For Goodness Sake, don’t lose that Residency Permit!

We had a wonderful week with all the kids, and at 5:45 a.m. I drove them to the airport.  Either I am getting better at the drive, or because it was early on Sunday morning, we made it in 45 minutes.  Awesome, considering the extra time required for the detour in our neighborhood.  In a week they have made tremendous progress on the finishing of the passenger areas at the airport.  It is starting to look very modern and efficient.  There were three flights leaving about the time of the United Express flight for Houston, but as there are only 50 people on the Houston flight, there was no wait checking in.

Then my darling daughter Katy (who is always in interesting situations), when presenting her documents, couldn’t find the residency permit they gave her when she arrived.  You remember, the one that is at the bottom of the form that they tear off, and that you did not even fill out because it was below the “official use” only line!  Thank goodness there was no line, as this required calling an immigration official from the office, some type of new card, and the information she would have to pay 290 pesos for your carelessness when you get to the immigration passport stamping person.  Now of course, your passport was stamped and dated when you arrived, but this is just not enough.  Every country has its own idiosyncrasies, as I remember the line of immigration officials in Siem Reap, Cambodia where 10 different people looked at each passport as it was passed down a counter where they all sat.

Now we (excluding three year old Eliza who could care less about all this) start scrambling to put together the required bills for 290 pesos.  Everyone had sold most of their pesos back at the casa bank (Mary Ann) before leaving, and I was only carrying 200 and 500 peso bills.  We finally put together the right combination and so off to the banos for everyone, before going through security.  Fantastic, the new bathrooms are open since their arrival.  Now we should be ready for security.  I am watching them through the slick new glass walls, when a glitch occurs.  They had some pretty neat water bottles (expensive ones), which although they flew all the way from Seattle to Oaxaca were not permitted items to fly back.  Amanda talked the TSA types into letting her walk back through security to the start point and handed the bottles to me.  Hmm, that made a lot of sense.  My speculation is that the TSA type thought he was going to end up with two really neat water bottles, but Amanda out-foxed him, by my standing about 5 feet away on the other side of the glass.

Finally, they disappeared, and I popped upstairs to the restaurant, took a photo of their plane (which stays overnight from the 9:01 p.m. arrival) and assume as I write this that they are enjoying their daylight flight to Houston.

Katy’s response 6 days later:  Guess what I found.  My immigration card!  Yes, I found it at the bottom of the suitcase, which, because I am lazy and have barely been home all week (including 2 days away) I hadn't completely unloaded until yesterday when I realized I had guests coming.  So see, I didn't lose it!  It was totally with me the whole time!



 A very early morning view of Oaxaca International airport

 

Quirky Living Note

 

Semáforo – Quite a mystery.  A semáforo in Mexico is a traffic light.  Of course they have traffic lights in Oaxaca-sometimes.  The mystery is where they have located them.  Most of them seem to appear on the left side of the intersection but there is very little consistency in the placement.  Some you find on the right side, some in the middle of two big signs, and some show up on both sides of the intersection.  The classic is at the Benito Juárez monument at the glorietta (a glorietta is a highly fluid traffic circle with cars entering and exiting and with cars moving to the outside as they revolve around the circle)­, where we enter the carretara.  The light for us is across the six lane intersection which is divided by the monument.  To see your light, which is mostly blocked by Señor Juarez, you need to have crept out into the intersection.  Your best bet is just to see when the traffic from the left gets stopped.  Another cute little light is a walking man pedestrian light that you find on some corners of downtown Oaxaca.  As the time clicks down on a digital clock, the little man on the light starts running faster, as well he should.
 

Run - Fast, Fast Fast