Volando

Martes, 17 Julio 2012. Taxi over to the departure terminal at 3:30am cost P$100, as we weren't up to walking even three blocks at that hour of the night. As it is it was at least a ten minute ride as one-way limited access streets makes it hard to get back to the terminal conveniently. Waited 15 min for check-in at 4am when gate clerks started, hundreds of people waiting.  While waiting for the first flight, a Chinese fellow sat down beside us and talked our ears off. He was most interesting though. He is teaching Chinese at a university in Puebla. One thing we learned, is that in China children are obligated by the state to take care of their parents. If they do not, and the parents do not have savings to support themselves, the government takes money from their wages to pay for the parents' care.

Most pleased with ourselves, being early and all checked. The lady that checked us in upgraded our seats so that we could sit together on the second flight, without us even asking. She told us to just show our FMM form she told us to fill out, to the person checking us onto the plane. We did not have our original FMM this time, since we gave it up to obtain the five year resident's visa. We walked up and got in the line to get on the plane and lo and behold, the attendant got very upset with us for not having our form stamped. Next time we will know. We were kicked out of line, and had to go to an immigration office to get our papers stamped before we could board the plane. The plane was due to leave in 25 minutes. Boy did we walk fast! Asking here and there where this office was, an attendant told us which was the closest. Made it with ten minutes to spare, a huffin and puffin.

Since we had but the one small bag we were carrying, and we had a five hour layover, we got off the plane last. Mistake. Houston's custom line was a total boondoggle. Many hundreds of people waiting in a long snaking folded line that moved ever so slowly. The line that was for customers with no checked bags was closed. The other area for those with checked bags had 40 stations and ONLY three were open. While in line we kept hearing people say that they missed their connecting flight. One lady came up to an attendant near us and said she had lost her mother-in-law who was in a wheel chair. The attendant started laughing and asked how that was possible. The next thing that happened was an attendant came through the front area holding the hand of a little girl, yelling at the top of her voice a good five minutes saying that this girl could not find her mother. Finally someone in the middle of the hundreds raised her hand. The immigration clerks were taking forever with each party, seemed like everyone had to press fingers down on a scanner to get fingerprints checked. Amazingly, for unknown reasons we were just asked a few brief questions and were waved right through.

Now why did we have to go thru security again? Same hundreds of people. Far more efficient here. However, besides taking off shoes, belts, everything out of pockets, including kleenex packets, the attendants tried to tear out our sewn in extra pockets, not believing they weren't holding anything. Two hours to get thru immigration, customs and another security. Long walk to our next gate. Found a Subway for lunch. There were no empty tables. One table did have some food containers on it, perhaps discards, and we assumed wrongly that the person had left. The gentleman, an airport employee, returned with more food and was not angry with us as he wandered off and found a single seat elsewhere.

The second flight, flying above the cumulus – we had a young fellow from Puebla, Mexico sit next to us. He was most fascinated by the mountains and snow. His English was good. Our flight got into Seattle 20 minutes early. With very fast walking we just made the 5pm Airporter bus. The lady behind us had a terrible cold. Sure hope we do not get it. The second part of our bus ride into Anacortes, the driver let us out at Commercial and 34^th, so we had a shortish walk home. Arrived to find that Sally, the neighbor with our house keys, not home. Thankfully our stashed outside keys were in the right place. We did remember how to unalarm our new house alarm system. Seems that our cats set it off about six times while we were gone. It is very loud and one of the neighbors at least got really angry at being woken up at 5am. We are trying to find out how to undo the outside portion of the alarm. Shower, soup and bed for us. The total trip house to house takes, at best, a bit longer than 24 hours. Today we were up at 1am (Seattle time) in Mexico City, and got home before 8pm, for a long 19 hour day.

Our moving company has been notified, and someone will be here the next few days to see exactly how the movers will handle our goods.  Since much is already packed, they might get it all done in one, instead of two days. We're still planning for the first week of September. Sure is cold up here, summer definitely did not arrive here in our three week absence. Found that the new sidewalk at the front of our house will make the driveway too steep. We told the city and construction company our concerns and they assure us that it will be corrected. Next week will tell. Bye for now--posts will be infrequent until end of September or so.

Oh my, but we do have lots of excitement in store for us! Down our way visiting beautiful Veracruz? Please do visit us. Will be a year before we will actually feel ready to house you in perfect comfort, but so what – feel free to come earlier if you wish, if you don't mind a little indoor camping as we renovate and add on to our new home.

Carmen and Dan

Hasta Luego Fortín

Lunes, 16 Julio 2012. Frank stopped at 7:15am, said he would take us to bus station.  We ate a quick breakfast and he showed up an hour later. The bus which picked us up in Fortín coming from Córdoba, only stopped at Orizaba, and was not a local bus, stopping many times as we had expected. It was a four and a half hour ride, enough time for nearly three movies. Unlike the US, these buses have seat belts and window screens if one wants shade. At TAPO bus station, Mexico City, we shopped for antihistamine & phone recharge card to use in September. Lunch at Church's chicken same like last time. Huge meal. We couldn't possibly eat it all. The five-piece chicken meal was the smallest choice, with at least a cup and half of mashed potatoes and gravy and the same of coleslaw. Two delicious biscuits. Yes we took the extra back to the hotel with us. We took the Metro (subway), with tickets Dan saved from two years ago. We got on the pink line heading east to the Pantitlan terminus then changed to yellow line two stops to the airport. When we got on to the pink line, which was extremely packed, Carmen shoved Dan hard for fear his behind was not inside the door as it closed. From the Metro stop at the airport it's only a short three blocks (across the overhead to other side of the busy multilane street) to the Hotel Aeropuerto, P$590 (multiply by .074 to get US$) for a clean & quiet (room on back side of hotel, away from the airport ). Ate the second half of our meal, watched some TV and to bed early.

Monedas Nuevas

Domingo, 15 Julio 2012. You probably know what happened first again this morn...more laundry. Then we made it to the nearest restaurant with internet, the Fogon & Paila, by 10:00am. Time to post the blog again and check emails, and this time took some pictures for you. Beautiful open area with such lush vegetation about.  Our afternoon was quiet with napping and reading. The velador stopped by to collect the weekly fee for watching our house. Dan paid him in all freshly minted coins (monedas). We had gotten them in change at the Banamex where we had paid for our IMSS premiums. They certainly look different. So shiny it is hard to see the writing on them. He thought it a good joke when he was told we made these coins here.

Walked to the central park about 4pm, where we enjoyed just being alive, and seeing all the other folks from town doing the same. There was a Telcel booth set up in the park, loud speaker and music blaring as they were hawking new smart phones. Dan walked up and cornered a salesman who finally gave us the needed info to allow us to access our voice messages. Black clouds were roaming the sky, so did not stay too long. Stopped at the grocery store, which is actually a block off our route home. Bought some items for when we arrive in September. Rested. Together we prepped our last fresh orange juice. Sooooooooo good. Enough time for a last laundry of today's clothes. We'll hang them inside and they'll be dry waiting for our return in September.

Telcel

Sabado, 14 Julio 2012. Yep – laundry always makes a nice start to the day no matter what part of the world you live in. We both pitch in, with Carmen doing the washing and Dan doing the wringing & hanging.  Frank and Ania stopped by this morn. Frank needed some books to read. They were on their way for a day trip to Yanga, taking one of their cottage guests to see the area, as the guest is writing a paper on the area. Yanga is a small town east of Cordóba, from which Gaspar Yanga, a Gabonese AfroMexican slave leader led raids on the Spanish supply corridor that ran between the port of Veracruz and Puebla. Never vanquished, Yanga signed a treaty with the Spaniards in the early 1600's, establishing the “free town”now named after him.

We walked up to the park, hoping to find the Telcel store open. Seems like Frank has been leaving us messages, which we have not received.  So we have questions on how to navigate some of the menus and retrieving messages, and can't understand the brief recordings in Spanish that play when we attempt some things.  This is just a basic no-frills model--hate to think how we'd deal with a "smart" phone.  Just need to be shown, and Frank doesn't have this model phone so he can't help with these things. They seem to have exceedingly irregular hours. Closed again, so we'll try to get our questions answered some other time. On to the bus station where we purchased our tickets to the east side bus station in Mexico City (TAPO) – one of the largest in the world which we described in an earlier post. Cost P$304 each, or D$22.50.

Next we trekked thru the afternoon hot sun, trying to find the #64 IMSS clinic we are assigned to. Never found it. Asked several folks and none knew about this new clinic. We even walked to the north part of town that lies beyond the Puebla-Veracruz highway (the autopista), where we thought it might be situated. Is it possible that we misunderstood it's location? We came back to the centro and checked out the Telcel office again. Still not open, so we sat on a park bench in the parque and kept an eye on Telcel for the next hour, hoping someone would show up – surely the store will be open by then. Nope.

Now we crossed the street from the park to the atm at the Banamex, where we did our last withdrawal for this trip – actually got some of the pesos we'll need for our car trip in September. Went to a stationery store, with a sign that said they were Telcel reps, but no luck with advice on our model of phone. Next to the bakery next door which has the best yeast donuts in town. Disappointing that they had but one with sugar only, so Carmen selected another with chocolate frosting covered with sprinkles. All the others on the tray were the filled type, and their filling is not the best. The best filled ones come from the town grocery store—it seems we are getting pretty selective on where we buy certain things, as we come to know the shops in town. On our walk towards home – after our four hours of walking – we stopped by a tiny fruit stand and bought bananas and some sliced and peeled pineapple. Wow – talk about sweet and juicy! Remember that morning laundry? Got it in the house just before the afternoon rain hit.