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:
************************************************************************************
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.
*************************************************************************************


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....

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.

SUN, RAIN AND MORE RAIN

I guess it's been a few days since our last entry. Monday we continued our walking around the outskirts of Recoleta. We discovered more parks! Payton is loving the fact that there are so many parks in the area. We are truly blessed with the location of our apartment. We found the expensive (tourist) part of Recoleta ie. Four Seasons hotel, Versaci, Prada etc...It's nice to see that they're just as expensive in BA as in the states. We are starting to look at vehicles while they zoom by us. I've read a lot about BA driving being more harsh and crazy that American cities. I would have to say that they are definitely more aggressive than some metropolitian cities, however I do not find thier driving to be as aggressive as I have read. Remarkably, there are few vehicles with any signs of damage/repair to them from accidents. We haven't seen one accident yet. In addition, I have read that they do not appreciate pedestrians and do not give them the right away. I would have to disagree. They have actually been quite courteous and that may be due to our 2 year old Daughter strapped to us. Argentinos are so loving of children, and not just their own children, everyones children.

Tuesdays weather was questionable from the get go, overcast with the chance of rain. We didn't pay much attention to the forecast or the "prognostico" (spanish for weather forcast). I don't know why, but every time I see the word "prognostico" I have the sense that someone is going to abuptly bend me over and perform a colonoscopy on me. I start the morning off by watching the prognostico and I am sure that I don't have the most pleasant look on my face. Back on task here. We planned on walking to Plaza San Martin with Payton in the Chariot jogging stroller for the first time, and we would view all of the surrounding areas. We were approximately 1.5hrs walking distance from our apartment and had just walked onto the Plaza San Martin where Payton found another crowded playground at the plaza. Well, just when we were walking towards the swing, we saw a flash of light around us followed by a bone shaking sound of thunder. Amazingly enough, the playground became empty quickly following the thunder and lightening since all of the play equipment is metal. We steered away from there and walked toward a statue of General San Martin when the rain started pouring down upon us. I don't know if many of you know, but I truly love the smell of recent rain on wet asphalt. However, this time my enjoyment of the rain and pavement was short lived when I started smelling the porteno who was on the other side of the monument from us. He literally smelled like someone who had excreted urine/feces all over himself for the last week. As the rain continued to drop, the foul smell continued to emminate towards us. We increased our pace and found ourselves underneath a grove of trees by the palace San Martin. We were extremely glad we brought the Chariot so that Payton was enclosed and dry, while mine and Jen's shirts started to adhere to us. Since it is summer time here, we initially thought it might be a quick shower and we could continue on our way, but unfortunately this was not the case. After approximately 5-10minutes we headed back home. During the entire walk back to the apartment, the rain didn't subside and our clothes were no longer a barrier for our skin, but merely an additional layer of wetness. I should say the rain was actually quite refreshing. We finally made it back to the apartment and Jen and I were both wet, but Payton was dry and she had slept the whole way home.
Wednesday we made it back to Plaza San Martin to finish what we had strated the day before. We walked into the train station, unfortunately no photos. We couldn' t proceed past the lobby area without a ticket. With the hundreds of people entering and leaving the station, we felt a little uncomfortable with the three of us and the Chartiot. Let me say one thing. I don't think anyone in South America own's a Chariot or jogging stroller. When we were walking yesterday Jen made the comment, "If my left breast was hanging out of my shirt, I don't think anyone would notice it over our Chariot." I think that statement sums it all up. We get a lot of looks and smiles while walking...or I should say Payton get a lot of looks while riding in the Chariot.
Our walk yesterday, Wednesday, took us to the Puerto Madero, Plaza de Mayo and the Obelisco.

















It was warm and humid, and we had our worst food since in South America. Truly, my meal was probably the worst I've had in years. We were hungry and hot and we found a restaurant that looked inviting with air conditioning. We were walking the pier at Puerto Madera and I knew it was a tourist restaurant, but once again, hungry. I should have known when they had menus in
english and spanish as well as TGIF/CHILEs stile photos of food specials on the table. After eating our meals, I was disgusted. Jen's and Payton's were not nearly as bad as mine. I was actually surprised to see the restuarnt full of porteno's. We cand explored a little more before heading home.
Today, RAIN! We stayed around the neighborhood and walked through some nice furniture shops. Quality goods for reasonable prices. Jen wants to buy some things and send them home. Unfortunately, without being taxed up the wazoo, we have to find an Argentinian/American with a DNI (equalivant to social security number) to be the one to actually ship the merchandise. We'll see! We finally found a coffee shop that I like and it is inexpensive. It only took me a week! Payton's sleeping now, taking her afternoon nap, so we will have to wait and decide what to do for the rest of the day. Thanks to all for your encouraging and thoughtful emails. I realize the blog is quite lengthy. I apologize.
I am back, and now it is the evening. Everytime I set down to put an entry in, I tell myself to shorten things up. Obviously, it's not happening. This afternoon we again visited the park, as we do everyday. Today was different in that Payton suprised us. Her gross motor skills exploded today.














She climbed up a metal arch ladder independently and asked to go on the big girl swing, which she also did great on. Unfortunatley she lost her concentration on the swing after about 5 minutes and she let go, causing her to fall off, but there was sand beneath her and she wasn't very high off the ground. A few tears and she moved on. This park is a busy one and she watches all of the older kids and has started to mimic their actions. It is fun to watch her experiment with new movements and abilities and most of all to watch her blossum into such a sweet little girl. Don't be sad grandparents, because we will keep you so informed of her
changes that you will feel like you are with her too.

To all of our family and friends, please continue to send emails and comments. We love to hear from you! For those of you who don't know us, send us your thoughts. We are getting roughly 100+ visitors a week to our blog. I promise this boring stuff will end soon once we leave BA and our adventure truly begins. For the family: A picture of Payton doing her thing in public and saying, "Don't look at me."