Flying Back Home

Last Thursday I left Ohio and flew back home to Mexico City.  My flight from Cleveland to Houston was scheduled to leave at 6:00 AM.  You are supposed to be at the airport two hours before the flight, and I had to return my rental car, so I set the alarm that morning for 3:00 AM.

It seems that there are a large number of flights leaving Cleveland in the early morning.  The shuttle bus from the car rental center to the terminal was standing room only, and the line for security was the longest I experienced on this trip.

My flight boarded and left the gate on time.  At that hour it was still dark.

Most of the flight was in darkness.

We were somewhere over Arkansas before the sky began to brighten.

The flight arrived in Houston slightly ahead of the scheduled time of 8:00.

I had a fairly long layover in Houston... around three hours.  Since I was flying first class on an international route, I was entitled to use the United Club lounge.  When I arrived, the lounge was jammed with hardly a place to sit down.  It was so crowded that people with one-time passes through their credit card were denied entry.  The crowd thinned out, however, about a half hour later, and the lounge was more relaxing.

From the window of the United Club

The gate for my flight to Mexico was just a short walk from the lounge.  It also boarded and left the gate on schedule.  Soon we were in air, and I was on my way home.

The plane flew out over the Gulf of Mexico, and north of Tampico we headed inland over the interior of Mexico.

The skies were cloudy over Mexico, and I not able to see anything below until we were descending to land.

There was no line to pass through immigration, and my suitcase arrived on the carrousel quickly.  At customs some people had to put their luggage through an X-ray scanner.  I was a bit worried since I had purchased so many personal items that I cannot find in Mexico... a couple eight-packs of soap and a dozen sticks of deodorant.  However, they must have thought that I was just another "gringo" tourist, and they waved me through without scanning my suitcase.

Once outside of customs, Alejandro was there to meet me and drive me back to the apartment.  I was home!