I always thought Hispanic people were cool with me. I had mexican friends in school and I always enjoyed hanging out with my “brown brothers”. But, today I realised that Hispanic people like to laugh at me and my ignorance.

I went to buy a ham and cheese at the Mexico City Airport. I was already overwhelmed by my lack of spanish and the fact that people in Mexico speak primarily spanish. Malora and I wondered the terminal looking for a good mexican food resturaunt. There was 7-11, Starbucks, and Sushi but no taco stands. After exchanging our Canadian for Pesos we finally found a sandwich shop at the furthest corner of the terminal. There wasn’t much for Malora but she ended up grabbing a salad, I ordered a sandwich and we got a coke.

When they asked for our order I tried to say “jamon y queso” but it came out “ham and cheese”. Everyone behind the counter found “ham and cheese” hilarious and repeated it in a over pronounced American accent. When they finally calmed down the guy behind the till muttered something to his buddy and said “175 pesos”. I thought he was joking and said.“No, no, how much?!” But it really cost that much. Somehow we got rid of items until all that was left was the funny ham and cheese, but dang that was a good sandwich.

Later, on the plane from Mexico City –> Acapulco –> Lima they were serving beverages and weird lemon flavored peanuts. I asked for a Corona and the stewardess looked at me and started giggling. She handed me a coke and I said, “ummm….sure” She laughed it up with the other stewardesses and mimicked me in that over annunciated American accent, “Sure….sure…..sure”

Do I have a thick American accent? I live in Canada. I apologize when people run into me accidentally. What is it with the accent thing.

When we finally landed in Lima we went through customs and stood in the line to find out bags. Eager to brush my teeth I looked at bags that might be mine until I heard 3 fateful words, “Sr. Tomas Bradley?” I knew at that moment I would be buying a toothbrush. Our teeth brushes are some where in Mexico and should be here soon…hopefully. All in a days work for the intrepid international traveler.

So now it’s been almost 24hrs. since we left our comfortable beds in our cozy home in Cochrane and now we are sitting in an airport Starbucks in Lima waiting for the Taca airline booth to open up @ 3:30 am and to check in to our flight to Cusco. At the end of that lies another hopefully comfortable bed in Cusco.