el crispito

Shawn thought that we should confirm our international flight. I didn't realize this because I never fly. I tried to call and confirm the flight through AeroMexico, first asking the representative that answered if they had an English customer service number. We are in Mexico, but there are a lot of tourists taking AeroMexico flights that are not Mexicans, whether going between two Mexican destinations or coming from or leaving to another country outside La Republica. It seemed to make sense that they should have a number where you can talk to someone that speaks English from within Mexico, but of course making sense is not what airlines are all about. The representative explained that they have customer service lines where you can deal with an English-speaking representative, but only in Houston, which has a toll-free number that you can access only from within the United States.

I worried that trying to confirm our flights over the phone with my less-than-perfect Spanish introduced room for considerable error, but if they didn't have an English line, they would have to deal with it. When the guy asked me for the ticket number and I read off the big one listed in the center-bottom of the ticket, he told me that was not a valid ticket number. I later found out, upon asking the clerk at check-in, that the number I gave him was indeed the ticket number, and surprise of surprises: valid. Because we could not confirm by phone though, we decided to stop by our travel agency where we'd bought the tickets over a month earlier and ask them to do it for us. It's always easier to deal with issues that may suffer from language shortcomings in person.

We stopped in and explained to the only employee present that we were not the best with Spanish, but we wanted to confirm our flights that we'd arranged through them. We interrupted her watching what probably was a very juicy telenovela, but she took our tickets, went into another room for ten minutes, then returned and entered a few keystrokes into her computer. She turned the monitor around to show us a screen with our names, destination, flight number, etc. on it, and said that we were all ready to go. I asked her if the seat numbers we had been assigned were still the same and even read off the numbers to her. She said that the seat assignments were the same and still valid. I asked one last time to verify that I understood everything correctly: so our flights have been confirmed and we don't have to do that? She said that was correct and that the only thing we had to do then was to show up at the airport two hours before our flight time.

We left, discussing how great it would be to be in Colombia in just a few days, and stopped by at Larry and Joseph's place to chat for a while. I praised the travel agency for being so helpful and was glad that our neighborhood option was a pleasant place for doing business. I like to shop locally.

So you can imagine how confused we were after landing in Mexico City and walking up to the Aerolíneas Argentinas area only to be stopped by security asking us repeatedly if we were sure we had an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight that night. We explained that we did, showed them our tickets, and still they would not let us pass through. One guy we were talking to told us to wait while he went to talk to another security person, who chatted with him for a bit before coming over to let us through and directed us to the Aerolíneas Argentinas check-in counter. We thought it was kind of odd that we were the only people being detained in this manner, and that something about us required so much discussion and caused such confusion. Yet when you're living in a foreign country, you learn to not worry too much about things that seem a little strange. There are just far too many of them to get worked up about each one.

The attendant was counting slips of paper as we walked over, kind of like he was closing out a register. When we stepped up to the desk, he looked up surprised as we handed him our tickets, saying that we were there to check in. He gave us a curious look before looking at our tickets, and hesitated a bit before telling us, "I have bad news for you. Your flight has been cancelled."

It was around midnight at this point, and we were not prepared for this. In my mind, I got a mental picture of the travel agency woman sitting in the back room for those ten minutes like Ernestine the telephone operator, filing her nails and watching her telenovela, hoping that those pesky customers would go away if she just stalled them long enough. I was furious and vowed to never use Felgueres Agencia de Viajes (Niño Obrero 616-A, Zapopan, Jalisco) again.

The airline rep asked us if we'd confirmed our flight like we were supposed to, and I told him that we had, as far as we were lead to believe. He said they'd put us up in a hotel for the night and have us leaving the next night at the same time. I was worried that we'd be in some scary spot in Mexico City, but they actually placed us at the Camino Real Aeropuerto that was right at the airport. The Camino Real properties vary in their quality, but overall, they are generally okay, so I was actually glad to know that was our roost for the night. The Aerolíneas Argentinas guy marked boxes on the ticket we were to give the hotel desk staff that signified that we were to be given dinner, breakfast and lunch coupons, included at the airline's expense. That was an extra that we felt showed some good faith, and after perking up a bit, I was a little excited to be spending a night in Mexico City. I thought that maybe we'd go out and do something cool there. Since Guadalajara folds up completely at around 11 or 12 pm (apart from the one Sanborns Café, of course), I thought it might be cool to enjoy a little interesting nightlife.

However, when we got to the front desk, it took a good 15 minutes to check in, because the staff was so slow and they initially refused to give us vouchers for breakfast and lunch the next day. I was off chatting with the bellhop that had our luggage, and didn't realize that Shawn was having to argue with them for these things, even though they were clearly marked on the ticket. They called over to our Aerolíneas Argentinas representative to confirm it, and even after doing that, they still refused to give us anything more than breakfast. Later, upon trying to use these coupons in two of their three restaurants, we were told that the coupons were not accepted, and the only place we could use them (instead of the Italian restaurant or the Mexican restaurant that were praised by the bellhop) was the lame 24-hour cafeteria-style spot that was also the worst of the three places for vegetarian options: only a vegetarian sandwich that came with very ripe cottage cheese (despite the fact that the menu said all sandwiches come with french fries). The sandwich wasn't bad though, and after dealing with a snooty maitre d', the waiter was very friendly.

By the time we got done with this whole ordeal and waiting forever for our food to come out from the kitchen, we decided that we were not, after all, up for Mexico City nightlife that night. We made plans to go to the Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacan the next day, which turned out to be a delightful excursion and revealed to us that maybe we might prefer living in Mexico City.

[part two]