Our journey is never less in excitement. And usually to add to it we always have anxious moments at the customs. Last two times that we were at the airport we had those moments. One when we were travelling to India a year back. After looking at the papers, the security guy said that they were not enough for our travel. Showing AP didn't help. He said that's for us to come back to US, but not for travelling out of States. Infact, we don't have a legal status he said.! I was completely dumbstuck. In that moment, my happiness of travelling to India, preparing for it for months, everything came shattering down.. Then, we pulled the last card our of the folder. Which he took and said, oh, you should have shown me this first. And he let us go.! Whew....
Rewind back to 2 days ealier, Yogi was keeping all the required documents in a folder and I casually asked him if he took EAD card. He said that's not required. I insisted saying it's just a card, doesn't hurt keeping it. So he agreed and kept it in the folder. We both were so happy that we decided to keep that. Otherwise we would have missed the flight and may be an enquiry would have put on us... You never know.!!!
Last december we went to Cancun (if you haven't read my previous post :o) ) 4 or 5 months before we had started preparing for it. Main thing was to get AP and EAD ready. Someone said we need Mexican visa. So we started looking at probably going to Chicago to get it done. Then Yogi came across a clause in the visa requirement. It said, if you have a valid US entry papers then you don't need to have Mexican visa stamped. So he called up their consulate just to make sure and they confirmed that we don't require visa stamping, coz we have valid papers to enter back to US.
So in all excitement we reached the airport. No issues. At the stopover, we had time to grab food and then go checkin at the gate. So we at lunch and went to the counter. We had about 1/2 hour to our flight. He looked at all passports, since my kids carry american passport they were good. He held onto ours and said, you guys don't have Mexican visa stamped. I started to explain to him the clauses, he would not listen. He kept saying that if he lets us go, we will be immmediately deported back!!!!! My son who was in all excitement of vacation, heard this and started crying out loud that he won't be able to do the things that he thought he could do!!!! While Yogi tried to handle both kids, I started expalining him more about talking to consulate etc. Then he called his supervisor. She took our passports and other documents and said she would try to call Mexican consulate and come back. Just as she was leaving another counter lady asked for help and she asked her to wait and left. Lucky for us that she was called first at our gate!.
Here we have only 15 more mins to the flight!!! Those last 10 mins were agonizing!. Imagine we were all packed and thinking of this vacation for last 6 months and these last 10 minutes were bringing all that imagination down. I must have thought about all the Gods and all the good deeds. Atlast I saw that lady coming back and not looking at me. My heart almost sank and she came close by and said, let them go.!!!!! YEY !! Those were the best words I had heard in a while. :o). So... we got to sit in the plane and continue to imagine all the good things that were in store for us at Cancun. :o)
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