Buying a Car in Argentina

First, our experience in purchasing a car may be different from others, however anyone who plans on traveling to Argentina and purchasing a vehicle should use this blog entry as a guide.
Depending upon your situation you will choose to buy new or used. Keep in mind that we have been told by many people to purchase new because there is less paperwork and most cars here in Argentina that have been previously owned are in questionable condition. In addition, there may be liens/tickets on the vehicle that you may not find out about until after the purchase of the vehicle. From what I'm told record keeping/tracking is not very proficient in Argentina. Something to keep in mind, used cars in Argentina retain their value compared to the USA. Therefore, you may only pay a couple thousand less for a used car versus something new!

HERE ARE SOME GUIDELINES FOR BUYING A VEHICLE:

1) Plan on PAYING CASH for you vehicle and bringing that cash into Argentina in hand. Be careful with this! Legally when leaving or entering the US you are supposed to declare more than 10000 USD. Not to mention the fact that if a customs agent in Argentina finds the money, he may call one of his friends before you leave the airport.

2) Argentina has many laws, most of which I do not know, however we encountered a few in terms of money. Here are some of the laws that we learned about:
A) As a tourist you may not wire more than 5000 USD per person in a month (30 days) to a personal/business checking/savings account within Argentina. THIS IS FOR CARS ONLY, THERE ARE OTHER LAWS FOR WIRING MONEY TO PURCHASE REAL ESTATE THAT ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO PURCHASING VEHICLES.
B) As a tourist you may not exchange USD in excess of $5000 per month. In order to exchange USD you must give the exchange office your passport number and the government will track your exchanges.
C) You are unable to pay by credit card at the dealership for the purchase of a vehicle since the dealerships are only allowed (legally) to accept nominal monies. They cannot accept anything over $1000 pesos, which is what is given as a down payment to reserve the vehicle. The rest of the money is to be directly deposited into the dealership's corporate bank account.

3) What do you do if the vehicle you want to purchase is more than you are legally able to bring into Argentina or exchange in one month. A couple of options...
A) If you're a solo traveler and the vehicle is more than 5000 USD then you may bring in 5000 USD and bring in Argentian pesos (USD exchanged for pesos prior to entering Argentina) for the remaining amount of purchase. Be careful here, depending on the exchange rate and the spread in the US you really could lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars exchanging money in the US prior to coming to Argentina.
B) If there are multiple travelers in your group then you're in luck! Each person is able to exchange 5000 USD each month. If you're a couple, that's 10000 USD. Anything more than that you would have to buy Argentian pesos prior to coming into Argentina.
D) What about cash advances from a major credit card? We were told by a banker from Banco Frances and an employee from a Casa de Cambio (Exchange house) that Argentina does not allow cash advances. We haven't verified this information with Visa, however, feel free.
E) There are other many other options if you don't feel comfortable bringing large amounts of money into Argentina; ie. taking maximum withdrawls from an ATM daily until you have enough money, but this is time consuming and watch out for the fees. I assume if you are able to speak Spanish fairly well that may indeed benefit you as well. For instance, I was informed of an individual who would exchange US dollars (with no documentation) into Pesos for a 2% fee. However, you have to trust the person you are dealing with. In addition, you may find a small (we went to large dealership) dealership/used car dealer who really wants your money and may take USD or credit card for payment. Once again, you need time on your side!

4) Obtain an Internatinal Driving License from AAA in the U.S. before coming to Argentina. Make sure the AAA representative puts a date on the Internatinal Driving License. It's good for one year. When you arrive in Argentina it is a good idea to go to ACA (Automovil Club Argentina, AAA equivalent) to have your International Driving License validated. ACA is also a great resource for obtaining accurate maps and a wide variety of tourist related information.

5) Once you arrive at your destination within Argentina one of the first things you will want to do after your jet lag subsides is to start working on obtaining your clave de identificacion (CDI), equivalent to a social security number. You get your CDI from your local AFIP office (Argentina's version of the IRS).
A) If you have read my previous post on obtaining your CDI this will be a little redudant. I purchased Laura Zurro's ebook "Moving to and Living in Buenos Aires,Argentina." This book is basicily your guide book to all questions involved in moving to or living in Buenos Aires, however, it also has tremendous amounts of information related to purchasing real estate and obtaining your CDI, to name a few. The following information is an excerpt from Laura Zurro's ebook, pages 44 &45:
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Excerpt from Laura Zurro's ebook: "Moving to and Living in Buenos Aires,Argentina."

The process is relatively simple but does take a bit of work to get. If your address is in the Buenos Aires province, you might want to use an address in the Capital because it is much easier to get the CDI in the city.
These are the steps that must be undertaken.
1. Police Station: You need to get a Certificado de Domicilio (Address Certificate) from the local Federal Police station that governs the neighborhood where you are staying which could be a hotel, short term rental, or even a friends residence. The cost for this in the Capital is usually ten pesos. Within 24-48 hours they will visit your residence to have you sign the certificate and give it to you. You will need to be at the residence to sign for the certification. To find the local police station you can ask the concierge of your hotel or if you’re staying in an apartment, then check with the owner or the agent. If that fails then visit the Police Comisarias list. Their website is:
www.policiafederal.gov.ar/esp/salc/comisarias/index.html. Click on servicios de la comunidad and then on comisarias which will bring up a mapa de barrios. Click on the mapa de barrios section that corresponds with the area you’re living in, i.e. Recoleta is #28.
2. AFIP: Once you have your certificado de domicilio, you must go to the AFIP office that corresponds to your area. To find the correct office visit the AFIP Website at www.afip.gov.ar/servicios_y_consultas/consultas_en_linea/datos_de_dependencias/
agencias/agencias_main.asp and in the calle/localidad box enter the name of the street where you are staying. (Tip: If you do not find it, write the four or five first letters of the street), press
confirmar. A new page will pop up with the agency listings. Click on the agency that corresponds to your address and another window will open with the street address.
You’ll need the following documents to take to AFIP:
- Two photocopies of the first pages of your passport
- Original passport
- Formulario CDI - 2 copies (can be obtained at AFIP)
- Certificado de Domicilio

3. Get to the office as early as possible. Some offices are so busy that people wait in line
outside waiting for the office to open. As soon as the doors open or as soon as you go inside
take a number from the mesa de entradas. While you’re waiting for your number to be called, fill out the Formulario CDI forms. Listen carefully for your number. Once your number is called, proceed to the desk, hand the forms and passport copies to the representative, as well as your original passport. If everything goes smoothly and you have all documentation, plus a correctly filled out form, then you should receive your CDI number at that time. They will write your CDI number on one form, stamp it, and then return it to you to keep; they will keep the other copy for their records.
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If your Spanish is a little rusty, or if you barely speak Spanish like us, then I recommend that you either go to an AFIP office and obtain Formulario # 663 or visit the following link http://i.afip.gov.ar/formularios/pdf/f663.pdf to review and translate the questions on the form before going to the office to obtain your CDI.

Once you have your CDI and your money in hand, start looking for vehicles. After much debate we chose the Renault Kangoo. We chose this because it is Argentian made, it is economical, it is roomy and with plenty of storage for the three of us and most of all it is fairly inexpensive.

Now back to our original story that we ended with on our last blog entry. What did we end up doing to get the money? Well, let's first say that our money wire from our U.S. bank did not go through. The Renault corporate office actually received the money, but they returned it because of the $5000 USD limit. We now were under a time restraint since we had already extended the lease on our apartment once and we are READY to leave BA. We checked into a cash advance on our credit card and found out that we couldn't do that in Argentina, according to a Banco France employee and the Case de Cambio. The next step was to be more dramatic. I flew to Miami, Florida and withdrew the money from our bank account and flew back to Argentina with the money in hand. I was gone only 36 hours.

We took the money to the bank to deposit it and were again halted with another road block. We were told that we could only exchange/deposit $5000 USD per person into the account. We accepted that and made the $10,000 USD deposit. We then went to the Renault dealership and begged and pleaded for some help. We still needed more money to be deposited into Renault's account. Our marvelous salesman, Juan Harrington, who has been awesome through this whole car buying experience, he made the sale complete! Juan has been patient, respectful and loyal to us throughout this ordeal. He speaks four different languages, english being one of them. He speaks enough english that we were able to communicate with our spanglish back and forth and get everything taken care of.

WE WANT TO GIVE A HUGE THANKS TO JUAN FOR MAKING THIS ALL HAPPEN! For a while we thought that our trip may be cut short. Now, that is not the case. I guess anything is possible if you want it bad enough and are determined!

We get our car tomorrow, February 26th at 1:00 pm. We plan to be heading out of BA by late afternoon! YEH!!!

FRUSTRATION!

WE ARE ALIVE! We've had a very frustrating and mind blowing 8 days. I will write a separate entry for the details of purchasing a car in Argentina . It truly deserves its own blog entry. I'm going to make this entry very short. What has happened in the last 8 days. Let's say that we have been in Buenos Aires for nearly 6 weeks now and that is 3 weeks too long. We like Buenos Aires, but like we've said before, we are not city people. Therefore, if it wasn't for the prolonged experience with the car purchase we would have left three weeks ago. Luckily, (one of the few things that has gone our way) our apartment hasn't been rented out and we have been able to extend it twice now.

Basicily, we spent the whole weekend following our trip to Colonia hoping that the money would have been wired into the Renault account and we would drive off with the car. Unfortunately, that's not what happened on Monday. We called our sales representative in the morning, Juan Harrington ( I will give Juan more praise in the car purchase entry) he informed us that the wire never went through. We went to the bank and after 30 minutes and two bank employees later, we were informed that Argentina has a law that prohibits tourists from transfering more than 5000 USD/month into any account. Banco France was very polite and we were given a lot of sad looks and "sorry." Every time I attempted to ask how to buy a car from the bank rep he said "sorry." At the end of our conversation he stated our money was sent back to the United States. Unfortunatley for us, it was a U.S. holiday (President's Day), so we couldn't verify this.

I'm a Bank of America fan/supporter and a little prejudice because I used to work for them, but they are pushing my patience at times. You would think an international bank would have a non 800 number to call when customers are overseas. When you're overseas you can't call an 800 number. Therefore, I've been calling BofA credit card services to transfer me to consumer checking BofA or the BofA Government liason dedicated non 800 number and having them transfer me. I think they are getting sick of me because they are starting to fuss a little bit when I call them. On Tuesday we called BofA (after numerous attempts and disconnects)and we were told they have no idea when the money will be returned to our account. Therefore, a quick throwing of the phone against the wall, explosive words, and after a liter of beer I was able to relax (comment from Jen: Lauren didn't really do all of these things he listed in anger, he just wanted to get his point across that he was extremely frustrated. He probably wanted to do those things though).

At that point we considered taking a cash advance off of our visa card. We made some phone calls and found out the fees and decided to do it. We went back to the Banco France and we were told that it is not possible to take a cash advance off of a credit card in Argentina. We didn't stop there, there must be a way! I did some research and found out that there are exchange houses or "casa de cambio" where money is exchanged and wire transfers are accepted. We went to an exchange house and we were told the same thing. Cash advance on a credit card is not possible in Argentina and money wires for anything greater than 5000 USD are not allowable.

The rest of the story will be told Sunday when I have more time, but I will leave you with this...

Here were our options at this point:

1) Have a family/friend fly to Buenos Aires with the money from our account
2) Quit our vacation and go home
3) Rent a car (3000USD/month) and continue our vacation and cut it short since expense will be high
4) Fly back to the U.S. and get the money myself

Your guess is as good as mine? What would you do?

Colonia, Uruguay

We left Sunday afternoon for Colonia, Uruguay via a Buquebus ferry. We ended up taking the fast ferry (1hr) vs. the 3 hr ferry. The ferries in Argentina are unique in the sense that it is more similar to service you would have received from the U.S. airlines 5 plus years ago. When you walk onto the boat you're greeted by multiple representatives and they direct you to your seating area ie. 1^st class or tourist class. The seats are older but plush and comfortable. After the standard instructional safety video, they bring a cart by with ham & cheese sandwiches, a brownie and your choice of drinks. They must have come by our seat 3-4 times within the hour and offered us more food or drinks. In addition to the snack they had a duty-free store on board where you could purchase the typical alcohol, chocolates and perfume/cologne.

Payton made some friends on the ferry ride, two college age girls from Chile, Anita and Maryanna. They played and talked with Payton almost the entire time. Payton liked the girls instantly and by the time we arrived in Colonia she was sitting on Anita's lap. It was nice to see her get out of her protected shell and interact with other people. We arrived in Colonia and picked up our checked luggage and we were off. The exchange rate for Uruguay peso vs. USD is roughly 23.6 to 1 USD. You may think to yourself, wow, its dirt-cheap there. However, your assumptions would be wrong. Although it’s considerably cheaper than the USD it is a little more expensive than Argentina. As an example, a meal of ravioles with a bolognese salsa was 210 pesos.

Colonia was such a blessing in disguise.
We truly needed a vacation from vacation. Colonia is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s a historic old town that dates back to the mid to late 1700’s. Click the link above for more information on Colonia.

We stayed at the Radisson Hotel and Casino. Depending on where you obtain your information it is either a 3 or 5 star hotel. The lobby, pool and exterior are beautiful, but the actual hotel rooms themselves are clean but dated. On the other hand, the service is truly ***** (5 star) quality.

All of the staff was so friendly, polite and professional. When I made our reservations, (via Radisson.com) I requested a king size bed instead of the 2 double beds that we booked for a speficied rate. When we arrived to the hotel, not only did they give us a king size bed, but they also had a bed for Payton to sleep on as well. We didn’t even have to ask. It didn’t take long for Payton to find the pool, take off her clothes and jump in. It was a rough start in the beginning with a couple of head dunks accidentally, but she adapted to the pool quickly. She’s kicking pretty well now and I spent some time teaching her how to dog paddle. That didn’t last too long though, she thought it was more fun watching me splash in the water and stay afloat than doing it herself.

Colonia is truly beautiful in it’s own right with it’s historic cobblestone streets, and 17^th century buildings. It was very humbling to say the least. As we were walking the streets in the evening we stopped and ate at this fabulous restaurant called El Drugstore. It was some of the best food we’ve had this entire trip. If we weren't so hungry we probably would have taken a picture before engulfing the food.

This is El Drugstore. We ate outside and the and there were 2 old cars parked amongst the the tables. One was set up to eat inside and other was filled with beautiful plants and flowers.

Monday we rented an off road golf cart from Thrifty car rental and toured the city. If it weren’t for the damn governor on the golf cart we probably would have drove to Montevideo. We stopped at one of the many beaches surrounding Colonia and played in the sand. The beaches on the Northwestern end of Colonia are white sand that is more typical of an ocean beach than a river beach. Although the water is brown, Rio de la Plata ranges from blue to brown, brown due to the silt/loam river bed, we are told it is perfectly safe to swim in. That night, Payton met an Argentinean girl, Josephina, who is 3 years old. She and Payton must have played for over a hour running and screaming after one another. I think she is missing other children to play with. Jen states, “That is why we need to have another child!” I still like the idea of rent-a-friend. It is much cheaper and I only have to pay for one car, one college tuition and one wedding. We spoke with Josephina's parents for approximately 30 minutes. I feel bad at times because here we are in another country where the principle language is Spanish and we are in their country and they know more English than we do Spanish. Pathetic! Although our conversation with Josephina’s parents was difficult at times, we truly felt that we were able to understand each other for the most part. Our conversation just reinforces our need to study more Spanish. We are far from being fluent, but each week we take one step forward.

Monday night we went to the El Drugstore again. The food continued to be above average, but we were a little disappointed compared to the previous night. We should know not to visit the same restaurant twice. The picture to the left is a typical salmon dish in a white sauce. 7USD. Ironically enough, every restaurant in Colonia charges a sitting fee. In addition, if there is live music, they charge you a couple dollars for the music as well. Something, I need to read more into is the IVA tax. Apparently, tourists are not supposed to be taxed for the IVA, however, we were charged with an IVA tax at every resturant/store except for our hotel. I think it's truly a tourist town in a small country that is trying to stay alive anyway it can...

Tuesday was uneventful, but fun. We went to the beach and Payton drove the golf cart. She was pretty excited. She's loving the beach! Jen had a massage, 25 USD for 1 hour. She said it was the best massage she has ever had. Must have been the half bottle of wine before the massage.

Side note, one thing that is pretty scary in Uruguay is that most people have some type of moped/scooter and they travel with their infant, toddler or preschooler while driving down the cobblestone street. Crazy! We saw numerous scooters with 2 adults and one small child. In Buenos Aires we have seen 2 adults and a toddler on a motorcyle on a 7 lane busy road. Obviously, we are suprised by this and we are used to different laws in the US.

On our way back to our hotel on our last night in Colonia we saw Josephina's parents, Fernando and Maryanna. After talking with them for some time, they invited us to their house. Hopefully we will be able to see them before we go and have traditional Argentina food and good conversations!

Wednesday we got back to BA. Dave (Jen’s dad) sent out a money wire on Monday to pay for our Kangoo! We can only hope that the Renault dealership receives the money by Friday. If not, we will have to stay in BA for a couple more days :( This is the first time in my life I have put one of these sad faces on any form of email/blog. I think it is pretty lame, but everyone seems to do it so why not me.

Our Anticlimatic Experience

We started the week off pretty slow. We looked around for bikes for Jen and I. Initially I was looking for a cycle cross bike, but since we've been to 3-4 different bike shops and haven't been able to find any, I think it's time to look for something else. I thing I am going to definitely buy bike jerseys while we are here. You can buy nice bike jerseys here for 20-30 USD. I am so loading up on jerseys. One of the reasons I don't have many jerseys now is because I am too cheap to spend 90 USD a piece for them. Now I have no excuse. I'm surprised with the lack of nice bicycle and camping stores in a city this large. I even have the yellow pages on line and there really isn't much out there. However, on any given day walking down the street I see 4-5 nice Trek or Cervelo road bikes, so I know that they are out there.

Now, most of us have all bought a car at some point in our lifetime. Jen and I always get excited about buying a car. We usually spend weeks, months and some cases a year ie. the Toyota Sequoia, reseraching and making the leap. This time we spent a couple of weeks looking around at cars within the city and trying to decide what would work best for us. I really wanted a Land Rover Defender, however it has poor maintenance ratings and every Porteno that I mentioned the idea of purchasing a Defender to told me in a nice way they wouldn't recommend it. Therefore, we bought a black Renault Kangoo because of its affordability and amazing looks. Just joking. If you haven't seen one you need to, they are comical to look at.www.renault.com.ar/automoviles/kangoo.

Let me equate our buying experience to something that most of us can relate to. Remember back in your single days, or if you are still single, when you meet a beautiful girl ( a man for the woman, a man for the man, or a woman for the woman) and you planned a whole evening together full of fun and excitement. Then the next morning you realize that you would have been better off watching reruns of Seinfield. Well, that was our experience at the dealership. I have to say that the sales rep Juan Harrington at the Cordoba office was great and very personable. However, the car buying experience SUCKED! Who in there right mind came up with this idiotic way to purchase a car. You can't test drive the car, you basicily sit in someone else's vehicle at the dealership to determine whether or not you're going to buy the car. Yes, I said someone else's vehicle because they do not even have vehicles at the dealership for showroom models. All of the vehicles at the dealership have been purchased by someone else and are awaiting pick-up.

We put a deposit down of $1000 Argentino pesos and we were given a hand shake and told the car will be in next Tuesday morning at the latest, Feb 13th. This is great, however, you don't pay for vehicles down here with a Credit card or a loan (generally), you pay hard core cash. So the issue is that our power of attorney for our finances happens to be in Las Vegas for a flooring convention. (It's amazing that every year the flooring convention is in Vegas on Superbowl weekend. Coincidence, I think not!) In other words, unable to have the money go through the international wire service until Monday the 12th and then it takes roughly 5+ days for the money to go into the Renault dealer's account. Once in the Renault dealers account-----it takes two days for them to verify it. Our last day at the apartment is Sunday February 18th. We are cutting things close. We will be lucky to have the car before the 18th. We should have started the car buying process a little sooner. We didn't realize that each step of the process would take so long. Let me tell you, we are ready to leave BA. It is time to move onto the next step of our adventure and we are not city people.
Later in the day, we went to a hotel, Etoile Hotel which is in somewhat of disrepair, across the street from Recoleta Cemetery. This was a great find, because this hotel has 14 floors and on the top floor there is a pool, solarium, gym and outside sunning deck. We walked outside on the 14th floor and immediately were exposed to the most amazing view of the city. We were actually able to see the brown water of Rio del Plata (brown because of the Amazon soil nutrients). Here is a picture of me with La Recoleta Cementary in the backdrop.
Today we went to the oldest standing and working cafe in Argentina, Cafe Tortoni. It was really nice with some nostalgic paintings/pictures on the walls. I've never seen so many people with there Lonely Planet guide books out before. Cafe Tortino is listed as one of the top 5 things to do in BA in lonely planet, so I guess every body marks it off their list when they walk through the door. I HAVE A NEGATIVE COMMENT: WE'VE RECENTLY BEEN TO A FEW CAFES WHERE THEY CHARGE YOU TO SIT AND HAVE A DRINK/FOOD WITHIN THE RESTAURANT. I find this to be very disturbing. Let me clarify this: there is actually a fee just to walk in and take a seat. If we continue to visit cafes that have this charge I may have to forgo the tip; I'm a firm believer in tiping 20% for good service, so this is huge for me!

We also went to an overpriced Tango museum which was just above Cafe Tortino. Jen and Payton liked it, so I guess that means I liked it too. I had fun doing the Tango with Payton on the dance floor. After the museum we walked around once again, but this time we were on an agenda. We went to our favorite pastry shop and bought some wonderful things and then walked to my favorite helado parlor for some vanilla ice cream. (need I say more).

That is all for now........

Buying stock in Exofficio

It's HOT! (Muy caliente)! Thursday we walked back to the Vaccination clinic to get Payton's certificate for the international yellow fever vaccination. We've walked to Plaza de Mayo before, but nothing prepared us for the heat and humidty we endured. This is the reason why we wear exofficio (www.exofficio.com) and patagonia quick dry underwear. It's so we don't look like this sweaty butt>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.>>>>>

Went back to Puerto Madero, www.puertomadero.com/i_index.cfm, and had lunch at Cafe Resto. The restaurnat reminded Jen and I of restaurants in Healdsburg and Napa Valley, CA because it had a nice restaurant with adjoining deli, wine and pastries. If anyone is in BA, I would definitely recommend this restaurant. It's slightly on the expensive side, but well worth the price for the food and the great service.

After hiding in the restaurnat from th heat for over 1.5 hours we went back out and walked to an Ecological Reserve called Constanera Sur which borders the Rio de La Plata. This ecological reserve apparently has over 200 species of birds, but all we saw were mosquitos.
What was supposed to be a hyped up day to explore the ecological reserve turned out to be a short lived experience. We followed the 1.5 mile walk along a man made levee, which was made to keep the flooding Rio de La Plata from coming to close to Puerto Madero, we were sweating profusely and realizing that this gravel/dirt path wasn't all that great. Another reason we kept our visit short at the Ecological Reserve was because Payton didn't particularly care for the mosquitos flying into her Chariot. If I recall correctly, I think we may have walked a couple hundred yards on this levee road and we started hearing Payton yelling "MOSQUITO BITING ME, MOSQUITO BITING ME." Sure enough, two mosquitos were in her Chariot and one was feeding off of her ankle. We killed the mosquitos and put the cover with netting over her. However, there was a small hole in the netting and any small insect, such as a nat, that got into the Chariot with her was instantly a mosquito in her mind and she would start yelling "MOSQUITO INSIDE, MOSQUITO INSIDE, GET IT OUT!!!!!!! She should have been taking her nap about this time, but I don't think she slept until we were back into the safe boundaries of the city. We later went back to the house and showered and relaxed drinking my Stella and Jen with her Corona. Not the best day we've had in BA. Jen said it was her least favorite day so far.

Friday we went back to the zoo early in the morning, 1100. We only lasted a couple of hours there as well, the dang heat is still a problem. The funnies thing after coming home from the zoo was when Payton told us very seriuosly "For some reason zoo not much fun today, too hot." 10 word sentence at 2 years old, not too bad, we're proud! We were astonished that she didn't have much fun at the zoo though. This could be either good or bad for us in the next upcoming month when we're in Patagonia. I could just see it now, we will be hiking near Fitz Roy and be less than a 1/4 mile away from the most amazing view point and Payton will look at me with her baby blue eyes and tell me she's not having much fun and want to go back to the car. What am I going to say? You will have to wait for that answer when we get there.

In the afternoon we went to this nice modern ice cream parlor called Volta. I can honestly say that the interior designs of restaurants down here are absolutely amazing. We ordered a 1/4 kilogram of ice cream with 3 different flavors and Payton ate at least 1/2 of it. It was good and cooled us down.

Here's a picture of Payton and I after Payton ate the ice cream. She has a look of contentment on her face, but at the same time she's telling us her "belly's big."

Payton posing for us. NOT doing any business.









That night we had so much fun at a local neighborhood restaurant called French Resto Lounge. (I think we just like restaurants with a little flair in their name ie. Resto!) Payton had her first diaqueri. Virgin of course. Our meals were good, Jen's was awesome. When I looked at my Mahi Mahi in a neon blue mint sauce I was a little skeptical at first. It had good flavor, but I couldn't get past this thought of melted blue fish eyes in my Mahi, there weren't any eyes in the meal but I just kept thinking that I was seeing eyes! It must have been the overhead light reflecting off of the neon blue sauce that made me think I was seeing shimmering eyes. I definitely should have taken a picture of it!

Saturday was pretty laid back. It was hot! Again! Nearly 100 degree's + humidity. It felt like we were living on the East Coast. No thank you. We stayed indoors and crossed our fingers that they wouldn't implement rolling blackouts. Then it occurred to me that blackouts probably don't happen that much because a lot of people do not have A/C. Don't know how they do it. I watched the news the following day to see if there were any deaths related to the hit, didn't hear of anything.

We decided to stay indoors this day. We have had enough of the heat! We lounged around the apartment after going to this really nice pastry shop in the early morning. We watched more movies, I should say a movie. Payton is really into the movie Cars right now. So I think Jen and I are starting to memorize the whole movie at this point. Jen and I played gin rummy. Jen kicked my butt. We initially tried playing by our friends , the Winans' rules, but quickly became annoyed with each other and had to go to the internet and download the actual rules of the game to keep both of us happy. Once again, she beat me. Anyone want to play the game asshole? I'll be the President!

We had an amazing dinner that night. Went back to Mas Pasta on the corner of Lerrea and Pena and a 1 kg Lasagna with chicken, spinach, ricotta, a white cream sauce and and a red meat sauce. Wow! Wow! We will be going back a couple more times before we leave. Payton even enjoyed it. Anytime we can get a vegetable in her we are thrilled.

Sunday morning we went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, www.mnba.org.ar
and walked around in what I thought would be a fairly cool environment. Apparently to cut down on costs (my theory) they only had climate control in a few rooms where the paintings were a little more valuable. I think all they would have to do is purchase a nice alarm system and get rid of the 100 +/- security guards sleeping in their chairs while we walked past and divert the money into maintaining the building and air conditioning. It's very sad to see the interior of a country's national museum with dirt marks and paint coming off some of the walls while an employee is sleeping in their chair on a Sunday morning.

Later in the day, we went to San Telmo where they have this well known antique fair. San Telmo used to be where the aristocrats lived before a yellow fever outbreak made them all move up the hill to Palermo. Now it functions more or less as a lower working class barrio. Every Sunday they have an antique fair on a cobble stone street called Defensa that runs for multiple blocks. My parents would be in heaven.

Here is a picture of the market and also one of an old mansion that now serves as a market fo many antique stores.

We also went by La Casa Minima (minute house). Built in the early 19th century, the Casa Mínima was constructed adjacent to a slave owner's residence and housed their freed slaves. And at 2.17 meters (7.12 feet) wide by 13 meters deep (42.5 feet) the Minute House is clearly minimal.

Besides the normal knick knacks there were some stores with really nice antiques. Most of the buildings were old mansions converted into multiple stores within them (See picture above right). It must have been amazing to live there years ago. Although we were tempted to buy a few things, we are not ready to make that type of commitment of lugging purchased goods around for the next year. We were luckily able to watch a Tango show in the Dorrego plaza before the rain kicked into overdrive and dispersed the people in the market like another plague.


We went back to the house where I made my famous hamburgers with amazing meat. With no barbeque near by, cooking hamburgers on the stove is a little difficult. With the house being so small and the smoke so thick, the headlight came out to cook the hamburgers (not really, but we did have to open every window in the place).


That is all for now. We are glad that so many people are following our blog. More to follow....