Stuck at the Mexican Border…con’t

Back again. Still stuck at the border with my friend. They let her in and told me I couldn’t. I should stay here. I asked them: “For how long?” They said: “Until you get a stamp from Guatemala.” They meant: “Forever.”
After a while they did let me on the bus, saying that there are two more border controls and they would send me back anyways. On the bus I unpacked my Poncho and pretended to be asleep. The bus stopped. My heart was pounding. An army guy came on the bus and screamed: “Your passports, please.” My friend showed him her and my passport. Silence…Then:
“Did you go to Guatemala?”
“No.”
“What are you doing down here then?”
“Just visiting.”
“What about your friend?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Why?”
“Because we walked a lot today and she’s tired.”
“Can you wake her up?”
“No. She just fell asleep.”
“Well, ok. There is another border control anyways.”

But there wasn’t. Thank God!

Guatemala and the trip forth and back through No Man’s Land

Not long ago I studied abroad. In Mexico, for those who don’t regularly read my Blog. Well, I would advise you not to lose your passport over there. If you think bureaucracy in your country is bad. Go to Mexico – it can be worse. So guess what? Yep, I did lose it – with the residence visa corresponding to the booklet in it. That, however, did not keep me from going to Guatemala. I got a new passport after 4 months and then I was on my way. With a friend of mine, thankfully. We stayed for a little while in San Cristóbal de las Casas – go there if you can – and then took a bus to the Mexican border. Since we were sort of experienced Mexico travellers we were as smart as to check at the border whether we were allowed to leave the country and come back in without a problem. According to the Border Security guy we were. So we walked across the border and then got a cab to the bus station in Guatemala. For those who don’t know. There’s a 3 mile No Man’s Land between the 2 countries. When we arrived in Guatemala, we had to get our passports checked again. Well, they did check them, but they wouldn’t let us into Guatemala, because we didn’t get a stamp when leaving Mexico. So we took a cab back through the No Man’s Land. And now take another guess? Yep, they did not want to let us in, because we didn’t have a stamp saying that we entered and left Guatemala. That is how fast you become an illegal immigrant….
to be continued…

uhm…watch your French pronounciation.

One day, still on my Brussels internship, I visited my friend Anna. She worked the night-shift and nothing was going on. We sat down at one of the tables in the lobby, got some coffee and company from another French speaking colleague of hers. We talked about many things of minor importance, among others cartoons. I like cartoons. That’s actually what I wanted to say. What I did say, however, was the following: “J’adore les deux seins animés.” – which is more like “I love animated boobs.” Oooops….

Irish Adventures

My best friend and I both had a summer-job we wanted to get away from. He found cheap tickets to Dublin on the Internet. Both of us were working in Belgium, so we figured: “What the heck, we might as well take 2 days off and go there.” That’s what we did. On Sunday we booked the flights and on Tuesday at 5 a.m. we were ready to board the plane, looking forward to our adventure: 2 days in Dublin. We didn’t book a hotel nor did we plan to find one. The plan was to not have a plan. So we ended up walking through Dublin all day visiting the major sites, having some Guinness at night, strolling around and trying to pull an all-nighter since we didn’t have money for a hotel. Remember? It was supposed to be an adventurous trip. However, after the Guinness museum (+ some pints of Guinness) we were hungry and went for an “all Irish” Mc Chicken. I could have fallen asleep right then and there. I just didn’t want to be the party pooper. So we kept on walking through town. I still remember a guy with his guitar on the street, playing U2 songs. Loved it! Still, I could only think of a warm, nice and cozy bed. I was hoping my friend would give up sooner or later so we could go find a place to sleep. Guess what? He did. I only had to hang in there another hour. Btw I was wearing light blue jeans that day and a black jacket . Anyways, it was only 10 p.m. (shame on us) when we were finally looking for a place to stay. A little late. Especially because there was some weird festival that day and all freakin’ hostels and hotels were overbooked. Nice one….

We ended up finding a hotel room at a 4* hotel. In our despair I ended up calling my dad whether he would be so kind as to financially provide us some help so we could pay for our exclusive shelter. He said that he’d love to. I wondered why.

Turns out a couple of years later that he thought my friend and I were a couple….let me tell you, that was not the case. He is gay.

You can freeze everything

I once had an exchange student who wasn’t really familiar with freezers. He complained that he had to go grocery shopping every third day and that there was no possibility to store food. So I told him that he can freeze almost everything and he could simply buy more and put it in the freezer. That’s what he did. A couple of days later I found him unfreezing a head of lettuce in the microwave…

bureaucracy at its best…back again

Well, guess what! On Friday I looked through my wallet and found a hidden pocket…What was in it? My old “legitimacy card”. Not only am I clumsy, apparently I’m also a bit messy…

Running out of gas…

This happened to me and a friend three years ago. We wanted to go to the first concert of Michael Bublé in Austria. Since he was playing in Salzburg, we had to go and stay there. However, it was impossible to find a room in Salzburg, so we decided to stay in Linz, about an hour from Salzburg. We checked in, went up to our room, strolled through Linz and then got ready to go to Salzburg. On the way I realized that I had forgotten my wallet in Linz. My friend said: “Don’t worry, I have mine with me.” Before we arrived in Salzburg we were running low on gas, but since we were already a bit late we decided to go to the gas station afterwards. In the concert break we wanted to get some drinks, went to the bar and my friend wanted to pay for the drinks. Uuuuuuuuuuups, she couldn’t find her wallet either…Not only couldn’t we pay for the drinks, how were we supposed to pay for the parking ticket? And how would we get back to Linz without gas?

Just another word confusion…

Going to a country far away from home is not always easy, especially if you don’t speak the language of your host country. In this case we are talking about Spanish and Mexico. My friend studied there for half a year. So did I. One day she came home after school, saying “crap, I just embarrassed myself in front of the whole class.” Here is how: She was sitting in her class and the teacher announced an exam and then said “I hope all of you pass it.” My friend  – trying to reconfirm  – shouted into the classroom “oreja” (ear!)…instead of “ojalá” (hopefully)…The laughs were hers.

Bureaucracy at it’s best…

For once a story for which I didn’t even have to leave the country…
It was on a rainy September day I decided to finally go to the municipality of the 21st district of Vienna. I had lost an ID that authorizes non-State University students to buy a cheap ticket for the public transport. The Vienna Public Transport calls it “Legitimacy Card” (I wonder who translated that). Anyways, if you lose it, you have to report that to the municipality of your district before they issue a new one. The same day I decided that it was time to wear in my new stiletto boots. When I got to the municipality I was soaking wet. The lost and found office is on the first floor up the wide winding staircase. After telling the lady that I had lost my “legitimacy card” I was sent to the cash register. You have to pay a bit more than €2.- for a loss note in Austria, so don’t lose too much, you might go bankrupt. FYI, the cash register is on the third floor. Again, I had to walk up the wide winding staircase. I paid my dues, turned around to walk back down the wide and winding stairs, when my phone rang. Thinking that as a woman I am able to multitask I picked up the phone while putting the loss note in my bag and while tiptoeing down the staircase on my new stiletto boots. This could only go wrong. And it did! I overlooked a step and slided down till I came to rest in the second floor. No lost & found office there, I tell you that much. How I know? I landed right at the feet of a bridal couple with its entourage of 40 people, including some hot guys in tuxedos waiting to get into the civil registry’s office…

…it started at an early age

My dad won a trip to the US in 1994. I was 9 years old when I first crossed the Atlantic ocean and went on a road trip on the west coast. 4 weeks of pure excitement…for once I was lucky. We did the whole tourist thing…San Francisco, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Yellowstone National Park, Las Vegas and L.A., amongst others. We didn’t leave out the Grand Canyon either. This is were my most vivid memory of this trip comes from. I can still remember what I was wearing that day. That is actually one of my gifts. Ask me about any pivotal experience of my life and I can tell you what I was wearing. I still haven’t found out what I might use this gift for, but back to the story. I was wearing a barbie pink skirt and top with a cherries, bananas and apples on both – the skirt and the top.

I was fascinated by the beauty of the landscape…and the chipmunks that come so close you can almost pet them. So I kept running after them trying to catch one of these cute little things. Though luck! They’re pretty quick. After a while I gave up. I looked around, but I couldn’t see my parents. Not that I was shortsighted back then, they simply weren’t there. Now why the heck wouldn’t they run after their chipmunk-hunting daughter that already saw herself lost in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people who didn’t speak a word of German (”Bier” doesn’t count)? I’ll tell you why: My little brother had to pee and they where busy finding a restroom. However, I finally remembered the advice of my mother: “If you get lost, go back to the car.” Little me did so. Or tried doing so. The only thing that ultimately separated me from the car and my family was what looked like wild growing and tall grass. I didn’t see a bridge anywhere near, so I figured I might as well walk through it… .Turns out it was a swamp. All of a sudden it was not the Grand Canyon people paid attention to, but the little girl dressed in pink  – that got stuck in the mud…