Today is go!
Ric drove us to Chicago. Well, actually Justin drove and Ric will drive our car back to Hartung. We were on time with our Hartung departure.
Only as we were getting out of the car in Chicago did Justin realize he didn’t have his wallet. Thankfully he had his passport and his permanent residency card.
I have travelled all around the globe. More than just once or twice. In my experience when you first land in a country you clear customs and immigrations. Even if you are continuing to your final destination, you still claim your baggage, clear customs, recheck your baggage and then go to your domestic gate. Well, I’d never flown Aeromexico. When I’d asked about the one hour and forty minute layover in Mexico City before continuing on to Merida, they told me there was no problem as their requirement was one hour and fifteen minutes. (I remembered how many times I’ve stood in line at immigrations for an hour and fifteen minutes.). They also assured me that since the time was rather short, that my luggage, AND MY DOG, would be ushered through onto the next flight and that I’d go through customs in Merida. What? Really? Are you sure? Ok I said.
Our four-hour flight was fine; we watched a movie, had a snack, took a nap. We landed in Mexico City, cleared immigrations and asked again. We go straight through? Yes they said. To the right was to collect baggage, to the left was connecting flights. Oh, yes, they assured us, you must go now to the domestic terminal for your connecting flight. You will claim your luggage in Merida. Now, we leave the international portion of the airport and head to our next gate. We get there, find that the seating has been removed because of COVID. No other passengers were there so we ask; they confirm our name and that we are on the flight and assure us this is the correct gate. We wondered back to a place to sit down because we had about 15 minutes. Twelve minutes later we meander back to the gate. “Miller? Is your surname Miller? Do you have a pet?” What??? “You must go back and claim your pet.” Every imaginable utterance and expletive followed. I asked for a cart to drive us there thinking we might still be able to make our flight. They offered a wheelchair. I know now that I should have taken the wheelchair even if only for my purse and carry-on since at least that individual would have known where we needed to go. I won’t go until much detail here about Justin’s response...he still wants answers as to what went wrong.
Our gate had been the very last gate in the very last and farthest away concourse. Back to the main area we hustled. Justin planted me with our carryons while he reentered the international part of the airport. He was required to go through at least four more security checkpoints before he got to Gemma. And to add to it all, I still had all her paperwork. We hadn’t offered Gemma water before she boarded in Chicago and of course she was panting. This could have been disastrous. As it was it was just terrible. Aeromexico did cover our hotel, transfers and they provided meal vouchers but what a cluster!!!
We spent the night in a Holiday Inn in Mexico City and we weren’t very happy about it. We knew this would be a long day and it was.
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