We're Legal

FOR SOME REASON ENTRY 21/1/2007 DIDN'T POST. It's posted now. Feel free to read it.

This last week has had its ups and downs needless to say. Everything is fine with us, but we actually had to work on finding someone to help us buy a car, get a certificate of domicile from the police department and go to AFIP (equivalent to the IRS in USA).

First off, we went to the local policia comisaria (police station) and due to my absent mindedness and inability to speak spanish we were given misinformation. All the research that I had performed prior was correct, but due to our extended time on vacation (roughly 8 weeks now in California and Argentina combined), lack of mental stimulation, wine/beer consumption daily, great food and lack of exercise, I have become bluntly--stupid. I truly feel like I'm walking in a daze sometimes. I'm lucky if I know my name. I'm sure a lot of you have felt the same way after one or two weeks on vacation, now muliply that by 4. After sending a few emails and being redirected by Laura Zurro, ebook author of Moving to and Living in Buenos Aires, we were able to go the local comisaria on Monday and request a certificado de domicilio (certificate of domicile). This is written in detail in Laura's informative ebook. See link to Laura's website for more great information. Once you go to the police station and they fill out the paperwork with your address, they send a police officer to your apartment/hotel the following day. They told us that the officer would be at our apartment between 0800 and 1400 (2 pm). Jen and I looked at each other in disbelief. This was worse than setting an appointment with the cable guy! What do you do in an apartment that is maybe 1/5th the size of your previous house for 6hrs with a toddler who wants to play outside? You charge the DVD player the night before for 4+hrs of movie watching. Initially, when we arrived to BA (Buenos Aires) and found out that we would have a day of waiting at the apartment for a police officer, we figured that this would be a day of rest, much needed after all of our exploring for the last couple of weeks. However, we didn't plan on the building adjacent to us being manually dismantled with sledge hammers and jack hammers. Sections of ceilings and walls from the top down are being broken apart, which appears to be a unique thing to do around here. Literally, within spitting distance from our bedroom window are the jack hammers, so it is very noisy during the day. Needless to say, I do not like to be indoors when it's nice outside. Truly, I do not like to be indoors at all during the day for more than a couple of hours, so I think this was harder on me than the girls. Couldn't go on a run in the morning because I was worried the police officer might show up at 0800 . Furthermore, I'm on vacation, I don't wake up before 0700.

The police officer arrived around 1200, however, this is also the time Payton was going to sleep, she just happened to take a nap for over 3hrs. Therefore, the day was shot. Oh well. Ww probably needed a day off of our feet.

Wednesday: Payton started the morning off early calling my name "daddy." It was a little after 0600, Jen actually got out of bed before I did to see what Payton wanted. I think Jen is also enjoying vacation, because I don't think she has seen the light of day before 0800. I have been getting up with Payton every morning at 6:30 or 7:00. Payton's early awakening was a blessing in disguise. We got ready and took our dirty clothes to the local lavadero autoservicio (laundry facility where clothes are washed for you). It seems like there is a lavadero on every other block. We took 4 full plastic grocery store bags to the lavadero and they charged us 4USD.
After we dropped off our dirty clothes we took a taxi to downtown Buenos Aires AFIP office. This is the office that will grant us our CDI (clave de identificacion - equalivent to USA social security number) corresponding to our current address. When our taxi drove up to the office, it was closed, however there was already a line forming at 0845. I immediately got in line, Jen and Payton went window shopping down the street at a children's clothing store. After about 10 minutes they came back for the usual diaper changing necessities. Jen later told me she took Payton back to the children's store (Voss) where they had a children's play table with toys in the middle of the store. The sales person cleared off the table and told Jen to change her diaper right there (Never would have happened in the states). It was very nice of the woman to help us out. During Jen's absence the door opened and a flood of people, not following the traditional first come first serve philosphy, swarmed through the door. I immediately followed the signs to the information desk requesting a particular form for the clave de identificacion. After approximately 2-3 minutes of making a jackass out of myself, the employee informed me the AFIP office is next door and doesn't open until 1000. When I walked outside I was able to view the sign above the door, seeing the name of a local financial bank. We weren't able to see the names on the buildings when we first arrived because every store has a metal barrier that blocks the front facade, and they were all closed.

We found a coffee store down the street and waited until 1000. Walked into the correct office and filled out the forms in duplicate and were out of the AFIP office with our CDIs in a matter of 30 minutes. It's official! WE'RE LEGAL! Now we can buy a car, open a bank account and win the lotto with our CDI.

We immediately found another taxi and had him drop us off at the public international yellow fever vaccination clinic. For those of you who were wondering why we didn't get the yellow fever vaccination before we left for Argentina, it's simple-Jen and I got the immunization but Payton was ill when we had a sheculed appointment for her and she was ill off and on for the remainder of our time in the states. We wanted her to be 100% healthy before the vaccination because there is a less than 1% chance of encephalopathy. We don't want to put her at any more risk than necessary. How do we know that this is a safe vaccination clinic. We logged onto the CDC Traveler website and there is a specific list of international clinics that are authorized to give yellow fever vaccinations. We obtained the information and we're emailed by a local english speaking physician to this specific Vaccination clinic. We had one more thing going for us today. The vaccination time was between 11-12 for yellow fever and we arrived at 1050 in the morning. Unfortunately, we didn't know that we needed Payton's passport number for her to receive the immunization. I offered to go back to our apartment and come back within the hour, but Jen said that was silly. One of the ladies at the office suggested calling someone back at the hotel to get Payton's passport number, however, that wasn't a possiblity since we are here without other friends or family. Jen (DAVE I HOPE YOU ARE READING THIS) came up with the idea to call her dad who has all the information on us in a folder at his home. I grabbed the cellular phone and dialed their West Coast phone number and when the our call was connected I heard this disturbed and tired voice on the phone. I franticly turned my wrist and looked at my watch. OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually, I think the correct mental thought had, OH F--k it's 0500 in the morning. I pussy footed with Dave and handed the phone to Jen. The bad thing--He didn't have a copy of Payton's passport at the house after all, we forgot that we had left the copies in the safety deposit box. The call was for nothing. We apologized and offered to pay for a dinner out on the town. SORRY DAVE!
The nurse was nice enough and allowed Payton to get the immunization anyway under the stipulation that we come back tommorrow with the proper documentation. Payton handled the injection like any other toddler in a foreign country would when seeing a strange woman dressed in her Nurse whites and a tuberculin syringe/needle going for her arm. She kicked and screamed! After a couple of minutes she was over the trauma and we were headed back to the apartment in a taxi.

In the afternoon we walked to a local Renault dealership and inquired about the Kangoo. We spoke with Juan Harrington, a very nice salesman who spoke spanglish to us. It was enough for us to understand each other. However, I'm coming to terms with the fact that if we don't speak or anunciate properly portenos have no clue what we are trying to say. For instance, we were talking about amenties we wanted ie. air conditioning. In Spanish it's aire acondiacionado and he had no clue what we were talking about. Very frustrating for the both of us. At this point we are working out the numbers on the different types of Kangoo. It appears that we will be purchasing a vehicle within the week. Amazingly enough, it is very different purchasing a vehicle in Argentina than the States. In our case, at Renault, they do not have the vehicle on site. You negotiate the deal prior to ever seeing the actual vehicle. Once you come up with a price, you put a deposit on the vehicle (usually 1000 pesos for a 40000 pesos vehicle) and within 3 days the vehicle will be at the dealership. Then you inspect the vehicle and if it's to your liking, you have to go to a bank and place the rest of the money in Renault's account. Argentina has laws in place where they can not sell and accept money at the same location. They also don not do test drives, very different from what we are used to. I've been in contact with an Argentian who went to University of Oregon and traveled to Argentina by car from Oregon and now is partners with his brother who rents RV's to tourists to travel around Argentina. His brother, Sebastian, is very informative in the art of purchasing vehicles. So later this week, hopefully, we will be able to get a cheaper price with the assistance of Sebastian.

After the visit to the car dealership, we went to a very nice mall with a children's museum called Museo de los Ninos. Basicilly it was similar to the Children's Museum in Bend, Oregon except for it was on steroids. This place was huge and had corporate sponsors ie. McDonald's, Nestle and milk sponsors to provide actual equipment used in their industry, but on a smaller scale. It was amazing. We were there for a mere 2 hours, but Payton was nonstop. Buy the time we left it was 7:00pm at night and we hadn't even eaten dinner yet. Unfortunately for me, we ate at the mall. It's not like eating at the traditional mall. There were a wide variety of restuarants, some of them were serving actual steak. I was skeptical at first, but when we went to a Patagonia grill kiosk restuarant and requested a bifre chorizo, the girl went to the fridge, grabbed a 4-5lb redish hue steak (prior to cooking) and threw on the parrilla grill. This steak looked awesome. It looked like someone just cut it right off a slab of beef. After eating at the mall of all places, we left there just before dark and beelined back to the house in 30minutes . I think it was a little shorter than 2 miles away. Payton fell asleep on the way home, the earliest she has gone down in 2 weeks. Her bedtime has become 10:00, very different that in the states. Dinner is just served so late here. It is hard to get a meal before 8:00. She seems to like being up later.

Here is a sample of some of the Palermo (Barrio in Buenos Aires) homes. These are actually considered to be old mansions.

Thanks for all of the support and continue to send us comments and emails, it's greatly appreciated.