It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.
But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Looking Back - 3 1/2 years ago

While in the United States, during the months of going through the packing and process of moving from one country , make that Continent , to another, we also had to plan on the moving of a Pup and where to stay upon arrival. 
Hotels were out of the question...  none were dog friendly ( not big dog anyway) and  the cost might have been too much. 
So renting a temporary apartment was the way to go. 
Thank goodness for online websites dedicated to renting you an apartment . 
Websites that , sadly we learned, were also dedicated to conning people, showing the smallest photo of a room that looked charming and was sadly also dirty and in bad condition. 
Or next to a disco or a bus depot, you just never knew until becoming a Sherlock Holmes of the Online Rental world. 

Eventually we found what seemed like exactly what we needed... a man living in California, with a partner here, who was a real estate agent and they had an apartment that was dog friendly.
The price was a lot more than all the others, but we were at the point  where we had to take what we could get and hope we could shop around when we were in Buenos Aires. 
Upon arrival, we were picked up by the agents partner and escorted to the apartment, where the manager met us and gave us all the papers to sign and we handed over quite a bit of cash , thank you very much.

Finally they left, we were able to take a deep breath and look around ...w e are not thrilled with the apartment   ..it was hard to tell what it really looked like from the online photos ..we wanted this neighborhood and we were bringing a large dog... not too many choices.

The street was great ... the Portera - the lady that keeps watch over the door,  was sweet and kept the place shiny clean. The apartment itself was large , bare and not very comfortable.
We did our best  to make it cozy enough..choosing to spend time with the dog ,the tv and the laptop,  in the bedroom with an amazing view of the sky and rooftops  with a nice big radiator that warmed us up quite nicely. 
We came in from a frosty evening walk and rushed to the bedroom radiator , holding our hands over it, as if it were a little fireplace on the bedroom wall. 
It might have  been the beginning of May, but  in Buenos Aires , it was  the beginning of Fall and the nights were  chilly..
The bathroom was huge... the tub was huge, I had visions of long soaks at night  but there was no plug. There  was a window at the top that never closed...this worried the person in the house with the Spider phobia.  

The kitchen was large and modern but there were no pots and pans..which is probably for the best . 
It was hard enough  for me to order food in a restaurant.. shopping for groceries to cook would have   sent me into some sort of meltdown. 
I saw , as the days went by.. that possibility popped  up   often.
So we learned the right words for getting our meals delivered, take - out and  slowly we figured out the grocery shopping world. My husband is much more brave and adventurous, he threw himself right into it, I  was the timid one behind him, squeaking at times that " you can't do that! " but he did and it was alright. I tried cooking in that horrid kitchen but the ancient toaster died, the coffee maker made the coffee taste like hot plastic and the dishes and pots were so cracked and dirty no matter what, that we gave up.
I was never so happy to cook again as when we finally moved into this apartment and had a kitchen of my own again. Who knew ?!

We bought  flowers at the flower stands on the Avenues and filled each room with jars and vases of flowers. At least that cheered things up  a bit, the warm bedroom and view of the sky and skyline was sufficient to make it homey for us and  Pup was  content as long as we were there and we let him get up on the bed to watch as we played our nightly winner take all.. card games. 
But all was not fun and games. We had to go to   Immigraciones and  obtain  our  DNI .    ... National I.D. 
In order to get the DNI, we had be able to say it in Spanish.   D - day, N- ena , I - eee.
Who knew that such a simple thing would be so complicated?
I thought I knew enough Spanish to get us through the early days until we started taking lessons. We spoke Menu pretty well, we were learning Real Estate fast and we got along great with the many friendly and helpful Taxi drivers who were happy to be tutors for a short ride.
But Immigration Spanish ?  I had to go to bed and rest after this, I saw the future and it was speechless.

After two weeks of   trips between the police station for papers...the Immigracions office for papers... Translators for papers to be translated  ..and  finally... for  all the papers to be stamped and made official.. we found that we had to return in 6 months... our papers are not ready to be stamped yet. 

 We had no ID ( we also had no ideas but that is another story)...















6 comments:

  1. what an adventure! Did you have to get the DNI - to work? or because you lived there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, yes , it has been an adventure !
    We knew we were going to be living here for a while, buying a home etc.. We are here as Permanent Residents, otherwise, everything is more difficult and you have to leave the country every 3 months !
    As it is now, we had to renew every year for 3 years and we are again waiting for the final stamp.. hopefully in November it will all be ready.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds exciting,if not a little frustrating and scary. Can't wait to hear what happened next. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am correcting myself .. we have to renew every year for 3 years.. We are considered Permanent now, just waiting for their backlog of paperwork so we can get the final Stamp.
    Fragrant Liar .. me too ! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello there,I love reading about your life there..I can relate to including a loved four legged friend as well. thank you for popping in over at my blog so often, I appreciate it. Colette x

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fascinating window into what it's like to emigrate...thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome..Thank you.

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