To get to Tijuana, the quickest, cheapest and most convenient route is to fly into San Diego and then drive over to TJ. The drive back takes about 20 minutes from San Diego airport, a short time by any city's standards.
So Ahmed booked his flights to San Diego, flying American Airlines, arriving at 5.25pm on Friday 26th September. I drove to San Diego to pick him up, via the two hour border queue and Whole Foods to stock up on yummy goodies.
The Dallas/Fort Worth flight arrived, everyone got off the plane, picked up their luggage, but no Ahmed. I sat at the airport crying - this is the end of a super stressful couple of weeks (make that: months), and I couldn't think how he could contact me, and frankly, I couldn't deal with yet another setback. Turns out he was on the following flight, having missed his connection, due to yet another two hour 'Welcome to the USA' interview. Lucky guy gets to have chats with the charming US immigration officials every time he enters that precious country.
Odd how the only two other people being interrogated were from the Middle East. Nothing random in that selection, I believe. No blue-eyed blondies frequenting the secondary inspection office. Ironically part of Ahmed's hold-up was thanks to another blue-eyed blondie. Many months ago, when Ahmed took his parents back to the airport, he offered a lift to a shopping mall across the border to a blond, blue-eyed Norwegian, Nikolai. He and his wife are also in the process of adopting here. In Nikolai's position at a shipping company, he frequently travels to such scary nations as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan. With those visas in his passport, their simple trip to the airport/shopping mall turned into a six-hour nightmare of interrogation at the border. The repercussions of that trip are that now Ahmed has to answer questions about Nikolai on his entrance into the USA. Where was he born? What's his job? etc, etc. About a guy who Ahmed has spent maybe one hour with aside from that border crossing.
Moral of the story: don't offer to take people you don't really know to the USA in your car.
We do not intend to visit the USA or fly American Airlines after this adoption, if there is any possible way to avoid it.
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3 comments:
Oh, but a few of us here are really, really worth the visit!
btw, that last comment was from me - Beth
I thought I might have been the first to make a comment on your blog, but someone got there before me!!!!, and that's ok.
Interesting reading, and that is a lovely photo of Guadalupe and Maya.
Keep up those positive thoughts, and fingers crossed for quickest resolution.
Ma, Pa and Willie x x x x
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