Day 172. Airport stories

Rats! The flight from Honolulu was terribly delayed because of a mechanical malfunction. It was a movie like takeoff in which, at the last moment, the turbines were cutoff and the plane returned to the gate. Long wait and at the end they had to move all the passengers to a new plane. The result was that most people missed their connecting flights and I burnt out the precious hours I was planning to spend with my daughter. I did see Faby, for about one hour, before boarding the plane to Mexico City.




She surprised me with her very short hairdo, and she brought me up to date on the comings and goings of herself, DJ her husband, the three canines (Angelik, Girl, and Scarlett), and the three cats (Gato 1, Gato 2, and Gato 3). I am glad to report that everyone is doing well, but I have been forewarned that Girl, my Golden Lab, is a pig that wolves down the food from all three bowls, so I need to put her on a diet as soon as I get back.

The flight to Mexico City was uneventful (but I really don’t like flying with United, which treats passengers like cattle, in stark contrast with the royal treatment lavished by Malaysian or Philippines Airlines). The Mexico City airport is beautiful and enormous, but there are three exit doors, and one can never be certain which one will be assigned to your flight. In my case it didn’t matter, because nobody was expecting me, so I darted out of the crowd (have you noticed the infuriating custom of some people to stop precisely at the door to wave to their families?) and was ready to disappear when I heard someone calling my name. It was my Mom! She and my Dad had been waiting for nearly 5 hours at the airport, scanning all arriving flights from San Francisco, eager to welcome their wayward son. My Mom was at one of the arrival gates, my Dad at another, and the third one was left to God the Almighty. Both of them had eyes teary from the strain of scanning the faces of hundreds of passengers, but it was a joyful reunion nonetheless :)