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Bureaucracy, Argentine Style

You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had! I just got back from Chile yesterday and had to plunge right into two, count ’em, two tangles with bureaucracy.

My Boxes

The first, which I’ve been wrangling with for several weeks, is getting access to the two bins of personal and household stuff I shipped from Canada before I left. Apparently I got it all wrong from the start, and putting it right has proved to be nightmarish. I won’t bore you with all the many email exchanges and phone calls, but today I think we are getting close. Thank goodness for Cecilia coming with me — I can never repay her for all the help she has given me and I can’t even imagine doing this without her.

Anyway, this morning we showed up at one of the customs offices, where we had been told to go, to find that of course it was the wrong place. We had to get a taxi to another building a couple of miles away. To let you understand, these offices are all in the port area, which right now is undergoing massive infrastructure work and when you tell a taxi driver where you’re going he groans and rolls his eyes. “Muy complicado!” is the cry.

Anyway, here we lucked out, as the woman who served us had visited Canada and loved it — couldn’t understand why I would leave it to come here — and she seemed inclined to help us. I had painstakingly made up from memory a list of the box contents (because the idiot freight people in Toronto told me I didn’t need it), but of course it was in English. So I would need to translate it to Spanish and bring it back, and also get copies of many double-sided documents. We are to present ourselves there tomorrow, and if everything is approved, we will then go to the location (miles away) where the boxes are actually languishing. Will we get them? Who knows.

Residency

The other situation is to do with my residency application. I carefully gathered all the documents for that before I left Canada, thinking that dealing with the Canadian government while on the spot would be best. At one point, I dropped everything and flew off to Ottawa to get documents authenticated by Global Affairs Canada. The day cost me $700 — and they did it wrong! So now my criminal record clearance from the RCMP is useless and I have to get a new one one. The agent who is handling this sent me the instructions from the Canadian consulate but, being government instructions, they were totally incomprehensible. So tomorrow morning I’m going there to get instructions in plain English. This will hold up my residency, which will probably push back the timing of my getting my own apartment etc. etc. etc.

But as someone told me, in Argentina nothing is easy, but everything is possible. I’m clinging to that last bit. Stay tuned.

By the way, about Chile. I didn’t take my computer with me, and using my phone to post to the blog was just too finicky. So I have a ton of photos to sort out and then I can do a series of posts covering the trip. Hopefully I’ll get this done over the weekend. I did enjoy Chile though. As I’ve said to several people, a week isn’t very long, but it’s easier to come home when home is Buenos Aires!

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I’m a Millionaire – in Chilean Pesos!

We arrived in Santiago this morning to start our vacation and the first culture shock came with the money. We each changed US$200 and got 128,600 pesos! 1,000 pesos are equal to about C$2!

We went out to lunch and when the 20,600 bill came we both burst out laughing. We have to find an easy way to convert these huge amounts in our heads or we won’t have a clue how much we are spending. Hilarious!

Tomorrow we’ll take the hop on hop off bus and get a good look at the city. I’ll take photos.

 

 

 

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How Things Change!

This is almost the same spot as yesterday’s post with the singer video — only from inside the cafe! When I left on my early morning walk it was dry and fine, and while I was having breakfast the heavens opened. That’s the way it happens here. I didn’t wear my raincoat, so just squelched home along the street — the drainage here isn’t what it might be, so it’s always a bit of an adventure! This is what I looked like when I got home!

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a week’s vacation in Chile and need to get ready, so it’s not so bad that it’s a rainy day. Having said that, it might well clear up and be beautiful this afternoon. Vamos ver. (We’ll see.)

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Entertainment All Around

I’ve been busy working this week, tied to my desk as it were, finishing up client work before going on holiday to Chile on Monday. Today, Saturday, after working all morning I had lunch at home and then went out to enjoy the beautiful day.

I walked around the weekend craft fair, bought a little top for my holidays, and then went to my favourite neighbourhood cafe, La Biela for a cool drink. This young woman was standing just outside the area of the patio singing, and she was very good. She sang a nice mix of Latin music and standard songs everyone knows. I did a quick video of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” to share with you. Enjoy!

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Bohemian Rhapsody

Last night Venetia and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. The movie received the Golden Globe Award for Best Dramatic Production and Rami Malek took the award for Best Actor. The movie received mixed reviews, some feeling it was light on fact and heavy on Queen music, to which I say, “And the problem with that is …?”

The movie was a homage to Freddie Mercury and Queen, and if you love their music, as I do, that’s all you need to know. From my viewpoint I knew it was a success when I suddenly realized that when I saw these four guys on stage performing, I forgot I wasn’t actually watching Queen.

If lack of historical detail or messing with timelines bother you, stay away. But if you just want a couple of hours of immersion in great music and great memories, don’t miss it!

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Zarate

No, that’s not some new Spanish salutation I’ve learned. It’s a new place I’ve visited.

Zarate is about 90 kilometres north of Buenos Aires, and Cecilia has a friend there called Maria Luisa. They have known each other for a very long time, and Maria Luisa told Cecilia she wanted to meet me as she had heard so much about me. So on Saturday, we set out with another friend, Sandra, on our day trip.

It was a beautiful summer day, and we went straight to the restaurant down by the riverside. It’s called La Querencia (which as far as I can understand means something like home), and it was beautiful. It had a lovely terrace, but we opted to sit inside for lunch as it was cooler. We moved out for coffee afterwards, so had the best of both worlds. We even sat and drank some maté for a while, which I love.

After lunch, we went down to check out the water’s edge and took the photos. The bridge is the one you take to go north, and Cecilia and I have done that on several of our famous aventuras. We loved this little miniature pony, whose name was Luca, so we couldn’t resist the photo op.

Maria Luisa told us there is a famous tango festival held in Zarate in February, so I think we’ll be going back for that.

By the way, I’ve resolved to pay attention to taking better photos so that you can see some of the places I go.

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I Cooked Real Food!

If you know me well, you know cooking is not my favourite activity. I like eating, but cooking not so much.

To make matters worse, my temporary apartment has a gas stove, and I’m used to electricity. Truth be told, I’m a little nervous of it. I’ve made peace with the top burners, but haven’t used the oven one single time this year, last year or the year before! That severely limits my options.

In thinking about moving into 2019, that’s one of the things I’d like to change. I have to cook to eat, but I’m going to stop saying I hate it and see if I can learn to enjoy it.

Well, this year my brother and sister-in-law gave me money for Christmas, suggesting I use it to buy something for my new apartment when I get it. While I was in a department store downtown looking for a Christmas gift for someone else, I saw the answer — an electric skillet! I brought it home last week, and last night I finally used it for the first time — I couldn’t wait for the new place. Here’s the result.

Roast beef so tender I could have cut it with a fork, with yummy roast potatoes and onions. And no gas oven!

I’ve been Googling electric skillet recipes and it’s opened up a whole new world! This might even be fun.

Thanks Bruce and Elise!

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New Year’s Eve Picnic

This year we continued our tradition of having a picnic in Puerto Madero. This area is full of expensive restaurants and hotels that ask exorbitant prices for their New Year’s dinners, but we have all the fun of the music, fireworks and company by having a picnic, facing the beautiful Puente de la Mujer.

Unfortunately, we lost two bottles of Malbec when an unexpected gust of wind picked up the picnic table and they rolled off before we could rescue them! Disaster! We had champagne, but we wanted to save that for midnight, so Viviana and I went over to one of the restaurants and paid through the nose for a replacement! It was disappointing at first, but we soon got over it, and it’s one of those incidents that will feed “Do you remember when…” stories in years to come.

Thanks for your company and the delicious food Cecilia, Venetia, Viviana and Sally — and especially Cecilia for bringing the table and all the extra stuff that made the picnic so festive! Check out the video and share the fun.

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After the Milonga

In the summary of the week’s posts I sent out yesterday, I mentioned I had gone to dance tango at a milonga but didn’t have any photos. That’s true, but here’s what happened after tango.

Lina invited Annie and me to have champagne and nibblies in her new apartment. She just received final approval of her residency application — hence the champagne. I had thought I would just head home after that, but no. Around 10 pm Annie said she wanted to go find somewhere to eat dinner, and we all ended up at one of Lina’s favourite restaurants in the ‘hood. It’s called Il Sorpasso, a great Italian place with a lovely hidden inner courtyard.

The food was great and we were just enjoying chatting, when suddenly we had entertainment! Some typical folkloric music started up, and a fellow launched into the chacarera. It’s usually danced in couples, and it was unusual to see someone dance it solo. I know the video is really too dark, but I decided to post it anyway just to give you an idea.

Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with Darren, a new friend from Toronto who was introduced to me by Lynne, a mutual friend. We were having such a good conversation we forgot to take a photograph — sorry, Lynne!

Then Venetia and Viviana invited me to join them at El Sanjuanino, one of our favourite little local spots for wine and empanadas. This time we had tamales instead — delicious little parcels of meat folded into corn meal and enhanced by the restaurant’s famous hot sauce.

I don’t know if you can see this, but the white jug on the table is in the shape of a penguin, so when we want red wine there (as, let’s face it, we always do) we order a pinguino!

So you might be thinking that I do nothing but eat and drink and carouse with my friends. Well, is that a problem?!

I will take photos of the New Year’s Eve celebrations and post them tomorrow.

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Las Chicas!

Last night I spent a lovely couple of hours on the patio of La Biela with Las Chicas — a few of my great women friends in Buenos Aires. It’s interesting that other than Venetia and me, none of us knew one another just a couple of months ago.

Behind my left shoulder is Annie, on vacation from New York City. She found us at an InterNations event on her first evening here and immediately became part of the group. She had a tango lesson with Alejandro yesterday, and helped persuade me to go to the milonga tonight.

In front of her is Lina, a new friend who was introduced to me by Alejandro as she is also his student. She is from Arizona and, like me, she has been coming here on and off for years and has just recently moved here permanently. She’ll be at the milonga too.

Behind her left shoulder is Venetia. She and I have been friends for several years now, and she actually came to visit me in Canada last year. She is originally from England but lived in the U.S. for many years and has been in Buenos Aires now for about five years. She doesn’t dance tango, but we do go to a lot of concerts and other events together — she always has a finger on the pulse of what’s going on.

In front of her is Sally, a great woman from Ireland who has lived here for many years. I met her through a mutual friend and have been in her company a few times since then. Not only is she lots of fun, but she has a degree in South American Studies, so she is very knowledgeable about Argentina’s history and politics, which makes for fascinating conversation. Last night she gave me a copy of her book Tango, the Truth — look forward to reading it soon.

So now you know at least a few of my friends!