Goodbye Mexico

Hola Amigos,

My first post in some time. I am actually back home now, the promised post from Mexico never appeared but I can cover the same material here.

For those of you who don't know, I was sent on my first UOP assignment to the Hidalgo province of Mexico. The town I was in was called Tula de Allende and was located about 60ish miles north of Mexico City.

The journey started on the 2nd of November with my flight to Mexico City. As the total travel time was long enough I was able to fly in business class. This was quite exciting for me. The business class experience started with me going into the business class lounge at Heathrow airport. Comfortable chairs, free internet, free food, free newspapers etc. It was quite a pleasant experience. The journey to Mexico City had to be done via Paris. Business class on the plane to Paris was basically the same as normal economy only the middle seat (the plane seating was a 3-3 configuration) was empty. This flight was delayed which meant I only had around 30 minutes to rush to my next plane. No problems there and when I was on the plane I settled down into my nice business class seat. For someone of my height the major major problem is always legroom. Not a problem here. The food is much higher quality the seats are more comfortable and can go fully flat and the whole experience is that much more pleasant. One thing which really made the trip memorable was the incredible sunset I could see from the plane. As we were flying west we were essentially chasing the sunset which meant it lasted for several hours.

I arrived in Mexico City at around 9pm and had my first experience of an airline losing my luggage. Very frustrating!! I then caught a cab to my hotel for the night and went straight to bed.

The next morning after a few hours sorting out someone to guide me I travelled from Mexico City to Tula. As I had a car in Mexico I had to follow someone else to Tula. I was a little apprehensive about this but it turned out ok. I was taken to the refinery and introduced to the people I was going to be working with over the next few months.

People always ask me what Tula was like (very reasonable question). The truth is it's a fairly small Mexican town and the activities aren't plentiful. As there was a risk of me being there over Christmas I tended to work as much as I could as I didn't want to be alone in Mexico over the festive period. My days off were either spent at the hotel, driving around the town (there wasn't too much to actually do in the town) and on one occasion visiting the indigenous ruins. Tula was once a very important city in the days before the European invasion. The ruins are not too extensive but are still quite interesting.

The first amusing highlight was gettinh hold of a mexican SIM card for my phone. This is standard practice for FOS but when you don't speak a word of Spanish in a town with few English speakers this turns into quite an interesting experience. In fairness the woman I dealt with was very patient. I managed to get the idea of what I wanted across to her and 150 mexican pesos later (about £7.50) I had a mexican SIM card.

The other amusing experience was my birthday. Being alone in Mexico for my 25th birthday would not have been my first choice but I made the most of it. My main contact at the refinery was very sympathetic to the fact that I spending my birthday in Mexico and invited me to a birthday party being held for her brother-in-law. Here I ate some of the local food (don't ask me what it was I have no idea, but it wasn't bad) attempted to talk to the locals and had one of them notify the band that it was my birthday as well. The singer then proceeded to rattle something off in the quickfire Spanish they all speak and then the crowd laughed. I still don't know what he said.

After a couple of months in Mexico and several weeks of uncertainty about if I would be back for Christmas I got the go-ahead to start arranging my return to the UK. The plan for getting home was to drive back to Mexico City with a guide (the same way I got to Tula) and spend a night in Mexico City. I would then fly from Mexico City to Amsterdam and then after a few hours in Amsterdam fly on to Heathrow. But the european weather had other plans for me.

The drive back to Mexico City was horrific and an experience I'm in no desire to repeat. To get to the airport we had to drive through the city itself at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. The traffic was bumper to bumper and I came very close on several occasions to losing my guide which would have been a disaster. After several harrowing hours we made it the car rental and then after problems with my company card solved by an hour long phone call I made it to my hotel for the night. I was shattered and decided to leave the room and ordered room service for the first time ever.

The following Saturday was spent at the National Museum of Anthropology. A good museum detailing the history of Mexico and it's people. My flight left Mexico City at around 10pm and was a fairly uneventful flight with the minor exception of it being very bumpy. I landed in Amsterdam at around 3pm only to find that my flight to London had been cancelled.

And so began my stay at Amsterdam airport. After being directed to a massive queue to try and get rebooked I was advised to not bother and head downstairs where I would be placed in a hotel for the night. After about an hour waiting for the hotel shuttle (whilst befriending a few fellow strandeds) I made it to the hotel. I managed to book myself on another flight leaving Amsterdam at 10.35 on the Monday morning.

5 am the next morning I was back at Amsterdam airport. I got hold of my boarding pass and made my way to the KLM business lounge to kill time for a few hours. I then arrived at the gate for my flight to find a huge queue. No real surprise there but what did surprise me was that at Amsterdam airport rather than having a main security section after check-in like most airports I've been to. Amsterdam airport has a smaller security section at every single gate. If you ask me this is quite an odd way of doing things but that's what the system is there. This particular London flight was constantly getting delayed due to Heathrow apparently being unsure if they could receive the flight. We eventually got confirmation that the flight was indeed leaving and would depart at 1.30.

One thing I learned during my time at Amsterdam airport is never believe that you are heading for your destination until you actually land. Despite Heathrow confirming that this flight can leave they then cancelled. Although I believe that this was because KLM messed around getting our luggage on board and missed the slot. Of course KLM didn't admit this. So after getting excited and boarding the plane we then had to get back off. I managed to rebook myself onto another flight to London City flying that evening. After getting tickets and sorting out with the check-in crew about my luggage (which I hadn't seen since checking it in at Mexico City) me and another stranded relaxed with some beers for a few hours before heading to the gate. Again we boarded the flight and had to get back off again. Although they did tell us that one flight had actually taken off and was turned back. Back to another hotel for the second night. In total I had spend around 16 hours at the airport that day.

When I was at the hotel I thought to try and get on a flight to Birmingham. London seemed to be a no-go area at that point, so I figured why not. Managed to rebook myself on a Birmingham flight at 10.35 on the Tuesday.

After a few issues at check-in on Tuesday morning I found myself on my 4th plane of the trip. This plane also sat on the tarmac for about an hour and I couldn't help the feeling that this flight would also be cancelled. The plane tended to move to somewhere for a bit then stop then move then stop. Finally we reached the runway and took off. Remembering that a flight the previous night had been turned back I refused to feel relief. But this plane had no troubles and an hour later we landed in Birmingham to the great relief of everyone on board. Of course my luggage never made it with me but to be completely honest I never actually expected that it would.

The final part of my journey was in a rented car driving back to Birmingham. The decision was take a train or a car. I feel I made the right decision, the roads turned out to be fine. But the trains seemed to have troubles. I got back home finally on Tuesday evening roughly 92 hours after leaving my hotel in Tula.

Mammoth entry here, almost as long as my journey home. I currently do not have another assignment yet as my work-provided safety bag did not make it home with me. Have to wait for that to turn up first. We'll see where I end up.

Merry Christmas everyone and until next time,