The first shake down....

On Sunday we headed to Interlomas to pick up a few things at Walmart (there is one closer but it is....a bit 'ghetto'), Costco and Bestbuy.  The shopping went well...we even found a plastic house for Dylan's birthday. We had to take it out of the box to fit all the pieces into the car.  It really was quite a scene, Matt and the parking attendant trying to jam the biggest pieces in the back seat and me rearranging the groceries and assorted other items in the truck to fit the rest in.

On our way home we once again managed to choose the wrong option (it's complicated stuff..tunnels and bridges with roads running right beside them and sometimes it is really difficult to tell whether the tunnel or the road next to it is what you are supposed to take).  Now a lot of the roads have concrete medians (with plants in them) and gaps made for turning across or for u-turns so it generally is not that hard to get back on track.  Unfortunately for us we choose to turn around at a spot clearly marked with a no turn sign, something like the one below.  This would not have been a problem EXCEPT for the police car that happened to drive past while we were performing our turning around maneuver.  I looked over and saw the two officers agree to come back and "deal with us".

So we were pulled over.  This next part took part totally in Spanish with me looking mostly at the floor and hoping this would all work out  OK.  I heard a lot of 'infraction ....'infraction'.  When the officer walked away I asked Matt how much.  He said 1200 pesos.  Essentially he had been given the choice of going to a Municipal Office and paying 600 pesos or paying on the spot.  So we followed the police truck to a cash machine where Matt got some money out.  He went back to the truck to pay and the police open a notebook and motion to put the money in.  The Lesson...Don't get caught breaking the rules.