Into the Jaws of the Embassy

We did it. We got in our little red car, strapped the kid in, and off we went in rush hour traffic into Mexico City, into the brown haze that hangs over everything, cloaking from view the stacks of gray cinderblock houses that lean up against the hills like matchbox towers. We fought with combis and micros and trucks and the big bully buses that weave back and forth from lane to lane, forcing the littler cars to give way and be left behind beneath a cloud of spewing black exhaust. I truly feel sorry for people who work in Mexico City who deal with the traffic insanity on a daily basis. And I feel more sorry for the poor guys who stand on the white line between two lanes just to sell peanuts and chewing gum to the drivers stuck at a standstill. They have to dodge the motorcycles who come zooming along on the white line as well. Life is a trip in Mexico City, where people have to do very creative things to bring home a few pesos and put food on the table. Of course its like that all over Mexico, but Mexico City is just such an overtly oversized and simmering hot bed of poverty and filth and firebreathing children and bad jugglers and braided beggars and millions just scrambling to do anything for those pesos, selling stolen stickers and pens and razors on the metro, grubby kids on every street corner spraying grubby water on your windshield and cleaning them dirtier than they were to begin with, all just for one peso, one peso.

So we made our way through all that, Nikis bravely driving and doing such a good job of it, and we arrived at a posh parking garage for Sheraton guests, paying way too much for the security of knowing our car would still be there upon return, and then we went to Starbucks to kill time till our appointment, where we paid entirely way too much for 2 sandwiches and 2 caramel macchiatos (when did they go up to $4? 180 pesos was our total - that's a day's wages for Nikis. and double the average daily wage around these here parts! So who exactly is drinking caramel macciatos here in Mexico??) Anyhoo, we finally went over to the Embassy at the appointed time, past the throngs and hundreds of hopefuls waiting in the tourist visa line. It tickled me to note that some clever entrepreneur was selling rosary beads to the waiting crowd. That is just so Mexican - to see a business opportunity in a situation like the Embassy crowd, very creative and playing right on all their fears and superstitions and hopes, so that they can pass the hours waiting with prayers to the Virgin and Hail Mary's hoping that She can somehow soften the heart of the grim consular official who is surely about to send them straight off to hell.

Our consular official thankfully was infinitely more friendly, as we had access to the side of the Embassy where "US Citizens" are allowed to enter. We did of course have to pass through security that makes a prison look tame - after donning fancy white gloves and swabbing down the baby carriage with I don't know what (checking our fingerprints?), the first guard let us in through giant steel bar gates and quickly shut it behind us lest the terrorists (or angry mob of Mexicans who had been denied visas) were trailing us. We then passed with the second guard where we had to dump our electronics and knives and dangerous personal belongings into a plastic bag, I had to throw my snacks into the garbage, and I had to take a taste of the mango Gerbers to prove it wasn't made of nuclear bombs. Then we had to pass with the third and fourth guards to go through the beeping airport style gate, and put our bags through the xray machine. Numbers 3 and 4 were women, though, and got so sidetracked oohing and aahing over the baby, that they pushed the stroller through the beeping gate and of course it beeped because its made of metal, but they just kind of shrugged and kept making eyes at baby. So I guess I could have smuggled my knives and nuclear bombs in on the stroller if I had wanted to! Then we passed with Guard 5 who actually was a receptionist behind bullet proof glass who ran an ID check on us and issued us our "passes" - woohoo, we're in. We then pass with Guard 6 who is heavily armed, who opens another big giant steel bar and bullet-proof-glass door for us, we pass by the guard station where the US Marines are watching every move, and we then pass with heavily armed Guard 7, who sends heavily armed Guard 8 to accompany one of us in the elevator while the other has to go up on the stairs. There we are received by heavily armed Guard 9 who directs us to the appropriate office. Whew!

Once in the office, all was mellow, everyone was nice, the ladies oohed and aahed over baby and he flirted with everyone but frowned of course in the one moment we wanted a smile - for his passport photo! But hey, it wouldn't be a passport photo if it wasn't horrible, right? So he's a US citizen now, or will be in 3 weeks when we pick up the actual passport. Pretty exciting. He celebrated later in the day by getting all excited over kicking a mini American football. I thought this was very funny after all the soccer they've been shoving down his throat. Wouldn't it be ironic if he preferred American football?