On my way

Currently I'm sitting in a cafe/restaurant drinking sangria and eating french fries. Which seems about right, since I'm in between worlds, here in the airport at Cancun.
I didn't get much sleep taking the red eye from Oakland to Boston despite the fact that I had all three seats to lay out on and conditions were perfect. I was so tired getting into Boston that I ended up looking for a cart and ended up in baggage claims. By the time I got the cart, I realized I had to check back into security, and an hour later I ended up about 10 feet from where I'd gotten off the plane at 6 AM. Then I waited another hour and a half for my next flight.
All in all, today has been a humbling reminder that I need to keep my wits about me, apparently even domestically.
I sat next to a couple on the way to Cancun with thick Boston accents. The woman was wearing about 5 rock star leather bracelets, and the guy some gold loop earrings. Somehow, despite their accessories, they had no interest in talking with me, cool young person that I am. I think I pissed them off by sleeping the whole flight while occupying the aisle seat. I tried to help out by tucking my knees into my sweatshirt and making a ball out of myself, but I have a feeling that just made them resent my flexibility.
When we landed the woman cheered 'Yea Cancun! Tequilllla!'.
When I finally made it to customs with the other gringos, the mexican border guy didn't ask me one question. Just stamped me along. Then I had to fill out a form saying I didn't have any swine flu symptoms, which you can still see the after trauma of here--(like the waiter here offering me a squirt of hand sanitizer before I made my order).
Not surprisingly, on of my suitcase pockets burst, and I had to leave some of the spices and shampoo behind. When I made it out mostly in one piece from customs, a nice handsome porter offered to help me in very good english. I slipped into english with him too, my old shyness coming back, and he took me to the gate for Mexicana.
There a travel agent who handles the (I'm guessing especially US) visas into Havana helped me out while the porter stood guard of my bags with an increasingly achy looking shoulder. Although I missed the first flight I was hoping to get, I did end up getting a much better deal than I expected. She agent me how long I wanted to stay, gave me a 15 dollar two month visa and a roundtrip tickets on Mexicana all for 350. I'm hoping it's all as simple as it seems, because I was thinking it was going to be much harder than that. Here's to trusting people in uniforms and official looking paperwork.
Getting the tickets lifted my spirits and I started speaking to the porter in Spanish, which he seemed shocked I had known all along. I was glad to see he felt more comfortable (rather than patronized) when I slipped into speaking his native language. That said, my accent is not what it was when I left, and I look forward to getting back some of that Cuban slur.
That's it for now. Stay tuned for Habana, and hopefully much more interesting stories to come.
Rachel