Mexico: It Really Is Another Country, I Promise.
Tradition drives my family in the strangest ways. One Thanksgiving, when I was about nine or ten, The John Lennon Collection happened to be playing the song 'Cold Turkey' on the stereo. I was cute and naive, and thought the song was wonderfully appropriate for the holiday. Every year my family and I still listen to that CD, pretending that song is about our lovely Tofurkey as opposed to the horrors of heroin withdrawal. Charming. Yet another tradition in our family, albeit a less unique one, is our two week August family vacation. This vacation has varied greatly throughout the years, from Scotland to Florida, sometimes with my entire family, sometimes just myself and my parents. Something always goes horribly wrong, but we always have a great (or at least memorable and entertaining (looking back on it years later)) time. This year, my mother decided very early on that we needed a family reunion. Reunion here is defined as meeting and spending a week with a bunch of people I have never met (or at least have no recollection of meeting) while watching corn grow for a week in Iowa. This was to be followed by another week canoeing and desperately fighting for our lives as the mosquitoes tried to claim every delicious inch of our skins in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. As appetizing as this upcoming vacation seems in retrospect, at the time of this plan's unveiling I was less than overwhelmingly enthused. My father, it seems, also shared my view, and we unwittingly teamed up to wear my mother down and convince her to go somewhere less awesome. We settled on Mexico, with the intent of staying at an all inclusive resort.
At this point, I feel that it is necessary to describe my family's usual vacation style. My parents spent their honeymoon in Hawaii. Except instead of hanging out on the beach and watching the natives wear horrendous grass skirts and dance for dollars while spitting in Mainlanders' drinks and cursing the ground they walked on when they weren't looking, my parents spent their time climbing volcanoes and freezing their asses off on the tops of craters. We've backpacked the Grand Canyon on Christmas, hiked the cliffs of Scotland, and canoed the Everglades on our family vacations. An all inclusive resort was really the most adventurous thing our family could do at this point, though we all cast our serious doubts over our abilities to just hang out and drink on the beach. By 'we' I mean my parents. As a self respecting 18 year old girl enrolled in college, I foresaw no trouble with this sort of vacation whatsoever. However, my parents decided on a compromise: two nights in a hotel at the ruins of Chichen Itza, and five nights at an all inclusive resort outside of Cancun. We hired a travel agent to take care of the details, a decision that we later came to somewhat regret (she was really obnoxious). After a flurry of planning, it was settled and we were off.
We spent two nights at my grandmother's house in Marietta, Georgia (we were flying out of the Atlanta airport). As my phone alarm went off at 5 AM the day our flight was to depart, I was filled with a sense of excitement. This wore off by 5:01 as I realized how freaking early I was up. Truly ridiculous. Regardless, I dutifully arose and took care of all the last minute packing, got in the car, and embarked on my Mexican vacation. We arrived at the Delta counter and immediately encountered problems. We spent a lovely ten minutes at the automatic kiosk, attempting to figure out how to scan our passports, before a nice lady in a Delta uniform suggested we join the line to have an actual human being take care of our check-in. We did so and got through security without anyone getting strip searched (this actually kind of happened to my grandmother on another trip, so it really was a concern). We settled down to have breakfast at Moose Coffee or something like that, and then headed to the newsstand to get gum and magazines. I got my first taste of Mexico there, by picking up a Cosmo to purchase and realizing that it was, indeed, in Spanish. The word 'SEXO!' was prominently displayed on the front cover, which, as you have probably determined, means 'SEX' in Spanish. Easy, I thought, this whole Spanish thing isn't as hard as everyone makes it seem. Our plane ride went off without a hitch, and I entertained myself by watching obviously just married couples (they liked each other way too damn much) canoodle, and taking discreet photos of the terrifying tattoo on another passenger's leg. We landed in Cancun and disembarked. As soon as we got off the plane, we were handed a form that we had to sign stating that we did not have Swine Flu. The fact that this form was distributed AFTER our plane ride disturbed me greatly. We then visited the lovely Cancun customs area, followed by baggage claim. We grabbed our bags and headed for Immigration. Right before I hoisted my bag onto the scanner, I realized with a jolt that it was, indeed, not my bag. Fabulous. I apologized profusely to the annoyed Immigration officer, ran the wrong way towards baggage claim, had to run back and go the correct way, got stopped by some airport officials asking if I'd lost my bag, explained to them that no, indeed, I had inadvertently stolen someone else's bag, found my bag, wished good luck to whoever the owner of the stolen bag was, and then got in place at the end of the Immigration line to wait for another good while for my chance to be mocked by the officer. We then experienced a moment of brief panic upon being unable to find an Enterprise, which was erased when Mom checked the itinerary and announced that we were actually with Hertz. We lugged our bags out the door to wait for the Hertz shuttle, and I was hit by the most intense wave of humidity and heat in recent memory-a feat, considering that I live in Tennessee. We waited for the shuttle by the Welcome Bar, where one could actually purchase a bucket of beer. I know this because someone did, right in front of me. I love Americans. Especially American tourists. Their blatant disregard for authenticity in other people's countries astounds me-they have no qualms about eating at Mickey D's in Rome every day of the week and ordering a Bud Light when out Eurotripping. Their grotesque gluttony for cheap trinkets from Senor Frog's closely rivals their inability to speak the native language, yet firm belief that if one speaks more slowly and loudly they will magically be understood. Surprisingly Americans are not rated the Number One most obnoxious world travelers, however. That honor was very recently taken from the Germans by none other than...Italians. Interesting. At least they have good taste in shoes.
We got in the Hertz van and adjusted to the Arctic temperatures inside. I came to notice that most windows in Mexico are fogged over like the cab in the sex scene from Titanic...generally minus the hand print. My parents then proceeded to leave me outside in the scorching heat to watch the bags while they haggled with the rental people. Half an hour later we finally got into our car, a Dodge Attitude (cars in Mexico have well known makers, but weird model names), and headed for downtown Cancun. We were deliriously hungry. We wandered around Cancun on foot in the burning sun, arguing over where we should eat, until we were so overcome with famine that we stopped at a roadside stand to grab a burrito. The men eating at the stand looked at us with shock-we were very obviously the first white people to visit that particular eatery, probably ever. A few men quickly got up and offered their seats to us, apologizing in rapid fire Spanish. Not wanting to perpetrate the Americans=Jerks stereotype, I smiled and said the three or four words in Spanish I knew and nodded a lot. Turned out that the man running the stand was pretty much out of everything on the menu, so we tried some weird tortilla and feta-like cheese thing. It was lukewarm, but it contained calories and I was vastly satisfied. On the way back to the car, Dad told us that we were all going to get Montezuma's Revenge by the end of the day for eating at a roadside stand in downtown Cancun, though I don't remember seeing him complain when he ordered four of the cheese tortilla dishes and wolfed them down. Next to the car, I noticed that there was...a bush trimmed in the shape of a Pikachu! Random, but oh so exciting! We embarked on our adventure to Chichen Itza.
At this point, I feel that it is necessary to describe my family's usual vacation style. My parents spent their honeymoon in Hawaii. Except instead of hanging out on the beach and watching the natives wear horrendous grass skirts and dance for dollars while spitting in Mainlanders' drinks and cursing the ground they walked on when they weren't looking, my parents spent their time climbing volcanoes and freezing their asses off on the tops of craters. We've backpacked the Grand Canyon on Christmas, hiked the cliffs of Scotland, and canoed the Everglades on our family vacations. An all inclusive resort was really the most adventurous thing our family could do at this point, though we all cast our serious doubts over our abilities to just hang out and drink on the beach. By 'we' I mean my parents. As a self respecting 18 year old girl enrolled in college, I foresaw no trouble with this sort of vacation whatsoever. However, my parents decided on a compromise: two nights in a hotel at the ruins of Chichen Itza, and five nights at an all inclusive resort outside of Cancun. We hired a travel agent to take care of the details, a decision that we later came to somewhat regret (she was really obnoxious). After a flurry of planning, it was settled and we were off.
We spent two nights at my grandmother's house in Marietta, Georgia (we were flying out of the Atlanta airport). As my phone alarm went off at 5 AM the day our flight was to depart, I was filled with a sense of excitement. This wore off by 5:01 as I realized how freaking early I was up. Truly ridiculous. Regardless, I dutifully arose and took care of all the last minute packing, got in the car, and embarked on my Mexican vacation. We arrived at the Delta counter and immediately encountered problems. We spent a lovely ten minutes at the automatic kiosk, attempting to figure out how to scan our passports, before a nice lady in a Delta uniform suggested we join the line to have an actual human being take care of our check-in. We did so and got through security without anyone getting strip searched (this actually kind of happened to my grandmother on another trip, so it really was a concern). We settled down to have breakfast at Moose Coffee or something like that, and then headed to the newsstand to get gum and magazines. I got my first taste of Mexico there, by picking up a Cosmo to purchase and realizing that it was, indeed, in Spanish. The word 'SEXO!' was prominently displayed on the front cover, which, as you have probably determined, means 'SEX' in Spanish. Easy, I thought, this whole Spanish thing isn't as hard as everyone makes it seem. Our plane ride went off without a hitch, and I entertained myself by watching obviously just married couples (they liked each other way too damn much) canoodle, and taking discreet photos of the terrifying tattoo on another passenger's leg. We landed in Cancun and disembarked. As soon as we got off the plane, we were handed a form that we had to sign stating that we did not have Swine Flu. The fact that this form was distributed AFTER our plane ride disturbed me greatly. We then visited the lovely Cancun customs area, followed by baggage claim. We grabbed our bags and headed for Immigration. Right before I hoisted my bag onto the scanner, I realized with a jolt that it was, indeed, not my bag. Fabulous. I apologized profusely to the annoyed Immigration officer, ran the wrong way towards baggage claim, had to run back and go the correct way, got stopped by some airport officials asking if I'd lost my bag, explained to them that no, indeed, I had inadvertently stolen someone else's bag, found my bag, wished good luck to whoever the owner of the stolen bag was, and then got in place at the end of the Immigration line to wait for another good while for my chance to be mocked by the officer. We then experienced a moment of brief panic upon being unable to find an Enterprise, which was erased when Mom checked the itinerary and announced that we were actually with Hertz. We lugged our bags out the door to wait for the Hertz shuttle, and I was hit by the most intense wave of humidity and heat in recent memory-a feat, considering that I live in Tennessee. We waited for the shuttle by the Welcome Bar, where one could actually purchase a bucket of beer. I know this because someone did, right in front of me. I love Americans. Especially American tourists. Their blatant disregard for authenticity in other people's countries astounds me-they have no qualms about eating at Mickey D's in Rome every day of the week and ordering a Bud Light when out Eurotripping. Their grotesque gluttony for cheap trinkets from Senor Frog's closely rivals their inability to speak the native language, yet firm belief that if one speaks more slowly and loudly they will magically be understood. Surprisingly Americans are not rated the Number One most obnoxious world travelers, however. That honor was very recently taken from the Germans by none other than...Italians. Interesting. At least they have good taste in shoes.
We got in the Hertz van and adjusted to the Arctic temperatures inside. I came to notice that most windows in Mexico are fogged over like the cab in the sex scene from Titanic...generally minus the hand print. My parents then proceeded to leave me outside in the scorching heat to watch the bags while they haggled with the rental people. Half an hour later we finally got into our car, a Dodge Attitude (cars in Mexico have well known makers, but weird model names), and headed for downtown Cancun. We were deliriously hungry. We wandered around Cancun on foot in the burning sun, arguing over where we should eat, until we were so overcome with famine that we stopped at a roadside stand to grab a burrito. The men eating at the stand looked at us with shock-we were very obviously the first white people to visit that particular eatery, probably ever. A few men quickly got up and offered their seats to us, apologizing in rapid fire Spanish. Not wanting to perpetrate the Americans=Jerks stereotype, I smiled and said the three or four words in Spanish I knew and nodded a lot. Turned out that the man running the stand was pretty much out of everything on the menu, so we tried some weird tortilla and feta-like cheese thing. It was lukewarm, but it contained calories and I was vastly satisfied. On the way back to the car, Dad told us that we were all going to get Montezuma's Revenge by the end of the day for eating at a roadside stand in downtown Cancun, though I don't remember seeing him complain when he ordered four of the cheese tortilla dishes and wolfed them down. Next to the car, I noticed that there was...a bush trimmed in the shape of a Pikachu! Random, but oh so exciting! We embarked on our adventure to Chichen Itza.
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