issues

When we finally arrived in Sydney, we received a welcome basket from Fede's new company. And in that basket was a T-shirt.

In order for the T-shirt to appropriately reflect our situation, it should have said: "We have issues."

***

After a hectic and sad week of getting ready to fly off to Sydney, we were whisked away to the airport by my friend Robin. Robin was kind enough to not only drive us to the airport, but also to Costco. (We had ordered new spectacles, and we wanted to pick them up before leaving.) Robin also had the brilliant idea of taking pictures to document our last moments in Seattle.

And then we proceeded to the ticket counter. I was excited to be flying on Air Canada. It was going to be a short flight to Vancouver, B.C. and then a 15.5 hour flight to Sydney. It was the shortest travel time that we could find. Plus, Air Canada has the new airplanes.

We weighed our bags, and had to do some re-shuffling of items in order to make sure that each bag weighed no more than 50 pounds. And then we were asked a simple question: "Do you have a transit visa for Canada?"

We knew that Mexicans needed a visa to enter Canada, but we didn't think it was needed when we were simply flying through Canada. After all, we weren't trying to go to Canada, our ultimate destination was Sydney.

Also, Federico knew that some of his Mexican friends had recently driven to Vancouver without a visa. They had this pre-green card document called an "advanced parole". The ticket agent was very patient, and went to call Canadian immigration to determine whether Federico could get on the plane without a transit visa but with the advanced parole document.

While the ticket agent was calling, Federico and I just looked at each other and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. There we were, all ready to go, and now we would be stopped by Canadian immigration. We were worried about so many other things that week, we had simply assumed that all we needed were plane tickets.

This was another lesson for me about the privilege of having a United States passport. I easily forget that not everyone can travel as freely as I can. And while I was annoyed at Canada for being so strict about which countries can transit through Canada without a visa--others are probably equally annoyed (if not more) at the US because the US has similar policies.

Eventually, we learned that the advanced parole document was not good enough for Federico to be able to transit through Vancouver. So, we weren't getting on a plane that night. Thankfully, the ticket agent at United (Air Canada doesn't have its own agents at the Seattle airport, but uses United agents) was able to re-book us on a flight to Sydney, through San Francisco. No need for a transit visa.

We couldn't get on a flight immediately, but had an extra day in Seattle. It was actually great to be able to relax for one day. Miraculously, some of my closest friends were free that Friday, for one last good-bye party. And on Saturday, we went back to the airport with our four heavy bags.

There were some more issues getting on the flight on Saturday. We had to fly stand-by for the flight from San Francisco to Sydney. But Mexican luck was with us (after it chose to ignore us the first time we went to the airport), and we not only got on the flight, we managed to sit together too.

It was a long flight to Sydney. But we were so grateful to finally get off the plane. Slowly we are adjusting to the time zone change, and the humidity. More later about our first impressions of Sydney.