Day 1

Raleigh to Queretaro (almost).

After trianing in Raleigh, NC for a week, it came time for me to travel to Queretaro, Mexico. So, I had arranged my itinerary so that:

1. I'd fly Delta and accumulate more skymiles and sweet benefits,
2. I would NOT be in Mexico City after dark, and most definitely
3. I would NOT spend the night in Mexico City .

So on Saturday morning, I woke up at 4am to drive to the airport, drop off the rental, and still make it to the gate ~2hrs before my 7:10am flight to ATL, where I would connect to MEX. Once in Mexico City, I would board the PrimeraPlus luxury bus and be en mi casa no later than 4pm in Mexico, 5pm EST.

Sign #1 that the day was going to be a bust: the girl next to me absolutely could not stop talking once I accidentally attempted conversation. Mom and dad: you were right, talking to strangers is a terrible idea. I'm sorry I ever doubted you.

Around 6:45am, I was pretty concerned when I realized that no one was boarding, and there certainly weren't any flight crews to be found. Then it became clear that we were going to push the flight back because we were missing flight attendants. Story is that they got in late from Detroit. I don't know if flight attendants have a union, but assuming they do, it's apparently powerful enough to stiff an entire flight because they're tired from partying the night before. My 45 minute flight to ATL was canceled.

After standing in line for 2 hrs to sort out the details with Delta, they put me on a 5pm flight to ATL. (Note: that is a little over 12 hours after I arrived at the airport in the first place, and also the same time that I had expected to be slipping my shoes off and slipping myself into my bed.) To totally make things right, Delta offered $18 in vouchers. I'm not one to look the gift horse in the mouth. The vouchers purchased a bbq bacon burger and a chicken quesadilla, while I footed the substantially larger portion of the bill for 4 22oz beers. Airline vouchers cannot buy beer, I found out.

Upon finishing my 4th beer, it was brought to my attention by my Mexico contact that I would miss the last bus to Queretaro by a good 5 hrs. So, I would have to stay in a hotel in Mexico City. Perfect. I took this up with Delta, they readily offered to comp a night in a hotel in Mexico, though i would have to take care of it when I landed there. Fair enough.

In ATL, I tried to trick their Delta desk into booking me a hotel, but same story: had to be handled in Mexico City.

Before going farther, I'd just like to point out that I never had to submit to a full cavity search, or really a search of any kind. That is the one thing that went right. Just wanted to mention it.

So, after going through Customs & Immigrations in Mexico City, I looked for Delta. And I found it, deserted. So, I asked for help. A very nice man pointed me back to the secret Delta office that only had a peep hole. No lie, it might've been a speak-easy. There's not telling. Regardless, no one responded, the door was not opened, and I was NOT provided with lodging. So, at this point, I realized that it was 11pm, I was in the Benito-Juarez Airport by myself, I had no transportation, no pesos, and no lodging. Also my Spanish is mierda. Luckily, mierda was enough to figure out that there was a hotel in the airport, which I capitalized on.

Not to belabor the fact that everything went wrong, but real quickly, my room: sucked. I mean, it was nicely decorated, clean, and comfortable, BUT NOTHING WORKED. There were light switches all over the place--might as well have been a modern take on wall paper--but no combination of switching would allow the lights to turn on or the electrical outlets to work. Alright, there was ONE (not an exaggeration) outlet that worked, so I plugged the lamp in while I showered (mostly in the dark, because the lamp was not located in the bathroom), then alternated between charging my laptop and my cell phone.

Speaking of cell phone... Siemens bought me a cell phone. It's a Nextel, so it has the walky-talky feature. Great. It didn't work. I mean, the phone turned on and all, and I could text/call people, but the walky-talky thingy was worthless. Somehow I got a voicemail. So naturally I tried to check it. Whatever the hell my PIN was, I never knew, because I never set it up, and I was locked out of my own voicemail. When I tried to take this up with Sprint, I got a message saying that it wasn't normal operating hours, so I should call back later. Thanks, Sprint. Real go-getters. I was ECSTATIC to find that once in Mexico, the remaining features (calling/texting) were no longer available, so I officially had nothing more than a paperweight. This luckily hit me just as I was not getting cavity searched, so I handled it pretty well.

Day 1 fortunately ended with me passing out in a surprisingly comfortable bed, in a slightly uncomfortably warm room. There were no confrontations with drug cartels, and I was at least able to shower. Hell, and I even made it to Mexico, though just not quite where/when I had expected.