taking pictures.

Once I got to drinking I started having fun. Lulu’s mom and dad kept giving me drinks and wouldn’t accept no for an answer. I spent most of the night dancing with Lulu and her friends and family, and this one girl that was crazy. She had tons of energy and was a lot of fun.

The next day we all slept in. Amazingly I was able to sleep considering the bed at the hotel was like wood and the pillow was tiny and felt like folded cardboard. We went to go eat at VIPS.

After breakfast we went to do some shopping. We went to the mall because I had to buy two CDs for Paco that he couldn’t find here in the US. There wasn’t much at the mall and I wasn’t really in the mood to shop, plus the prices were more expensive than here in the US, so we left. We went to Metepec to do some shopping, but I only ended up buying one thing. I bought one of those clay shingles for roofs with a very Catholic painting on it. It’s one of the Virgins, but I forget which one.

I took some pictures of some churches in Metepec and some in Toluca that same day. Most of these were taken from the car window since there was nowhere to park.

We looked around downtown Toluca but it was crazy busy because a lot of people were in town for Dia De Los Muertos. It was too crowded to shop and the smog was killing me, so we left. I did end up buying a really nice candy deer statue thing for Paco. He loves deer, so I knew he’d like it. He freaks out whenever he sees deer here in Austin, which is all the time. The thing was super fragile so I had to carry it by hand everywhere and it still ended up getting broke… but I worked my magic with some Elmer’s Glue and Silicone Glue and fixed it up.

The evening we went to Lulu’s for dinner and her mom made Mole Chicken for me. The mole was good and a little spicy, but not as sweet as I would have liked. We had bought the Mole from a store downtown and I ended up buying some for myself and some for Gina too. I was supposed to meet up with Gina’s brother-in-law sometime that night and he ended up coming to Lulu’s house. He was bringing some memory chips for me to take back to Gina’s husband (his brother). He also brought some Manzana Lift Gold soda for Gina. She had asked me to bring her one back from Mexico. Did he bring her just one? No. Two? No? THIRTY FOUR. YES!

THIRTY FOUR bottles of soda?!?!?!?! Who does that? How did he think I was going to carry 34 bottles around? The stuff was heavy. There was no way that was going to happen. I called Gina and she just laughed and said to only bring back what I could fit. I feel really bad that he went through so much trouble to bring them for her, because had traveled all day as well. There just wasn’t any way possible for me to bring them all.

After he left we went to a Church party thing, which was kind of fun. Lulu and I rode this spinning wheel thing and she screamed the entire time “Ay Dios Mio!” over and over again and wouldn’t open her eyes. I couldn’t stop laughing. They also took Diego on the scary carousel. I don’t think it was intended to be scary, but it was going way too fast for children and all the horses on it looked angry and demented.

Sunday we got up early to go have breakfast with Lulu’s family. I was finally able to see the volcano from my hotel room window. As you can see from these pics, the view from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (in order).

I took some pictures out the window from the bus on the way back to Mexico City. Remember that they were taken from a moving bus, so they aren’t the best.

At the airport I met up with Paco’s best friend, Paty, to exchange bags. I gave her one bag full of presents for Paco’s family and her, and she gave me two large pieces of luggage, a comforter, and a gym bag. OMG. I had no idea I was picking up that much stuff for him. I had to get Richard to check one of Paco’s bags as his own, and I still had to pay extra for one of Paco’s bags because I was over my limit of two check-ins. I also had to pay $25 extra for one of his bags because it was over the weight limit.

His friend was very nice though, from what I could tell, since she didn’t speak English.

Our plane leaving Mexico City was late and that put us in a bind. We only had one about 40 minutes to get off the plane, go through immigration, get our luggage from the carousel, go through customs, and make it to the other side of the airport to board our next flight. I was a little stressed out because I was worried I was going to get searched since I was bringing so much stuff and because I had brought illegal items, including mole and coffee. Not to mention Hugo’s memory cards, which was going to look suspicious. Actually, everything I had was looking suspicious.

I was already sure we were going to miss our flight, I knew if I got stopped anywhere and searched, we would definitely miss it. When I got to customs the guy asked me why I was bringing so much stuff back and if I had any food in my luggage. I just lied and said I didn’t and that I was bringing stuff back for a friend. Amazingly he let me through without searching. Richard and I were running like crazy through the airport up until now and we got a break because we got a ride on one of those large gold cart things. As we were riding on it we knew that we would never have made it running, it was just too far away. Then when we got to our gate, nobody was there. The people working at another gate told us that had moved the gate down another wing! OMG!

Luckily the golf cart guy gave us a ride and we ended up making it on-time, but it was not looking good for a while there. We were both amazed we were able to do it all in under 45 minutes.

I got into Austin last night at 10:30ish. Paco picked me up at the airport. I missed him a lot. We hadn’t spent a night apart in 3 months or more, so it was weird sleeping alone. Plus it was just weird being in Mexico without him. I wish he could have come along.

The trip was ok. I didn’t really have enough time to do much and I was so tired from traveling, the lack of air (since we were in the mountains), and my allergies. I didn’t go for fun anyway, I went just to get Paco’s things for him. So when I look at it that way, it wasn’t a wasted trip. I was able to get his things, spend some time with my nephew and my sister-in-law, and see a little bit of Mexico.

I am sad that I didn’t get to shop more and that I didn’t have room to bring anything back, but I can’t do anything about that now. I wasn’t too impressed with Mexico City or Toluca. They are both very dirty and ugly town. The people there just don’t care about their cities. There literally is trash everywhere and it would be a challenge to look in any direction without seeing graffiti. The people have no sense of traffic courtesy and rarely do they even stay in their lanes, signal, or stop at red lights. There is entirely too much honking going on.

I don’t think I saw any white people in Toluca, and most of the people there acted the same way when they saw me. I felt like I was in a zoo. Everywhere we went people stared at me, and not just for a little while. They were downright rude about it.

Anyway, that’s enough about my trip. Today I didn’t go to work. I was tired and my allergies are worse here in Austin than they were in Mexico, so I felt sick today and tired. We slept in late (Paco is off Mondays), went to get breakfast, and then came back home and I slept for a few more hours while he did laundry. He’s at the gym now. I’m tired, which is odd because I have been sleeping all day. I actually just don’t feel well. I’m ready to go to bed now.

All of the pictures from my trip (yes there are much more) are here: http://www.tomithey.com/gallery/20061027.

Posted by Tomithey on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 12:04 am.