Here are some notes I kept on my way to Xalapa and shortly after my arrival:

August 9, 2007
I’m on a plane to Dallas, where I’ll take another plane to Mexico City, and from there I’ll fly to Veracruz. My adventure begins. I’m more sleepy than excited though because I got only three hours of sleep last night. Packing and cleaning kept me up till 2am and got me back up at 5. I felt a little desperate about cramming everything into my two large suitcases (to be checked in) and one smaller bag and a tote to carry with me, but I managed. Thank goodness for my friend Sharon, who helped me get my suitcases zippered shut, no small feat, and me out the door.

We’re nearing Dallas, and I’ll soon be crossing the border into Mexico. The land below me is scarred by fractal patterns formed from water run-off.

5:40pm in the Mexico City airport
Lucky for me, my seat mate on the flight from Dallas to Mexico City guided me through Immigration and advised me to get a porter to take my bag and me to the correct gate—or rather to the correct general area. But having arrived at the place designated by the porter, I still don’t know which gate is mine. At Información, I was told that the gate will be announced on the marquee at 6pm although that’s the time designated on my boarding pass as the time of departure. Who knew? Obviously, people used to traveling in Mexico--but not me.

In two hours, I’ll be in my new home city and my new home.

August 10, 1:30am in my new apartment
Too excited, perplexed, thoughtful (i.e., full of thoughts) to sleep yet.

Isabel’s sister Margarita, her cousin Guillermo Joaquin, and Margarita’s 9-year-old daughter Miriam Harmonia were there to meet me at the Veracruz airport when I arrived a little before 8pm. They made me feel welcome immediately, and they spoke slowly enough for me to understand their Spanish and listened patiently enough to understand mine.

We drove the 68 miles or so to Xalapa, and I took in my first view of the Veracruz countryside. It was lush and green all the way to Xalapa. The trip seemed short, perhaps because, as I learned from Joaquin, the speed limit on highways in Mexico is 90 mph, unlike the 75 mph speed limit on New Mexico interstates.

When we got to Xalapa, we stopped at a restaurant chosen to be the least upsetting to a newly-arrived-to-Mexico gringa’s stomach, a place called the California Restaurant. Margarita and Joaquin advised me to stick to cooked food and bottled water and avoid raw fruits and vegetables at first, so I ordered what turned out to be a delicious chicken soup with rice and some bottled water. I watched Margarita and Joaquin bring back various dishes from the buffet and enjoyed their choices vicariously. Miriam played on the MacDonald's-like playground while we ate.

After supper, they took me to my new home on Guerrero Street in the central area of Xalapa. Hauling my equipaje up the stairs was no easy matter, but after climbing two gentle flights of stairs, we arrived at the door of my apartment. I was delighted with it as soon as I walked in. It is comfortably furnished, with a nice-sized living room (with a dining room table at one end), a small kitchen, a large hallway that leads to a bedroom on either side of the hall, and the bathroom located half way between the living room and bedrooms of the apartment. The floors are of tile, and the cupboards in the kitchen and the closets in the bedrooms are of highly lacquered wood. AND as an added bonus, the mattresses on the beds are firm! It lacks only family and friends to move about in its rooms.
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BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR!
I was jolted from my writing by a loud ringing sound coming from the front of the apartment. I jumped up from my bed, located the phone on the kitchen wall, and picked it up. The fellow on the other end was asking about someone named Olga from Norway who had recently lived in this apartment. I explained in my halting Spanish that Olga no longer lives here, and he explained in halting English that he was sorry for having disturbed me at such a late hour.