Hola! I am in beautiful Mexico City getting ready to play in the MasterCard Classic Honoring Alejo Peralta, hosted at the Bosque Real Country Club. I arrived in Mexico City Friday afternoon and my adventure began the minute I departed the airplane.
After a bumpy flight, I was a little worried about my golf clubs and whether the agency that coordinates all the LPGA ground transportation would be there to pick me up and take me to my hotel. As we departed the plane, I followed the mass of people heading toward the immigration lines. There were two lines; one for Mexican residents and one for non-residents. The non-residents line was the longer of the two. It looked like it would be an hour or so before I would make it to the front of the line. As I slowly inched forward, an airport police officer accompanied by another gentlemen, who I think was connected to ground transportation, asked me if I was Charlotte. The man had a piece of paper with pictures of LPGA players on it. I smiled and said, "Yes." The police officer moved quickly and headed directly to one of the immigration attendants. He pointed in my direction and I was ushered right up to the immigration attendant where my passport was promptly stamped! I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked at the long line I had just left and headed toward another area of the airport in search of my luggage and clubs.
I do know some Spanish, but would not by any means call myself fluent. I thought of my college teammate, Gina Umeck, who plays on the Duramed Futures Tour. Gina majored in Spanish and minored in Japanese. She loves languages. She speaks Spanish so beautifully and I have always marveled at her language abilities. Learning a foreign language can be difficult, but I did take Spanish beginning in middle school up through my freshman year in college. Mollie Fankhauser, another LPGA rookie who also arrived early, said that my Spanglish was fairly good! I am going to enjoy practicing with the locals this week and hopefully be more fluent by the end of the week.
Kathy Lawrence, the Senior Tournament Operations Coordinator for the LPGA, arrived at the airport around the same time as I did on Friday. After acquiring our luggage and my new Hogan Apex blades, we walked together through Customs, simply needing to press a button centered in the middle of a concrete pillar. The light turned green above the button and we were free to proceed through.
Outside waited a suburban and a police motorcycle escort. I was not expecting that and was very surprised! The police officers looked so young to me and I learned that the starting age for a police officer in Mexico is 18. Our driver, Alejandro, worked his magic with the help of the police escort, moving us quickly though the traffic of Mexico City. Looking out the window, I saw people staring at us as we drove by. If only they knew ... we were just some golfers!
Next Page: Preparations at Bosque Real
