Our trip back home to visit friends and family was lots of fun, but it was super busy... nearly everyday was planned out...there were even some days where every HOUR was planned out. For example, in one day, we drove back to Seattle from Canada, stopped in Bellingham for lunch with Ty's aunt and uncle on the way, then drove 2 hours south of Seattle to visit friends/old co-workers for dinner, before catching an 11pm ferry to Anderson Island to spend a few nights out there with Ty's parents. Almost every day felt like that. Fun, but stretched thin...and kinda exhausting. And despite it being so miserably HOT here right now, it does feel good to be "home."
Let's see.... I could tell you all about how we both managed to gain 10 pounds eating and drinking our way through Portland and Seattle and Vancouver (hashtag worth it.) I legit had a list of foods I "needed" to eat, just the same way I had a list of people I "needed" to see, and dogs I "needed" to smooch. (Because, you know, priorities.) I could tell you how many Reuben sandwiches I ate (several) or how many bowls of pho I happily slurped up (not enough) or how many different types of beer we drank. (We're so SICK of Corona and Pacifico. I'm sure we have your sympathy, right?) But, none of that is very interesting reading material...
I could tell you all about seeing Bruno Mars in concert on my birthday up in Vancouver, and how Ty bought us awesome seats, and how we stayed in a teeny tiny (but adorable) AirBnB and how we got to meet up with some super fun Jardin guests we met a few months ago that live there... but again, that probably doesn't interest you.
I could tell you how FANTASTIC it was to be able to straighten my hair and just have it STAY LIKE THAT the rest of the day. I forgot how manageable my curly, frizzy, crazy ass hair used to be in un-tropical climates. Like, it made me so happy to feel semi "put-together" for the first time in 14 months, that this is seriously enough of a reason for me to want to move back home. Like, if Ty and I ever draw up a pros and cons list about where to live, "hair isn't pyscho" is going in the win column for Portland/Seattle. Also in the win column, "not sweating all day and night and not being eaten by mosquitoes." But for sure you don't wanna hear about my hair problems (more than you already have)...
I could tell you that I took more baths than showers while we were there, because I have yet to see a bathtub in Mexico and it's a lazy-girl luxury I miss... (I'm a big fan of doing any "to-do" while lying down.) On a similar note... I forgot what actual water pressure feels like! I almost lost my footing when I took a shower at my parent's house after being blasted by the shower head...
I could tell you that one of the biggest "shocks" being back home was the PRICE of everything. How did we ever afford 3 dollars for a single avocado?? Or 18 bucks for two measly beers? Or 35 bucks for a 10-minute taxi ride? Even though we were crashing in Ty's high school bedroom at his parent's house, our trip back home set us back thousands of dollars in mostly bars and restaurants and socializing with friends... This fact definitely goes in the pro-Mexico column. We definitely couldn't be retired bums anymore if we moved back home.
I could tell you how nice it was to be able to spend several days on Anderson Island with friends, cousins, Ty's parents and then just the two of us... (Three of us if you count Cousin Cleaver!!)
I could tell you about all that stuff... I could... but what I found most interesting about our jaunt up north, was the actual traveling aspect. It's kinda a weird thing flying to the States as a "tourist." From the moment I arrived at the Puerto Vallarta Airport, I felt like everything was happening in reverse. All the white people around me were freshly sunburned, wearing fedoras, lugging souvenirs home....their vacations were all ending, and mine was just starting.
When I approached the TSA agent checking boarding passes and passports at security, I handed her my stuff and out of habit I said, "Hola, buenas tardes." (This is just what you do in Mexico...it's customary to greet everyone everywhere you go.) As soon as I spoke in my semi-decent Spanish accent, she got a big smile on her face and said (in Espanol), "You speak Spanish!!" Then I gave her my go-to response when an elated Mexican says this to me, "Estoy aprendiendo!" ...which means, "I'm learning." (I never say the over-used "un poquito" accompanied with a giggle response that most gringos default to... Sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Learn how to say something more original already.)
Later, sitting at my gate waiting to board, I must have had something in my eye because I was rubbing it and the woman sitting next to me said, "Are you crying because vacation is over and you have to leave Mexico?" trying to be funny. Then I proceeded to break out in a dorky smirk and said, "Actually. I live here. I'm going north to see family." To which she responded by dropping her jaw and asking a bunch of questions about what she assumed was an exotic life, just as I expected/hoped she would. This is one of those things that's fun about living in Mexico... You get to SAY you live in Mexico! All 8 of my devoted blog readers get to read about the highs and lows and the dirty truth about how hard it is moving to a new country, but a random woman I'm never gonna see again? She only gets the highlights because it makes me feel super special and envied for like 10 minutes. I know. I'm pathetic. But I'm okay with it.
I arrived in Santa Ana, California to go through customs when my next I'm-a-pretend-Mexican moment happened. Going through immigration there were 3 lines to choose from: US Citizens, Visitors and Residents. It took me a couple beats to figure out where I belong. I'm still a US Citizen...but technically I'm a "visitor", right? I decided on US Citizen and when I approached the passport-checker dude, he routinely said, "How was your vacation?" like they always do. And I sorta stalled while deciding on how to answer... I could have just said, "It was good," but I didn't want to lie so I told him my vacation was just starting and that I live in Mexico. This was NOTHING like talking to the easily-impressed tourist in the airport. Instead, I got raised eyebrows and lots of follow-up questions.
The next time we got raised eyebrows and lots of follow-up questions was trying to cross the US/Canadian border back into Washington... The border lines were slow and when we finally got up to the window and handed the intense-looking border agent our passports, the first question out of his mouth was, "Where's home?" Again, we both paused a bit before answering knowing "Mexico" was gonna be a red flag. Technically, we consider the Pacific Northwest our "home" and Mexico is where we live...but I don't think the bulletproof vest-wearing dude with the big, scary, red beard and polarized sunglasses cared about technicalities. We answered, "We live in Mexico right now," and then prepared for the onslaught...
Agent: "What were you doing in Canada?"
Ty: "We went to see a concert."
Agent: "You came all the way from Mexico for a concert? That seems odd."
Ty: "We are visiting family in Seattle and just drove up for a few days."
Agent: "What concert was it?"
Ty: "Bruno Mars, downtown."
Agent: *obviously doesn't know who Bruno Mars is* "What do you do in Mexico?"
Ty: *playfully* "Not much!"
Agent: *not amused*
Me: *rolls eyes at Ty* "We run a small hotel there."
Agent: "How do you two know each other?"
*We both scoff* "We're married."
Agent: "When do you go back to Mexico?"
Ty: "August 4th."
Agent: "Who's car is this?"
Ty: "My parent's car."
Agent: "If you're driving their car, what are they driving?"
Ty: *starting to get annoyed* "They have two other cars."
Then he started repeating his questions with different wording in an obvious attempt to try and catch us in a lie, which is when Ty really started getting annoyed and his answers turned a little smart-assy and then the agent asked, "Why are you so nervous?" (To be honest, the guy was kinda a prick right from the get-go and I'm sure he asks everyone this question just to get a rise out of them.) Ty throws his head back and laughs like, "What do you want from us, dude?" And that's when the agent slapped a yellow sticker on our windshield and sent us to the "secondary inspection" area. Oh, great.
We park in the inspection area and take our yellow ticket inside where we quickly realize we're the ONLY white people in the building. Hmmm. We wait in line and finally approach the counter where a female border agent, who was most definitely allergic to facial expressions, asked us a lot of the same questions with only slightly less attitude as the first dude. At this point we're just annoyed because we have lunch plans in Bellingham and we were approaching 90 minutes stuck at the border... We rolled our eyes a bunch like, "We don't care if you search our car, go for it." She first searches my purse then asks for our keys and tells us to go sit with the rest of the unfortunates waiting to get their cars returned to them.
As soon as we sit down... Ty's eyes get wide and he asks, "Oh, crap. Is the Fireball in the car??" Ty had purchased a small pint of Fireball at the liquor store to sip on at our AirBnB before we left for the concert. When we were packing up our luggage the next morning, we just threw the remainder of the bottle in our backpack, not even thinking about the fact that it was technically an "open container." Then MY eyes got wide and I proceed to start panicking and imagining the worst case scenario possible. (In case you don't know, I'm a zero-to-cancer kind of person.... meaning I make mountains out of molehills. Ty is 5 minutes late coming home from the grocery store? He must have died in a horrific car accident. I wake up in the middle of the night with hip pain? Bone cancer. I find a new mole? Skin cancer. Bloo seems a little off today? Puppy cancer. You get the point.)
So, I proceed to panic about being arrested, about Ty's parent's car being impounded, about being stuck at the border and having to call Ty's parents to save us. "Your dad is going to be so pissed." I start to wonder if we'll still be in prison before our flight back to Vallarta the following Friday. That's normal, right?
We decide to just tell her the truth that we were just cleaning out our hotel room and totally didn't think about it being an open container. We were just gonna come clean and beg forgiveness!! I mean... We're not real criminals, right?! Please have mercy!
The expressionless agent loudly says, "Tyler!" and we both approach the counter with our rehearsed response on the tips of our tongues when she hands us back our passports and car keys and says we're free to go. PHEEEW. She might have found the bottle and not cared (as in it was too minor) but there's a good chance she never saw it at all...it was buried underneath toiletries and phone chargers and my makeup bag and we don't know how well she checked the car because you're not allowed to watch them inspect it. We booked it away from the border and I'm pretty sure Ty was shaking all the way to Bellingham.
The trip back to Vallarta was much more enjoyable travel-wise than the rest of the trip. As residents, we get to skip the tourist-filled lines at immigration and go through the line reserved for Mexican Citizens and residents. We were off the plane, got our bags, went through immigration and customs and were haggling with a taxi driver in less than 30 minutes from the time our plane landed. Like old pros! Side note: Why, oh, why are people vacationing to the Banderas Bay in AUGUST?? Like, people were leaving their home states in probably the nicest month of the year, and coming HERE in like the WORST month of the year. Do your research, people!
Okay, this was a super long post and the bartender is probably ready to kick us out... Time to go back home and be internet-less and bored like an old Amish couple.
Peace out, peeps!
I could tell you that one of the biggest "shocks" being back home was the PRICE of everything. How did we ever afford 3 dollars for a single avocado?? Or 18 bucks for two measly beers? Or 35 bucks for a 10-minute taxi ride? Even though we were crashing in Ty's high school bedroom at his parent's house, our trip back home set us back thousands of dollars in mostly bars and restaurants and socializing with friends... This fact definitely goes in the pro-Mexico column. We definitely couldn't be retired bums anymore if we moved back home.
I could tell you how nice it was to be able to spend several days on Anderson Island with friends, cousins, Ty's parents and then just the two of us... (Three of us if you count Cousin Cleaver!!)
I could tell you how miserable it was being away from my perfect angel of a pup for three weeks and not knowing how he was doing (our housekeeper was house sitting and she doesn't have a cell phone) and how I scrolled through the hundreds of photos on my phone of him daily and wondered what he was doing and if he missed me back. That's normal, right? I thought so.
I could tell you about all that stuff... I could... but what I found most interesting about our jaunt up north, was the actual traveling aspect. It's kinda a weird thing flying to the States as a "tourist." From the moment I arrived at the Puerto Vallarta Airport, I felt like everything was happening in reverse. All the white people around me were freshly sunburned, wearing fedoras, lugging souvenirs home....their vacations were all ending, and mine was just starting.
When I approached the TSA agent checking boarding passes and passports at security, I handed her my stuff and out of habit I said, "Hola, buenas tardes." (This is just what you do in Mexico...it's customary to greet everyone everywhere you go.) As soon as I spoke in my semi-decent Spanish accent, she got a big smile on her face and said (in Espanol), "You speak Spanish!!" Then I gave her my go-to response when an elated Mexican says this to me, "Estoy aprendiendo!" ...which means, "I'm learning." (I never say the over-used "un poquito" accompanied with a giggle response that most gringos default to... Sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Learn how to say something more original already.)
Later, sitting at my gate waiting to board, I must have had something in my eye because I was rubbing it and the woman sitting next to me said, "Are you crying because vacation is over and you have to leave Mexico?" trying to be funny. Then I proceeded to break out in a dorky smirk and said, "Actually. I live here. I'm going north to see family." To which she responded by dropping her jaw and asking a bunch of questions about what she assumed was an exotic life, just as I expected/hoped she would. This is one of those things that's fun about living in Mexico... You get to SAY you live in Mexico! All 8 of my devoted blog readers get to read about the highs and lows and the dirty truth about how hard it is moving to a new country, but a random woman I'm never gonna see again? She only gets the highlights because it makes me feel super special and envied for like 10 minutes. I know. I'm pathetic. But I'm okay with it.
I arrived in Santa Ana, California to go through customs when my next I'm-a-pretend-Mexican moment happened. Going through immigration there were 3 lines to choose from: US Citizens, Visitors and Residents. It took me a couple beats to figure out where I belong. I'm still a US Citizen...but technically I'm a "visitor", right? I decided on US Citizen and when I approached the passport-checker dude, he routinely said, "How was your vacation?" like they always do. And I sorta stalled while deciding on how to answer... I could have just said, "It was good," but I didn't want to lie so I told him my vacation was just starting and that I live in Mexico. This was NOTHING like talking to the easily-impressed tourist in the airport. Instead, I got raised eyebrows and lots of follow-up questions.
The next time we got raised eyebrows and lots of follow-up questions was trying to cross the US/Canadian border back into Washington... The border lines were slow and when we finally got up to the window and handed the intense-looking border agent our passports, the first question out of his mouth was, "Where's home?" Again, we both paused a bit before answering knowing "Mexico" was gonna be a red flag. Technically, we consider the Pacific Northwest our "home" and Mexico is where we live...but I don't think the bulletproof vest-wearing dude with the big, scary, red beard and polarized sunglasses cared about technicalities. We answered, "We live in Mexico right now," and then prepared for the onslaught...
Agent: "What were you doing in Canada?"
Ty: "We went to see a concert."
Agent: "You came all the way from Mexico for a concert? That seems odd."
Ty: "We are visiting family in Seattle and just drove up for a few days."
Agent: "What concert was it?"
Ty: "Bruno Mars, downtown."
Agent: *obviously doesn't know who Bruno Mars is* "What do you do in Mexico?"
Ty: *playfully* "Not much!"
Agent: *not amused*
Me: *rolls eyes at Ty* "We run a small hotel there."
Agent: "How do you two know each other?"
*We both scoff* "We're married."
Agent: "When do you go back to Mexico?"
Ty: "August 4th."
Agent: "Who's car is this?"
Ty: "My parent's car."
Agent: "If you're driving their car, what are they driving?"
Ty: *starting to get annoyed* "They have two other cars."
Then he started repeating his questions with different wording in an obvious attempt to try and catch us in a lie, which is when Ty really started getting annoyed and his answers turned a little smart-assy and then the agent asked, "Why are you so nervous?" (To be honest, the guy was kinda a prick right from the get-go and I'm sure he asks everyone this question just to get a rise out of them.) Ty throws his head back and laughs like, "What do you want from us, dude?" And that's when the agent slapped a yellow sticker on our windshield and sent us to the "secondary inspection" area. Oh, great.
We park in the inspection area and take our yellow ticket inside where we quickly realize we're the ONLY white people in the building. Hmmm. We wait in line and finally approach the counter where a female border agent, who was most definitely allergic to facial expressions, asked us a lot of the same questions with only slightly less attitude as the first dude. At this point we're just annoyed because we have lunch plans in Bellingham and we were approaching 90 minutes stuck at the border... We rolled our eyes a bunch like, "We don't care if you search our car, go for it." She first searches my purse then asks for our keys and tells us to go sit with the rest of the unfortunates waiting to get their cars returned to them.
As soon as we sit down... Ty's eyes get wide and he asks, "Oh, crap. Is the Fireball in the car??" Ty had purchased a small pint of Fireball at the liquor store to sip on at our AirBnB before we left for the concert. When we were packing up our luggage the next morning, we just threw the remainder of the bottle in our backpack, not even thinking about the fact that it was technically an "open container." Then MY eyes got wide and I proceed to start panicking and imagining the worst case scenario possible. (In case you don't know, I'm a zero-to-cancer kind of person.... meaning I make mountains out of molehills. Ty is 5 minutes late coming home from the grocery store? He must have died in a horrific car accident. I wake up in the middle of the night with hip pain? Bone cancer. I find a new mole? Skin cancer. Bloo seems a little off today? Puppy cancer. You get the point.)
So, I proceed to panic about being arrested, about Ty's parent's car being impounded, about being stuck at the border and having to call Ty's parents to save us. "Your dad is going to be so pissed." I start to wonder if we'll still be in prison before our flight back to Vallarta the following Friday. That's normal, right?
We decide to just tell her the truth that we were just cleaning out our hotel room and totally didn't think about it being an open container. We were just gonna come clean and beg forgiveness!! I mean... We're not real criminals, right?! Please have mercy!
The expressionless agent loudly says, "Tyler!" and we both approach the counter with our rehearsed response on the tips of our tongues when she hands us back our passports and car keys and says we're free to go. PHEEEW. She might have found the bottle and not cared (as in it was too minor) but there's a good chance she never saw it at all...it was buried underneath toiletries and phone chargers and my makeup bag and we don't know how well she checked the car because you're not allowed to watch them inspect it. We booked it away from the border and I'm pretty sure Ty was shaking all the way to Bellingham.
The trip back to Vallarta was much more enjoyable travel-wise than the rest of the trip. As residents, we get to skip the tourist-filled lines at immigration and go through the line reserved for Mexican Citizens and residents. We were off the plane, got our bags, went through immigration and customs and were haggling with a taxi driver in less than 30 minutes from the time our plane landed. Like old pros! Side note: Why, oh, why are people vacationing to the Banderas Bay in AUGUST?? Like, people were leaving their home states in probably the nicest month of the year, and coming HERE in like the WORST month of the year. Do your research, people!
Okay, this was a super long post and the bartender is probably ready to kick us out... Time to go back home and be internet-less and bored like an old Amish couple.
Peace out, peeps!
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