31st October 2000
Oct. 31st, 2005 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienHallowe'en five years ago was a memorable day for me.
2000 was a busy year for me, with a lot of mostly work-related travel. By the time I came back from the Tenerife conference in early October, I'd had enough. Unfortunately, this trip couldn't be avoided. My visa was due to expire on the 31st; the new one was approved, but I realized when I got the paperwork that, because I'd travelled internationally while the wheels of bureaucracy were grinding, the permission to stay in the US after the old one expired wasn't valid. That cued a frantic scramble to book an appointment at the consulate in Cuidad Juarez, in the course of which I spent an interesting afternoon in mostly Spanish-speaking voicemail loops. I was nervous about the whole thing; I'd much rather have gone home again and done it in London, but management and the lawyers were insistent on the Mexico route.
The day of the appointment, I woke up in Tucson, at an indecently early hour. That had not been the plan; I was supposed to fly to El Paso the day before and spend the night in a hotel there. Unfortunately, AmericaWest and an unseasonably stormy spell conspired to stop that happening, leading me to come home from an abortive evening trip to the airport and spend a few uneasy hours in my own bed before heading out again. I packed a single carry-on, most of which was taken up by my four-inch stack of paperwork, along with overnight things, a CD with my most precious files, a little favourite jewellery, a book, my travelling Bible, and my crochet kit. I wasn't a hundred per cent sure I'd be coming back, though I didn't have a real plan for what to do if the visa was refused, just a vague notion that I'd have to travel across Mexico to find a way home to England.
The airport shuttle duly came for me, long before dawn, and this time there was a plane, a dinky little thing too small for a jetway; the dozen or so passengers had to troop out onto the tarmac. Less than an hour later, we landed in Phoenix. I bought half a dozen miniature cinnamon rolls from a fast-food joint and called them breakfast, and waited for my connection. And waited. And waited. Phoenix was fogged in -- only a little early-morning ground fog, relic of the previous night's thundery rain, but enough to ground the planes. I needed to be in El Paso by 11am, and the consequences of missing that didn't bear thinking about.
Eventually the plane to El Paso boarded and took off. I tried to crochet, and the thread tangled coming out of the skein, leaving me to fret and watch the time as the plane trundled eastward. By the time it touched down, my watch said it was 11am.
Fortunately for me, the clocks had just gone back, everywhere but Arizona. The clocks in El Paso stood at 10am. Now I just had to make contact with the shuttle company that was expecting to pick me up from my hotel. Much pacing in a near-empty terminal and a couple of phone calls later, that was done. This was a company specializing in visa trips; they even offered the service of paying the visa fee into the appropriate Mexican bank. I was, it turned out, the only passenger for that trip. The driver pointed out some brown hills, just like all the other brown hills around the city, and told me that was Mexico. The sky was pale blue, no different from Tucson; I was probably overdressed in my trench coat, slacks and two sweaters.
Getting into Mexico was easy; a flimsy paper 'tourist card' got stamped in an almost-deserted office on the far side of the bridge over the concrete-conduited Rio Grande, and that was it. The streets on the other side were different; narrower, more crooked, more chaotic. The shuttle driver let me off on a corner within sight of the consulate, after pointing out the Holiday Inn where I was to rendevous with my ride home. I was very much in the dropping-things stage of stress at that point, and scattered papers all over the street, but managed to gather everything important and reached the consulate entrance safely.
The guards at the gate glanced into my bag, looked at my papers, and let me through, into a yard behind the consulate building. The place was crowded with Mexicans clutching slim folders and talking Spanish; there was very little in the way of indication what to do next. I worked my way through the crowd and eventually found a door where I presented my credentials and was given a number. I waited. There was nowhere to sit, and very little shade; there was a vending machine where I was able to buy a bottle of water with American currency. After a while, I was allowed inside to join what turned out to be a very short line, reserved for English speakers. The only other person in line was a Russian doctor, accompanied by her lawyer.
The first stage of the process was fairly painless; I handed in my papers and passport and looked at a camera. Then it was outside again, to wait some more. I got out my crochet hooks, and the other skein of yarn, and started a small doily squatting in a corner while chatting to the Russian and her lawyer. He was a friendly type, and claimed to have worked for Sylvester Stallone. He was also mildly appalled that I was there on my own, which didn't exactly boost my confidence.
[To be continued]
2000 was a busy year for me, with a lot of mostly work-related travel. By the time I came back from the Tenerife conference in early October, I'd had enough. Unfortunately, this trip couldn't be avoided. My visa was due to expire on the 31st; the new one was approved, but I realized when I got the paperwork that, because I'd travelled internationally while the wheels of bureaucracy were grinding, the permission to stay in the US after the old one expired wasn't valid. That cued a frantic scramble to book an appointment at the consulate in Cuidad Juarez, in the course of which I spent an interesting afternoon in mostly Spanish-speaking voicemail loops. I was nervous about the whole thing; I'd much rather have gone home again and done it in London, but management and the lawyers were insistent on the Mexico route.
The day of the appointment, I woke up in Tucson, at an indecently early hour. That had not been the plan; I was supposed to fly to El Paso the day before and spend the night in a hotel there. Unfortunately, AmericaWest and an unseasonably stormy spell conspired to stop that happening, leading me to come home from an abortive evening trip to the airport and spend a few uneasy hours in my own bed before heading out again. I packed a single carry-on, most of which was taken up by my four-inch stack of paperwork, along with overnight things, a CD with my most precious files, a little favourite jewellery, a book, my travelling Bible, and my crochet kit. I wasn't a hundred per cent sure I'd be coming back, though I didn't have a real plan for what to do if the visa was refused, just a vague notion that I'd have to travel across Mexico to find a way home to England.
The airport shuttle duly came for me, long before dawn, and this time there was a plane, a dinky little thing too small for a jetway; the dozen or so passengers had to troop out onto the tarmac. Less than an hour later, we landed in Phoenix. I bought half a dozen miniature cinnamon rolls from a fast-food joint and called them breakfast, and waited for my connection. And waited. And waited. Phoenix was fogged in -- only a little early-morning ground fog, relic of the previous night's thundery rain, but enough to ground the planes. I needed to be in El Paso by 11am, and the consequences of missing that didn't bear thinking about.
Eventually the plane to El Paso boarded and took off. I tried to crochet, and the thread tangled coming out of the skein, leaving me to fret and watch the time as the plane trundled eastward. By the time it touched down, my watch said it was 11am.
Fortunately for me, the clocks had just gone back, everywhere but Arizona. The clocks in El Paso stood at 10am. Now I just had to make contact with the shuttle company that was expecting to pick me up from my hotel. Much pacing in a near-empty terminal and a couple of phone calls later, that was done. This was a company specializing in visa trips; they even offered the service of paying the visa fee into the appropriate Mexican bank. I was, it turned out, the only passenger for that trip. The driver pointed out some brown hills, just like all the other brown hills around the city, and told me that was Mexico. The sky was pale blue, no different from Tucson; I was probably overdressed in my trench coat, slacks and two sweaters.
Getting into Mexico was easy; a flimsy paper 'tourist card' got stamped in an almost-deserted office on the far side of the bridge over the concrete-conduited Rio Grande, and that was it. The streets on the other side were different; narrower, more crooked, more chaotic. The shuttle driver let me off on a corner within sight of the consulate, after pointing out the Holiday Inn where I was to rendevous with my ride home. I was very much in the dropping-things stage of stress at that point, and scattered papers all over the street, but managed to gather everything important and reached the consulate entrance safely.
The guards at the gate glanced into my bag, looked at my papers, and let me through, into a yard behind the consulate building. The place was crowded with Mexicans clutching slim folders and talking Spanish; there was very little in the way of indication what to do next. I worked my way through the crowd and eventually found a door where I presented my credentials and was given a number. I waited. There was nowhere to sit, and very little shade; there was a vending machine where I was able to buy a bottle of water with American currency. After a while, I was allowed inside to join what turned out to be a very short line, reserved for English speakers. The only other person in line was a Russian doctor, accompanied by her lawyer.
The first stage of the process was fairly painless; I handed in my papers and passport and looked at a camera. Then it was outside again, to wait some more. I got out my crochet hooks, and the other skein of yarn, and started a small doily squatting in a corner while chatting to the Russian and her lawyer. He was a friendly type, and claimed to have worked for Sylvester Stallone. He was also mildly appalled that I was there on my own, which didn't exactly boost my confidence.
[To be continued]
