Ciudad Juarez! Por fin!

Traffic crossing the border

A sign posted, unnecessarily in this case, telling crossers
to slow down

I am in Ciudad Juarez!  Today was such an incredibly long day.  I got up and took Gizmo to the vet.  While I was there, I was talking to my friend who was meeting me in El Paso and mentioned that I was worried about Gizmo overheating in the car.  The vet's office was so nice, they offered to let me leave Gizmo there, without charging me.  So I did that.
Then I went back to my hotel to wait to meet up before going to my SENTRI appointment.  That is an appointment with DHS to get the pass to cross more quickly in to the U.S.  We were supposed to meet at noon, but she got delayed, so we ended up meeting just after 1:00.  We grabbed something to eat before heading off to the border.
There we parked and went in to the building to wait for my interview.  I grabbed my folder where I had all the important things I needed for the interview and we went inside.  Two things happened in that moment that was to affect me in a negative way.  Number one, I did not realize that I was leaving the U.S. when I walked in to that building to go wait for my appointment.  Second, I forgot my passports in my car.  When I realized that I forgot my passports, I tried to go out to get them.  Now, you would think that a fellow employee of the US Government would be understanding about someone like me, just arrived, getting ready to serve my country by living in Ciudad Juarez, who forgot her passports in her car where he had just seen me come from.  And, you would think that he would be nice, even if by law he could not let me pass, right?  Well that was not the case.  He was extremely rude.  When my friend came over to help, he was rude to her, too.  Finally he let me go, but it was not a nice welcome to the border, or to CBP.  But I guess DHS doesn't hire CPB agents based on their customer service skills.
The only redeeming thing was that once I got in to my interview, the man who interviewed me was very nice.  He was also very helpful even though there was a mix up in my SENTRI pass application that made it so my car was not registered with them.  I have to wait to get my SENTRI pass in the mail, go online to add my car, and go back to have them inspect my car.  He could do nothing to help me in that regard, but at least he was nice about it.
From there I had to pick Gizmo up from the vet.  When I arrived, I was told that they were going to need me to go back to get him.  Apparently they had set him up all nicely, but could not get him to come out of his carrier.  He also started hissing at anyone that came near him.  He was NOT happy.  When I went in there, he kept hissing at the woman who was with me.  But I was able to get his carrier zipped up.  As soon as I had picked up his carrier, he stopped hissing.  He didn't realize, but he would not have liked waiting in the car while I was having my SENTRI interview.

All my stuff unloaded from my car . . . yay for unpacking! :(

Next we went to get some groceries.  I had NO idea food was so expensive in El Paso!  Yikes!  I think maybe all the extra money I get for living in a dangerous city will make up for the extra cost of food! :)  Ok maybe it's not that bad, but I haven't done real grocery shopping yet.  I just got a few things to tide me by.  I didn't want to get too much since Gizmo had to wait in the car, and plus I didn't have much room in my car to put much more than I got.
 We finally headed to the border and went through the lanes.  It was crazy busy.  It took about 30 minutes to go less than a mile.  On the other side . . . in Mexico, it was fast going.  We came straight to my house.  One of my other A-100 classmates is my new neighbor, so we stopped by to see him.  Now I need to unpack my car before my welcome dinner tonight.  Looks like today will be even longer!