Taking Care of Business and Familair Faces

We knew our trip to Mérida was going to be a short one. We didn't know how much free time we would have as our primary purpose for heading south this time was to take care of banking business. We had received notification from the banco they needed documentation. The documentation wasn't something the Mx. bank actually needed or wanted, except that it was all part of complying with the USA/FATCA requirements. Originally we tried to contact the banco by phone and email, but to no avail. They needed us to show up in person. At first we kicked around the idea of going into Cancun and handling it at a branch office. We were told it was better to do in Mérida. We were in! And it was a good thing we traveled on to Mérida on Sunday. The plan was to get up Monday morning and spend as much time as needed to handle our business.
Going to the banco means we dressed up. That's what you do. I had on a skirt and Terry had on long shorts and a collared shirt. This was "official business" we were handling. 
While walking down Calle 59 in the center of centro, ran into Ernesto. As has become customary for him and us, he gave me a bracelet he was wearing and Terry gave him pesos in exchange. As always, he asked about his hermana and her kids.
Back to the documentation. The whole idea was to fill out a one-page form in Spanish of course, provide proper documentation to indicate we were who we said we were, and sign in front of a bank official. All to prevent the Mexican bank from having to withhold 30% of our balance and submitting to the US as if we hadn't paid taxes on the money in the account. Not something Mexico wants to do, but something the US is behind. We started out early enough and arrived at one of our bank branch locations, one of the big ones, on Paseo de Montejo shortly after 9::30. We waited a very short period of time before we were next in line for service. We had an exchange in Spanish and we could sense right away there was a look of "I can't help you". But he went and consulted others and about 20 minutes later came back and said we needed to go to the location where we opened the account. It's another story but when we opened the account we were up in the northern part of town...not a part of town we can walk to nor a part we frequent often. So we walked back down Paseo first and took care of other bank business - paying our fideicomiso. It was disappointing because they've changed their procedures and you no longer go to the back door and ring the bell, go up the dark back office stairs into the office where stacks of papers are piled up 2-3 feet on the desk. I kid you not. But that was fun and a little mysterious. Now you just go to a teller with your account information. But it was nice because the annual fee was less than what we had paid last year. Maybe they gave us a discount because we paid a month early. We don't really know why. 
So about an hour and half into our business day, we had gotten the fideicomiso paid and still had our mission unaccomplished. We hailed a taxi and went out to the small branch where we had opened the account. We waited for service about 20-30 minutes and then sat across the desk from a young, very professional account officer that took care of us. We both had the impression somebody from the other location had contacted him. It was as if he was expecting us. We had to give him our passports again so he could copy them, we had to provide our social security numbers, and Terry signed the form in his presence. We had bills with us from both the US and MX with our addresses on them as we didn't really know what all we may need. We also both carried our actual social security cards. But we didn't have to use any of that. I wrote down his name just in case. I don't know why or what I would need it for, but I have it. And he provided us with a copy. Done deal. We were through. 
From there we caught a taxi to the one place in all of Mérida that we are aware of that sells talavera tile. It was the place Paulino took us to purchase our kitchen tile. I was looking for Jalederas de talavera....cabinet pulls of talavera for the cabin remodel back home. No luck but it was fun to look around at all the gorgeous talavera tile. And, we had recently read an article where Paulino's name was given as the general contractor on a house remodel in town. It made us want to contact him and congratulate him. We hadn't really needed him for work on the casa in a while, but we missed seeing him and catching up on his whereabouts. 
It took us a while to find the best place to catch a bus back downtown. Terry started getting a little grumpy. Luckily we succeeded in catching the bus, and once we got back downtown we went and had a great yucatecan late lunch. Needing coffee at the casa, we walked over to Santiago for coffee and toothpaste. Would you believe when we left the store, we looked up and there was Paulino driving down the street? I think we recognized each other at exactly the same time. He pulled over as fast as he could. We talked for awhile and got to hear a little more about what he has been working on. It was super nice to see him. He will always remember us and the gas tanque story...we were two of the craziest, and stupidest Gringos he had ever met. And, funny thing about us is that we agreed with him. I know Paulino will never forget that story.

Terry and I had a discussion about the fact that it was Monday and our official business was complete. Do we stay around or head to the coast? By the end of the day, we had visited Julio's antique store and chatted with him. We had seen Ernesto, Paulino and Julio all within a few hours of arriving. We felt fortunate. So we purchased our bus tickets for Playa del Carmen scheduled to leave out on Tuesday morning at 6:40 am. 
That would put us at the beach before noon!