Mexico City, Day 1 and 2, Gran Melia

We left Chicago around 6 am and had a connection in Dallas/Fort Worth. When I looked at my itinerary I saw we had about an hour and a half before we had to change planes. Little did I know that an hour and a half wouldn't be that much time on the return. No problems while we were flying and we landed in Mexico City around 3:00 pm. One thing I don't understand, when going through Customs at Mexico City's airport, is the need to x-ray our bags as we're leaving. I like to believe the hassle we go through at O'Hare Airport and its security measures would be enough but it's not. We didn't have to wait long for the bags and the x-ray was clean so we done.

Normally Eduardo meets me at the airport with flowers which I always appreciate. My favorite are colorful daisies. But I always feel bad when I can't take them home with because of customs. Well I've never tried to bring them home, I assume it would be a problem. This time Eduardo had no flowers (darn but at least I won't feel guilty about leaving them). Instead he gave me a paper and it was a surprise trip to San Miguel de Allende. I was so excited. I actually wanted to visit San Miguel for about 2 years but we either went somewhere else and didn't go. For this trip we planned on going to San Miguel but money was tight (who am I kidding there was no money!) so I knew we couldn't go. Either way I was happy with this gift. We would leave to San Miguel on Monday.

We stayed at the hotel Gran Melia in Mexico City on the main street Reforma in Centro Historico. With my architectural connections I could appreciate the structure and work as well as its flaws. Now if you remember I forgot my digital camera so this are pictures from the hotel's website. From the outside the view is spectacular! You'll also see a nice shot over looking the Calle (Street) Reforma.

The hotel offer many amenities and it was great and everyone seems generally nice and hospitable (who would have thought over the mix reviews at TripAdvisor.com).

So I've been traveling to Mexico City for quite some time and you'd think that we learn a few things about how the city works. Nope. Day 2 in Mexico City we were supposed to head to church because 1. Eduardo was going to preach and 2. because I was supposed to meet the Bishop. We need to be at church at 12:00 pm. We forgot that every Sunday the city shuts down Reforma and several other streets and creates sort of an activity day for the family. You can run, ride your bike, rollerblade ...whatever on this major street.

So when I woke up the next morning around 8 am, Eduardo and Aaron took off swimming. I heard someone talking on a speaker outside. As I peered down I saw people running a marathon. I didn't think it was a big deal until we left the hotel at 11 and found every surrounding street was blocked. It took us quite a bit of fancy driving to get out to the next major street. After asking several police officers we were directed on the "right" street and found ourselves back at the hotel! (and after an hour of driving).

Eduardo was not a happy camper. We eventually got church at around 2 pm (2 hours late!) and we ended staying for the 3 pm service. Oh well.

Here's the buffet that cost us $20 per person. When Eduardo said "200 pesos" I thought 'wow $20 bucks for all us that's pretty cheap!' My bad.

Here's the pool. This picture doesn't really do it justice. It was really nice!

The Lobby

Since we were heading to San Miguel de Allende on Monday Eduardo asked a fellow pastor to drive us home. The pastor would then drive our borrowed car and park it inside his gated house. But Eduardo locked the keys in the car and we were all were stuck outside trying to get the keys out. Eventually (after 1.5 hours) someone random guy asked if we wanted him to help. I'm freaked out thinking "OMG! He's going to get the keys out, pull a knife or a gun and steal the car!" (Hey it's Mexico City what did you want me to think!)

So I stood behind the men with a wrench just in case. The guy got the door open pulled the keys out and.... AND..... asked for $50 pesos. Argh! Thank God that was over with!

One minor recap of my vacation...

Saturday Aaron and I headed to Mexico City to visit Eduardo again. At this moment (from an immigration standpoint) we've done the following. We had the possession of cannabis charge changed do show that the case is officially closed. I have some doubts because when I first saw a copy of the disposition I noticed that the "possession of cannabis" was not written out at all. Instead there was the number code but the area next to number was blank. I forwarded that to our immigration attorney and it caused some confusion with them as well. Either way the disposition and a letter was sent to the consulate. Here are just some of the highlights what happened after that.

I went to the Daley Center (in Chicago) to get two copies (sealed) for our attorney. As I was in there I noticed something odd was going on outside of the building. However, I made it through security and proceeded to the 10th floor. When I was being attended an announcement was made and we had to evacuate the building because there was a bomb threat. I have gotten the chills before but never throughout my whole body. So in the end my mission was not accomplished. I returned two days later and got two copies. But then I noticed that the area by the number code was now filled in. At this point in our immigration journey I now that I MUST have my ducks in a row. I thought because we had already sent a fax to the consulate with the "blank" court disposition the fact that it was now filled might cause a problem. It didn't so I was on my way.

So where are we at now? I hate to say it but we're just waiting at this point. (Have you noticed a reoccurring theme with my posts? It's all 'We're waiting, now we wait, we need to wait' wait wait and more wait) Honestly I don't know of anyone else who had learn patience but me with all this blasted waiting.

Ok so I'm on the plane as I type this and Aaron's had more soda in the past 3 hours then he has in 2 days. I was hoping he would nap ... ya right. Eduardo and I planned a trip to San Miguel de Allende but the funds are tight so we'll have to tour around Mexico City. I'm sure there's plenty that I haven't seen. Here's a list of things I forgot to pack:

1. Jackets (these planes are FREEZING)
2. Something to swim in (maybe I can borrow shorts from Eduardo hahaha!)
3. Conditioner
4. Nice shoes for church
5. A pin or scarf for my new dress
6. Flip flops for Aaron
7. Sunscreen
8. Something to pin my hair up
9. My Bible. I'm sure it's going to look great that the pastor's wife doesn't have her Bible.
10. iPod cable
11. A digital camera!

Here's a snapshot of me having a bad reaction of something I ate or the sun :(

Reality Time Already?

How do you explain to 6-year-old why kids exclude him from playing with them? It burns me to no end when children to it. There's no real logic trying to figure this out yet it happens. Can kids be that malicious towards one another? This I can expect from random kids you don't know but this happens within my own family too. Terrible huh? As much as I want to say to my son "nope you're not going to play with so and so and you're staying inside with me!" he won't understand that. Especially when he can hear the kids outside hooting and hollering and he's not allowed to have the same fun. In the end I'm being a bad mom (to Aaron at least!)

As much as we try to protect our children my brother Danny said something interesting to me. He said we can't always be there to protect our kids and sometimes we have to allow these experiences to happen. By doing this it gives our children a (sad) dose of reality. The reality to know that not everyone is nice, not everyone is polite no matter what you do (or don't). Someone is not going to be happy you're around. Its the same for kids as it is for adults.

But I continue to raise my child I only hope that he is self-confident and self assured. That's my prayer for him everyday. Protection and self-confidence. Ranting and raving about bratty kids isn't going to get me anywhere. But just talking to my son and explaining realities of life might be the only thing that will work. The world is a beautiful place with wonderful people in it. You just have to weed through the bad one to find the good ones.

In other news: I finally got all the documents I need for Eduardo's stuff. I would have gotten it earlier, but on Wednesday when I was at the Daley Center we had to evacuate because of a bomb threat. I was telling my husband I felt the chills all over my body. I wanted to get out of the building and out of the area as soon as possible!

The Windy City was really a windy city last night!

Ever since we moved from Marengo, IL I've never experience such drastic weather here in the city. Last night Aaron and I went to the library to return a museum pass I got last Saturday. So we stayed there for a bit before heading home. Thank God we made it home before the storm hit. Here's another reason why I enjoying renting a basement apartment. That's the first place you need to go in case of tornado! I spent like 10 minutes trying to convince my aunt and uncle to head downstairs but they didn't. The weather was so bad I had to admit was pretty scared. I've never heard tornado sirens in Chicago before. At first I thought it was just a fire station but it wouldn't stop blaring! After about twenty minutes, Aaron decided to go to bed and slept through the rest of the evening.

Today I got the letter my attoneys wrote to the Consulate stating we're providing the additional evidence they wanted and to please give Eduardo the benefit of the doubt. It's been 15 years! They even used small portions of some recommendations letters we submitted as part of Eduardo rehabilitation (Some excerpts from Bro. Zuniga my pastor and from Christiana my sister in law). I'll get an original court disposition tomorrow and off to the consulate the letter will go. Again we're still waiting for an answer, so please keep us in your prayers.

I wanted to thank my pastor Bro. Lupe Zuniga. On Sunday they picked up an offering for me to help with my immigration fees. I'm grateful to God, my pastor and the breathen from the church for this much much much needed help. Thank you!

Speaking of church I finally was able to post the pictures of the family camp. You can check them out here!

Money, Money, Money...

Well I took out a loan on my 401k versus cashing it out to pay for the immigration stuff, lawyers etc. Anyway the payments were going to be deducted automatically from my paycheck starting at the end of June. But I noticed it hadn't happened. When I questioned the finance person about it he said that it wasn't going to happen right away but soon... ok no biggie...

When I called him on it again early last week I mentioned that I still hadn't seen the deductions. He called back and left me a VM telling me that he made the mistake of not paying the loan and now I'm behind 3 payments totaling over $900! So for the next 3 paychecks I have to make double payments on this loan.... AND I go to mexico next saturday and guess what? I have FOUR unpaid days for that vacation! I nearly died because I asked him to tell me how much my checks where going to be and the one check (where I take my vacation) might be around $300.

I know the finance person felt really bad about the situation but sheesh... Things will be ok I'm not going to worry about (don't get me wrong I flipped out when it happened but I'm ok now). So I mentioned to my hubby that we probably shouldn't go to San Miguel de Allende and we should try to do some things on the cheaper side while I'm down there in Mexico City....

Aside from that the weekend weather was wonderful! We went to Lincoln Park Zoo and so much has changed. If Yoly and I ever figure out whats with our memory card reader maybe I can post some pictures... This morning a storm blew through early in the city. I've never see the sky get so dark at 7 am. My parents drove me to the express bus this morning so I made it completely dry.

I feel like I should be posting more about my bus adventures or bus musings... for example today its raining cats and dogs and I watched a woman close her umbrella and point it out in front of her as she paid the fare. However, since she was pointing it out in front of her she's practically stabbing the bus driver and getting him all wet!

Finally!

After a few days of waiting I finally got the new court disposition I needed from the Chicago Clerk's office. After reviewing it (with my limited knowledge of criminal law) I can see that the possession of cannabis has been completely removed from the court record. That's really huge! So I've emailed that over to my immigration attorney Laurel.

Right now the next steps is to get that new disposition to the Consulate and then wait for them to decide on the gang issue. Timewise I honestly don't know how long that's going to take. I would hope they made the decision sometime in August. At the very bottom of this page you can see a countdown clock for our wavier appointment. I'm going to need to reschedule it but I'll wait to do until next Tuesday. When the gang issue is settled then I reschedule the wavier appointment. I'm assuming it's going to be sometime in October. Not too much to do just more waiting.

Today is the last day for summer camp for Aaron. Both my mom and I are relieved. It is a good program however, given the area we're in and the quality of some the camp directors it was ok. I could never tell how Aaron was enjoying himself. There were plenty of good days and bad...but it was hard trying to get Aaron to tell me about his day. He managed to tell me that yesterday he went to the movies and saw Speedracer and he didn't like it. However he enjoyed the popcorn and soda. (Hey so do I!)

Tomorrow we're off to the Lincoln Park Zoo in blazing 95 degree weather. I thought we probably shouldn't but Aaron didn't ask me or my mom...he went straight to Grandpa (my dad). So if Aaron said please my dad doesn't deny!