More Thoughts on Mexico, Braves Game, and Too-Small Shorts

The head of my department had bought tickets for yesterday afternoon's Braves game. It was optional, but I mean, who is going to pass up the opportunity to not be at work for half a day? It was fun - got to meet up with Meredith for a few minutes - but, it was HOT. I know, I've complained about heat a lot lately, but this was like Mexico hot yesterday. Except in Mexico you can hop in the pool and swim over to the bar where they will serve you any kind of drink you want - for free. It didn't help that we were in the outfield with NO shade and the sun was literally right on top of us. I have a hard time paying attention to baseball games when I'm there - I tend to talk or people watch. The girl I rode with & I left early - I don't even know who won the game...Anyway, I decided not to risk dehydration, so I went & shelled out $4.50 for a bottle of water. This was the 2nd time this week I have felt ripped off. The first time was Monday afternoon in the Cancun airport. People say things are cheap in Mexico, and for the most part they were. This does not apply to stuff you buy in the Cancun airport - mainly snacks. Our flight was supposed to be at 3:15 but was delayed till 4:00 before we had even got to the gate. So we decided to get some snacks since we knew we wouldn't even be landing till 7:00 or later. And anyone who has taken an international flight into Atlanta knows we have the most ridiculous way of handling international arrivals there. So we went to a little "convenience store" in the airport and purchased the following: 2 cans of Coke Zero, a can of Pringles, a small box with one sleeve of Oreos (maybe had 15 cookies in it), and a USA Today. The grand total for these items...$21!!!!!! The lady tells us "21" and I'm like, she can't mean dollars - but she can't mean pesos either because that's only like $2. So I'm like "$21? Twenty one? Dollars? Really? TWENTY-ONE DOLLARS?!?!?" Her reply "Yes". When we sat down we looked at the receipt and realized they were charging $2.50 for each can! $7.50 for the tiny pack of Oreos! $4.50 for the newspaper! I'm sure that lady laughed all the way to the bank after we left.

Then it got me to thinking about how I've done enough international travel to know how to not come across as a rude American traveler. One thing I've learned is that even if you can't speak the language, if you know ANYTHING at all, just trying goes a long way. So in preparation for our trip we obtained some travelers checks, which we used to exchange dollars into pesos. Well, we learned that apparently they don't like pesos in Mexico because most places we went provided 2 prices - the peso price and the dollar price. And in most cases, the peso price was more expensive! Why is this? It's their money?! We got ripped off so much because of the fact that we had traveled with very little American money and had to pay in pesos (when we weren't using our credit card). It was just odd to me.

My final thought was related to some too-small shorts. A few weeks ago Josh was getting Zachary dressed one morning. Usually what happens is he gets Zachary dressed and I get Liam dressed. I heard them in Zachary's room, and it sounded like they were having a hard time with something so I went in to see what was going on. Josh was trying to pull a pair of khaki shorts onto Zachary but they just wouldn't go. He says "These shorts are too small - I think we may have to retire them". I thought that was odd, because I had already weeded out everything smaller than 2T out of his dresser, and all the 2T stuff still fits him. By this point Josh had tossed the too-small shorts onto the floor and was searching for a new pair. So I picked up the shorts to go put them into the box of clothes that are too small for Zachary (to save for Liam) and I looked at the tag. It said "3-6 Months". No wonder they were too small! They were Liam's shorts. I guess we are still getting used to having 2 different sizes of clothes to deal with. This is probably much less confusing when your kids aren't the same gender.