I'm so glad your family returned home safe and sound. But I think I know why some people on the board are upset about the tourists in Mexico, including to a certain extent myself. I live on the Gulf Coast of MS. My home, my town, and my way of life was forever distroyed by Katrina. It will take my family, personally, at least a year or more to get back to whatever normal may be and we our debt will be half again as much as now, if not doubled just trying to get back to what we were. We are still living in one room in our house as we have not gotten our FEMA trailer yet-a room that we have made as livable as possible, but is still dust choked and still smells of the brackish, sewage, mud filled water that soaked 4 and 1/2 feet of our home. So far both my hubby and I have gotten sick with sinus and upper resperatory problems. And yet, we still have it better than many who are still living in tents, in shelters, and under tarps that they have used for make-shift tents. And, sadly, this will continue for several months to come, according to FEMA at least December or January before everyone affected in the Mississippi area is settled in long-term temporary housing. We STILL have many people using buckets as their toilets.. we STILL have many people without electricity because they have nothing but a slab left of their home.. we STILL have old people dying from PSTD, exposure, or a broken heart. So, when we hear Americans in Mexico complaning about the short amount of time they will have to put up with the inconveniences of a hurricane it does have a tendency to irritate us since we are STILL living in the same conditions they are in and it has been over 2 months, not 2 weeks. They stan in long lines to get out and go home to a house still standing, food in the pantry, appliances that work, we stand in long lines to get hot meals from the Red Cross. Does that help explain why there wasn't a lot of sympathy coming across on the boards? I really feel for those people who were stranded in Mexico and I repeat, I'm glad your family is home. But when you hear some woman b*tching about using a trash can as a toilet when I have friends still doing the same thing 2 months later.. And it is not as if I haven't been stuck in a foreign country during a disaster. I was in Hong Kong for a typhoon and in the same position as those in Mexico. I was also in Indonesia when one of the volcanos erupted. So, please think about that when people here criticize those in Mexico.