airport woes

note the super informative spanish legend of this sign at mexico city's airport.

those useless parentheses remind me of the quotation marks used in the santa bárbara and morones gas station in monterrey:

apague su "celular"
peligro "inflamable"
apague su "motor"

it's just ridiculous, you should go check it out! anyway...

i apologize to my three fans who have desperately awaited my return to the blogosphere. so many stories of my month-long journey in california, monterrey, mexico city, acapulco, and my triumphant return to new york will go untold -- but do not despair: as always, fotki comes to the rescue. remember that "a picture is worth more than a thousand words."

for now, i will put the sonoma wine tasting, lake tahoe skiing, and acapulco surfing stories aside. instead, i will satisfy my msn messenger friends' craving to hear about my worst-ever airport experience. in sum, jfk sucks. to be fair, mexico city's benito juárez airport and my stubborn disobedience to my güelita's wise advice were partly responsible for my misery.

it all started at my cousin zita's wedding in acapulco. as is customary in such celebrations, i danced non-stop and sweated buckets. to cool down, i placed myself in front of one of the huge fans and stayed there practically all night. when i went to ask cuquita if she wanted to shake her bom-bom with me, my grandma warned me against standing in front of the fan. i dismissed her, said i was going to get some coke and, as i walked away, she yelled at me, ¡sin hielo! (without ice!).

did i listen?

no.

of course the day i left acapulco, i had a terrible cold and felt like shit. i still had to drive alone 4 hours to mexico city. right before leaving, i stopped by the hotel's pharmacy -- knowing that anything would be super expensive there -- and decided not to buy anything fearing that it would make me sleepy on the road. plus, the co-tylenol box was 62 pesos -- the maximum price allowed by the ministry of health. i will buy something when i get to the airport, i said.

my health didn't improve in the next few hours. the drive was a breeze, though, and once in the city, driving towards the airport was not as bad as i thought it would be. the only problem were the rental car signs at the airport: totally wrong! i finally made it to the american airlines line, only to be told 20 minutes later that i should go to the operating carrier's -- mexicana -- line, where i waited for another hour and 15 minutes.

after checking in, i went to the pharmacy to get my co-tylenol. i saw the box had the maximum price stamp scribbled on with black ink and a white sticker on top of it, so you could not see it. i asked the clerk how much it was: 113 pesos! you are violating the maximum price!, i said. we are not violating anything, he replied, we are just selling it at the maximum possible price. i told him that was a lie and it didn't make sense they scribbled on the price, plus i knew that the maximum price was 62 pesos. if you don't like it, go to the other pharmacy inside ther terminal. and so i did. and the price there was also 113 pesos. and i didn't take my medicine. and i felt like shit the rest of the day.

of course, the flight was delayed and a woman with a baby sat next to me. the baby was super cute but my cold was killing me and i just wanted to sleep and the baby never stopped kicking my leg or patting my arm. needless to say, that meant no rest on the plane.

we got to jfk pretty late, around 1am. thank God migration and customs were no problem... but the luggage wait took forever. most of the bags came out but all of a sudden they stopped coming and the band kept rolling. about 10 people, including me, waited for 45 minutes until they started coming out again and i finally got mine.

next, i went to the ground transportation section and tried contacting the connecticut shuttle to go back to new haven. i had originally planned to spend the night at my friend agus's in manhattan, hang out with her, and then go back home the next day, but it was 2.30am and she had to work the next day, so i didn't want her to wait for me. the shuttle people never picked up. there were no more taxis in the terminal and my only option seemed to be the subway. i took the airtrain that goes to the subway station but i suddenly realized i had taken the wrong one, since i kept going in circles, never leaving the terminals area. how is that possible? i remember making sure i took the right train, i thought to myself. and apparently the other 5 passengers in the train were confused too. we all got off, took another one, taking extra care in our choice of train, but once again, we kept going in circles.

desperate, i got off at the international terminal and decided to look for a cab. the terminal was completely empty. outside: no taxis. inside: no cops, no staff, no-one. i yelled, hoping that someone would come, but nobody came. i went back to the phone booth to call one of the manhattan shuttles but none of the companies picked up. i hit the booth with the phone, waiting to get scolded by a cop or something, but that didn't happen either. if some divine voice had told me there was simply no way of getting out that night, that would've been better. at least i would've slept on the floor instead of dragging my suitcase all over the airport.

i went back to the airtrain hoping that one would take me to the subway station. i finally made it and then waited forever until a subway car came. of course, the subway was not the express line to manhattan -- it made every freaking stop from jfk to manhattan. i joined my homeless friends who slept comfortably in the subway car and slept for about an hour, finally reaching the fulton street station at 5am.

fifteen minutes later i had my one moment of glory. all the credit goes to agus, whom i woke up at 5am and whose welcome hug was the best thing that happened to me throughout the day.

i wish i could say i will never fly from jfk again, like i said after multiple bad experiences at dulles -- but i know that won't happen. in fact, i will be flying out of jfk in less than a month -- even worse, again to benito juárez's airport!