A few days ago I recounted the story of getting back to the United States from Mexico... but I think it's appropriate to book end that story with what happened getting into Mexico the weekend before that.  Ally and I flew into Cancun, but our final destination was actually Playa del Carmen, which is about 50 miles south of Cancun.

After getting through customs (which was a piece of cake), we walked out into a large room the size of a small house which was filled on both sides with podiums, lined with people whose only job was to welcome you to Mexico and give you any information you needed, for free.  Everyone was exceedingly friendly, bilingual, and very knowledgeable.  Compare that to the welcome that people were getting here in the U.S. by the TSA, and the difference is very clear.

Now granted, we were flying into a tourist destination... so they knew we were spending money down there, and so they had every reason to do this, but I still couldn't help thinking of similar destinations in the United States.  I had a hard time thinking of any airport in the U.S. that might do anything similar... maybe Hawaii (though I've never been there).

Another interesting note about the guy we talked with in the tourist information area.  The first thing he asked was: "¿Habla español?"  To which I responded, "Un poco".  To which he responded, "Learn Spanish".  That was also the last thing he said to us before he left.  Of course, my Spanish was a lot better when I left than when I got there.  Immersion in the language tends to spark memory pretty well.