A good picker
Welp, I’m late but better late than never! Sometimes during traveling you are chasing your tail when coming back into town to regroup to regroup to head back out of town. I’m not complaining but sometimes it’s overwhelming and exhausting. When you see those memes of one person knows the full itinerary of comings and goings and one that keeps asking where we are going? One of those is me…
I laugh because I am just having a discussion with the gentleman on the plane next to me who is from Los Angeles and has four kids. One kid knocked over a milk shake and one knocks over two bags all within five minutes. He apologized and I quickly explained I am his children. From knocking things over to tripping to dropping things that splatter I do it on the regular. I continued to say I can be a lot and I had just gotten back from Mexico from visiting a friend and the number of times I knocked something over, or made a massive mess and made him shake his head was countless.
Our discussion led to why in Mexico and I explain baseball and his son behind me perks up and says “I play! And we love it all!” I then confirmed they were from LA so I then pulled out a pic of Yasiel and the dad immediately looked at picture of us and said is that “Yasiel Puig?” and I and I think the family about crapped their pants. Dad, two sons, and the daughter were all so excited and all massive fans and totally knew and followed Yasiel.
When I am with him I often make him sign tickets, balls, random things I can carry in my bag because I know how loved he is. Lisette his agent gets tickled at me surprising fans when I pull out a signed ticket and hand it over. It makes my day and I know I have made many fans years. He is so loved and has made such an impression on lifelong fans so to be able to do a random fun surprise like that thrills me. Sadly today I didn’t have anything to give the family. 😏
But one thing I wanted to share about all this not only is he loved from his many fans, Yasiel puts a genuine effort to build relationships with people in each place he goes and the people he finds and chooses are amazing! It is like I chose them myself.
So I do genuinely enjoy especially the extras I get to meet when traveling with Yasiel and the friendships he has made and in turn I get to make. He had two families especially in Mexico that had really taken him in. If needed help they would be who he would call, and not to mention spoiling him and then myself and his mom when visit by pulling out all the stops.
There were plenty of times in Mexico I was overwhelmed extremely because trying to do something by myself and I don’t speak the language and I didn’t always have someone with me to help translate or guide. Fortunately I don’t let those things stop me from traveling the next time, it just makes me work on my Spanish more and realize the importance of friends near and far.
Maria, Gus, Veronica, Marco and family. I hope able to translate this so you know how much I appreciated your hospitality daily!! From help at ball games, to explaining the culture and area to driving us often to events to make it easier for Maritza and I. Not to mention the repeated spoiling of food at special restaurants but most importantly our last night where we had an amazing Cuban feast (viejo ropa) and black beans and rice that was amazing. Plus paella and desserts to finish it off.
As we were finishing dessert that part of Mexico had a power failure and we had a ball improvising. Veronica (the hostess with the mostest that needs to be on real housewives of Mexico) runs away and grabs fans for each of us to help until we made the decision to head to the beach. Half of the area also has that idea so we had a ball sitting in the street, feeling the breeze, listening to the ocean waiting for the power.
All part of what I love about traveling is you can’t always plan everything but what you do with a shitty situation can make or break a trip and also create the most amazing memories with incredible people.
Until next time,
Jenny
