Pig Flu won't let us fly

So..... Greg and I have finally put the last box in storage. As we close the door, I realize that my passport is packed in a box.... in the storage unit.... which was like completing a game of Tetris as we loaded everything in. Woops- probably should have thought of that before. Three boxes, some furniture, and a dog bed later- the gods smiled on us- we found the magic box. But now where did we put that darn lock and keys?!? The gods were not so nice our second time around- we found them over an hour later.

This is pretty much how leaving went, and how getting to Argentina is proving to go as well. Everything that could hold us up did.... but we found a way around it. We departed to opposite ends of the country- Chicago and West Palm- to say one last goodbye to our parents and met up again in Miami.

To miss traffic, I left WP a solid 9 hours before my flight took off. While this would be rather terrible on most occassions, it worked ot well because Greg flew in from Chicago early and was waiting at the airport by himself.

Enter MIA- Are we really in the US? I swear we have crossed the border. The man who checked us in for our flight barely spoke a lick of English (we are flying Aeromexico- but still)- good practice in patience for the upcoming trip. (Note to self- learn Spanish STAT!- STATTER than STAT ) And apparently wearing a blue piece of cardboard on your face,held on by a piece of elastic, has become highly fashionable. Oh wait, silly us, that's to protect you from the pig flu (esp. when you pull it onto the top of you head ). You have heard the phrase "When in Rome...." well we refuse to be Romans today. Sorry- back to checking in.... we are trying to figure out if our flight to Buenos Aires from Mexico City (what timing- I know) is still going. We would rather be trapped in Miami than Mexico City (where the evil pig flu is lurking around every corner). The man smile at us and says "yes, yes no problem". I quickly learned that this means "I don't speak English" to Mexicans. We wish we would have learned that sooner.

Since there are 6 hours until our flight at this point, we hang out with our 300lbs of luggage until he will take them for us (did I mention there is a 70 lb weight limit for luggage on Aeromexico- probably the only thing they have going for them.) We are finally able to check our bags, we are down to about 4 hours and we ask another man- "is our flight going to BA from Mexico City even though it had been cancelled the 4 days prior" "Yes, yes no problem." Okay- not we feel assured.

Jump ahead 3.5 hours- we continue to ask around. We don't want to get on the plane if we cannot get out of Mexico City. However, we are assured by all of the people (6 in total- some 2 times) "yes, yes no problem". Great! We are ready...

Enter Mexico City...... we are stunned at how beautiful the airport is. Really- Americans could learn a thing or two from these people. We make it through customs and wander around for 45 min trying to find our gate. We keep looking at the departures, but it is not listed. And like Miami, no one speaks English. Finally we find an English speaking traveller to be our translator. Turns out we could not find the gate listed on the departures because the flight had been cancelled. By this point it is 1130 PM. No one seems to care that we paid for a ticket to BA and are going no further than Mexico City. It seems perfectly acceptable to these people that we are stuck here- no attempt to reroute us through Chile or another country. Except one attempt- to reroute us through Brazil. Great- we are happy to do this. Just get us out of MC! But wait- it turns out that you need a special visa to get to Brazil which you need to buy several days in advance- unless you are an Argentine citizen. The airline feels like they have done their part- so here we are now...... stuck in a hotel in Mexico City- close to the airport but not much else. No bars or restaurants are allowed to be open. And did I mention- we are among the very few not wearing a blue face mask- providing comical relief for this part of our trip. (We researched to see if they aid in prevention of the flu- and they don't. But it does add come blue to a smoggy brown sky :->