Wait... you're in Mexico?!

I feel like that's the reaction most people reading this will have. Only a few people outside of my family knew that I was coming to Mexico for the summer. Of course, I didn't know myself until two weeks before I headed to the Salt Lake City airport and hopped on a plane, so if you didn't know, it's nothing personal! The past six months of my life have just shown that apparently, I like making huge decisions last minute and in the spur of the moment. What can I say? It's the procrastinator in me, I think.

I came to México with a teaching program called International Language Programs (ILP for short). They send native English-speakers to Thailand, China, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and México to teach English in schools. I chose to come to México because not only is México a great place in general, but I also wanted to improve my Spanish! I am currently teaching with two other ILP teachers in a school in Pachuca, and my students range anywhere from three to eight years of age. The kids are adorable and I already love them, but teaching can be really difficult at times! Props to every elementary school and preschool teacher out there!

The trip to México turned out to be quite an adventure. What was initially supposed to take 12 hours ended up taking almost 30! (Oh, and did I mention that I was packing/cleaning out my apartment literally up until the minute that I left Provo?) Our original flight itinerary had us leaving the Salt Lake City airport, flying to San Francisco for a three-hour(ish) layover, and then flying straight to México City. The flight to San Francisco went off without a hitch. Checking my luggage? No problem. Security? Check. Boarding the plane? Swell.

My younger sister, my mom, and I at the Salt Lake airport right before I left!

The two other ILP girls and I landed in a dark, cold and windy San Francisco about two hours after leaving Salt Lake City. After disembarking, we found the terminal and gate for our red-eye flight to México and settled in to wait. When our boarding call came (only in Spanish--I guess they figured that anyone going to México City should know Spanish), we were more than ready to get on our way. The universe had other ideas though.

First, one of the passengers hadn't shown up, so they had to get his luggage off the plane. Then, the luggage had been loaded off-balance and they had to rearrange it. Two hours after boarding, we were finally in the air! What seemed like two minutes later (oh wait--it was), we were landing... back in San Francisco. The flaps of the plane weren't functioning properly and they had to bring the flight back down. As all of the passengers filed off the plane and back into the airport, the airline announced that they were trying to find another plane and that they had rescheduled the flight to leave at 3:00 am (at least I'm pretty sure that's what they said; it was all in Spanish again). We were just getting ready to wait it out, getting cozy with our little airline blankets that we had stolen taken as souvenirs from the plane, when they announced (in Spanish AND English this time, thank goodness) that the flight was cancelled and that everyone needed to make their way to the service desks to get new flights. It was two more LONG hours in line, a few middle-of-the-night phone calls to family/ILP people, and another three hours waiting for our flight before we were FINALLY on our way! Only who knew that you have to fly clear across the country to Washington D.C. in order to get to México?

Settling in to wait in the San Francisco airport after our 'delayed' flight.

Of course, the new flight plan meant we had to re-check our luggage, and just FYI: the Salt Lake airport is evidently a smidge more lenient when checking luggage than San Francisco. Between my backpack and my carry on (and a bag hidden under my blanket; how sneaky am I?), I hauled around an extra six pounds through airports and airplanes all the way from San Francisco to México City. That's not that much extra weight, and yet I now have a great deal more sympathy for pack mules. The very small silver lining to our little game of musical flights was our two free meal vouchers. Just one more quick tidbit of information for you: $7 buys a whole lot more in the Washington D.C. airport than it does in San Francisco.

Flying out of San Francisco I had a window seat, so I had an excellent view of the Bay Bridge (and you can even see the Golden Gate in the corner!).  Just think: if we'd taken the alternate option and stayed in San Francisco until Sunday night, maybe we could've seen it up close.

Descending about 5-10 minutes from the Washington D.C. airport.

After a long night with no sleep, my friends Advil PM and earplugs helped make the flight from San Francisco to D.C. a very smooth ride. We only had an hour and a half layover in D.C. before our flight to México so I had just enough time to put my contacts back in, brush my teeth, and change my shirt (I guess having to take some clothes out of my checked bag was good for something). They were already boarding when I grabbed some Dunkin' Donuts, but hey, I couldn't waste the meal voucher! At this point, everyone was excited because we were finally leaving the country! From there, everything went great. We got to México, went through customs (I got my first stamp in my passport!!!!), and found the person meeting us at the airport. I did have to get all of my bags searched at the airport, but it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. After our first meal in Mexico (it was Subway, by the way; VERY foreign), we rolled into our apartment in Pachuca around 12:15 am.

Thinking about it now, it feels like it's been forever since our wild ride here, but it was only two weeks ago! Those two weeks have flown by in a flurry of different activities. Stay tuned for more details!