The Argentine Adventures : June 2015

Do you ever wonder the "what if...?"

I sure do!

Towards the end of May this year (2015) , I kept thinking, "I really want to go to Argentina this year."  I didn't have a chance to go last year as I was unemployed from teaching.  Funny to think about it, but I'm unemployed YET AGAIN from teaching.

Anyways...I digress.

I wanted to go to Argentina this year. As you've read from my other posts, "I Heart Argentina". Yep. I sure do.

The problem with this year's trip wasn't the lack of time. I MAKE time for things I want to do. Nor was it really the lack of money. Since getting an elementary teaching job last year, I had managed to save some cash and pay off some bills, which was FANTASTIC!  My problem was that since it was close to the end of the school year for me, and this school happens to run only on annual contracts, I didn't want to put a trip on my credit card without a way to pay it off JUST IN CASE I managed to NOT get a renewal on my contract.

I decided I was going to be financially savvy for once and wait.

HA!

Yeah. Right.

I looked at flights on Kayak and Skyscanner. There was one flight, round trip from Miami to Ezeiza International (Argentina's main international airport) for $590!  I can't even fly home DOMESTICALLY to Kansas City for $590!  I passed on that one because there was a lay over somewhere in Bolivia and I don't want to be by myself in Bolivia, especially when I don't really know the country.

I kept looking and looking. Several friends in Argentina kept asking, "When are you coming to visit?"  I continued to tell them, "I need to wait until I get confirmation about my teaching contract for next year".

Well, the principal took her sweet time to inform me that I was not having my contract renewed. She told me during post-planning that it wasn't being renewed. I had to pack up my classroom and make 7 trips home and back to drop off my stuff. In fact, there were only two teachers whose contracts were not renewed, including my own. I find that a personal vendetta. I don't think the principal liked me. That's okay. She had this idea that the students would be fluent in Spanish by the end of the year.

 Well...let me tell you...I've been teaching for 8 years. There is no way that over 500 students will be fluent in Spanish when they've only had 30 minutes of instruction a day (give or take about 10 minutes because they need time to settle down, or I need to travel to their classrooms since there's some ridiculous "law" that students from Kindergarten to 2nd grade are not allowed to climb the stairs in school).  30 minutes a day for one week. Some weeks were cut short due to testing or to holidays cutting into the week. Then, I wouldn't see them again for another 5 or 6 weeks, depending on the grade level. Some classes I only saw a total of 6 weeks out of the year.

I'm sorry, but I hate to break it to you - unless you are living in a foreign country where you are thrust into the environment or even if I were speaking only in Spanish the entire time in class, there is no way that someone is going to learn how to speak Spanish with such unrealistic time allowances and constraints.  Bitch, please...Whatever...ONWARD to bigger and better things, baby!

So I bought my ticket anyways.

I'm headstrong and very impractical at times. Especially when it has to do with travel. If I have an opportunity to travel and I haven't met my credit limit, I buy myself a ticket!

I was set to travel June 14-June 29th.

After booking my airfare, which turned out to be $1054 US, including tax, I realized, I should have booked it a day later and returned a day later because it would be an actual pay day the 15th and the 30th. On top of that, I bought the ticket pretty much last minute because I was so antsy about going.

I asked my cousin if I could park my car at her apartment in Miami for two weeks and she said absolutely!

My trip turned out to be a very interesting mix of events, so to say.

I left Jacksonville for Miami on Friday afternoon. Ran a series of errands. Met with a few people. On the way there, I was so excited because I was going to listen to my music in my car.  Stopped off at Starbucks. Ordered a Venti Soy Chai at 8:30 p.m. and drank the entire thing in less than an hour. Got to Miami later than I expected, at around 10 p.m..

My cars speakers sounded as if there were marbles rolling around in them.  They also had that staticky quality about them. Not cool.

Ana told me, 'Park in the visitors spot when you get here".  I arrived and there were none available. So I parked in the closest available spot. I even had a Resident Raccoon greet me upon my arrival!  He was foraging for food in the dumpsters.

I told Ana what I had done and she said, "Well, I've never seen them tow anyone, but you should be fine."

We stayed up late, talked all night and went to sleep at around 2 a.m..

I slept for about an hour or two. I was paranoid that someone might see the suitcases hanging out in my back seat, break my windows and want to take them!  I kept waking up, looking out the window. Nothing appeared amiss. I saw the Renmobile, just hanging out expectantly waiting for our next adventure. I went back to bed, stalked some people on Facebook. Tried to sleep. Kept tossing and turning. Couldn't sleep.

Finally, 7 a.m. rolls around. I decided that I needed to take a shower and get my travel clothes ready. I also saw a visitors spot open and decided I was going to park my car in that spot.

I grabbed my keys, went outside, down the apartment stairs, out to my car and lo and behold...this is what I was greeted with...

Seriously?!  Are you seriously kidding me right now?

There was a tag on my window that said prompt removal of the boot would occur when I called and gave the company $89 either in cash or credit. Begrudgingly, I run back up to my cousin's apartment, grab my phone, go back outside, take a picture and call the number. I may have woke up the individual on the other side of the phone line.

"Hello?" That groggy voice that people make when they first arise from slumber.

"Yeah, hi. Good morning. I just came out to my car and I see this sticker on my window and a boot on my tire. I'm going out of the country today and I need to move my car. Can someone please help me remove this?" I asked.

"That will be $89 including tax," said the male voice on the other line. "I'll be there in 10 minutes."

"Is there any way we can reduce the price?  I just lost my job this week and money is kind of tight," I asked.  I mean, I also had dollars in cash that I needed to exchange on my way to Argentina so that I'd have some money to spend when I got there, like for food and stuff.

"Yeah..." said the man reluctantly. "I'll see what I can do. I might be able to drop it."

The man arrived within five minutes and took the boot off the car.

"That'll be $89."

Um...I was told that it could be less. I explained my sob story again to the dude.  He was willing to drop it to $59.  Thirty dollars isn't a bad discount. At least I got to save some money. I'm willing to admit the fact that I parked in a wrong spot. I'm okay with paying for my transgressions.

I told him that I had a credit card and he shook his head. "I forgot my credit card reader".

I rolled my eyes and said that I would have to go back and get the little cash I had left inside. I raced up the stairs again, opened the door, stomped around cursing my luck, found the cash and then raced outside again.

I handed the man sixty bucks and told him to keep the change.  He went on his merry way and I quickly moved my car to a visitors spot before another boot was immediately slapped on my car.

All of this occurred before 7:30 in the morning.   As you see above, I did put it on social media.

Hee hee.

By this time, with all the noise I was making cursing out loud and slamming doors, Ana was already awake.

"Renny...what happened?" She asked as she rubbed her eyes open.

I told her what had happened

"Ay Dios mio!" She exclaimed. I had no idea they would do that, she said.

Let's go ahead and get going to my job, she said.

We take showers, get dressed, and get going to her job, which is in downtown Miami, neak Brickell.  On the way there, we stop off at this Cuban café of sorts, where they have pastelitos and cortaditos.  For those of you who don't know, cortaditos are small little cups of Cuban coffee.  They're more like espresso, but with NOS infused in them.  You want energy?  You drink a cortadito.

Just right for Barbie!

Most Cubans, about 98% of them, will drink cortaditos with milk and sugar. I love coffee and I especially love drinking "café con leche".  However, in the last few years, I have developed a serious intestinal aversion to milk. I cannot consume milk, cream or ice cream without having major intestinal issues, a.k.a GAS. Though I can eat cheese without a problem, for some strange reason. Hmmm...I don't know. Weird

Ana and I each get a cortadito and I totally forgot to tell them to not put milk in it. I eat my pastelito and drink my NOS coffee and immediately, I feel like I am flying into outer space.

Actually, flying into outer space is a total lie, but I sure felt like it the way my pulse was raging.

...to be continued...see part two coming soon!

43 hours

This blog I originally wrote in my diary during July 2012.

I love to travel.  Words cannot express the exhilaration I get from hopping in my car or on a plane to go traveling.

This week I went to my favorite country other than the U.S. ---> ARGENTINA!

I love this country.  I have friends here. I love the food. I love the men.  I love it when Argentines use the "voseo" in Spanish.  It makes my underwear melt when those men tell me, "Vos sos muy linda". (You are very pretty.)  I may be speaking from a tourist's point of view, but I feel right at home in Argentina.  I left my son with his dad for a month, grabbed my luggage and exchange student with me and I never looked back.

Actually, part of the last line is such a lie.  I did look back. A lot.

My flight leaves Miami on a Monday night at 10pm and will arrive in Rio the next day and then go to São Paulo then to Buenos Aires.  I've packed several times over prior to my flight just to make sure that everything was okay and packed well.

Just to make sure that my suitcases are all good to go weight wise, I called the airline to check the weight limitations on Sunday night at 9pm.

I call TAM, Brasilian Airlines. A woman answers the phone, we speak for a few minutes and she tells me the information I want to hear.  I can take two suitcases up to 70 lbs. a piece for free. Sweet! She then proceeds to ask me, "Do you have a Brasilian visa?"

I knew I needed a visa in order to wander around Brasil. Since I was just going to be puddle jumping airports, and not actually entering the country,  I said, "No".

The lady then proceeds to tell me that my flights between Rio and São Paulo are considered "domestic."  I would therefore need a visa to travel within Brasil, even though I was technically not leaving the plane nor airport.  She then tells me I should go to the Brasilian Consulate "tomorrow morning".

I'm thinking to myself...this lady must be nuts.  Does she not know where Jacksonville is located?  Most people don't. FYI - Jacksonville is located in Northeast Florida, near Southern Georgia.

It's 10pm on a SUNDAY.  To get to the Consulate at 9 am the following morning, means I would have to leave my house in Jacksonville at 3 am.  I still have to repack all that crap that I'm bringing to Argentina.  I have to go to bed. I have to eat. I have to do a lot of things. I'm turning into a dragon... rawr.

Also, my escort to the MIA, who also happens to be my BFF, had announced earlier in the day that she had invited a friend to come along with us.  Not that I mind extra people coming with us. I love to socialize and I like to meet new people. It's just a little inconvenient to find out that an additional person plus the four pieces of large luggage is coming with us.  There would be no room...anyways - more on that later on.

I ask the TAM ticket agent if I can change my flight right then and there.  She said, "You have to call the travel agent you originally booked the flight with".  The travel agent is an online company that's in Maryland.  Not to mention, I think they were closed at that time of night.

I called the travel agent anyways to see if they could change my flight.

Thank God they were open at 11 pm at night!  I did manage to spend most of the night, until 2 a.m. on the phone with them and also going back and forth with the airline to get this issue resolved.

 $700 later...the issue was resolved.  My original ticket was priced at a steal for $650! In order to change my flights to only have ONE layover in Brasil, I ended up spending the original cost of my ticket plus $50.  I was not happy.

After repacking and finally nibbling on something, I went to bed around 4 a.m..  I awoke three hours later, groggy, with a massive headache. I got my suitcases ready. I started to do some work for my job.

I get a phone call from my friend who was taking us to the airport.

"So, change of plans!"

Oh dear, I thought.

"My friend invited another friend along."

Crap!

It turns out that BFF's friend had a friend who had been involved in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend the night before.  The friend had gotten beaten up, so her friend, like most sane women, took her friend to file a police report the next morning. Friend #1 and Beat Up Friend were going to come with us to Miami so that Best Friend could have some friends for the drive back.

"Okay, so where the hell are we going to put this 5th person?" I asked.

I wondered the logistics of it all.  I shouldn't complain as I am not the one driving my car six hours away. I realize that. My friend can invite anyone that she wants to come along. It's her car. But if there were already 5 people going and four 50 lb. suitcases going along, where the hell were we going to fit everyone and also put the luggage?

"She's tiny, so she can fit between you and Jackie."

"Ok...?  What about the luggage?" I asked.

She suggested that we strap the suitcases on the roof.  As she told me that, an image conjured up in my head and I saw natural elements ruining our suitcases. I also saw in my mind's eye that the suitcases flew off the roof of Best Friend's car and hit someone's windshield behind us.  Flashback times!

Ok...

"What time are we leaving?" I asked.  I am a person that likes to be beyond punctual for international flights. Especially when they are in another city five hours away.

One o'clock, she said.

 Our flight was leaving at 6 pm...

You do the math.

I eventually told Best Friend why  I was annoyed at the change in plans and how I felt that her friend and Beat Up Friend could not come.

"Hell no!  Best Friend, I'm sorry about your friend's friend. I truly would not nor do not wish domestic violence on anyone. But your friends can go some other time. I have a plane to catch and I also had to pay out the ass for a new change to my flight."

I realize now looking back on it all, I was a little hangry. You know, hungry+angry?  Equals hangry.

Why would I want to jeopardize my flight time by leaving my home town at 1 p.m. when it will take me five hours to get to the other airport?  Check-in, especially at such a busy airport like Miami International takes at least 30 minutes, if not more.  Going through security...you might as well sign up to donate your left kidney and wait for the hospital to bring you another one to you twenty years later in a beer cooler.

For me, it was the most illogical thing ever.

My Other Best Friend happened to call right afterwards.  I began to vent.

"I will pay for you to rent a car because as you and I both know, Best Friend has some pretty wild ideas." said MOBF, taking pity on me and the situation.

It came to pass that Best Friend's friend was called into work after taking Beat Up Friend to the police station later on that morning. Thus Friend #1 and Beat Up Friend could not journey with us.

We eventually left at the time that I wanted to, which was 11 o'clock and were on our way.  On our way to the airport, we ended up in a rainstorm that took us an hour to drive through.  Traffic slowed down to about 30 m.p.h. on I-95. We were still able to make our flight on time, though the ticket lady also asked me in Portuguese if I had a Brasilian visa...ugh...enough with the visas.

We arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil the next day in the morning at around 7 a.m..  As I mentioned before, we weren't able to leave the airport.  The closest I will get to the Cristo Redentor and we were conveniently trapped in the stupid airport overlooking the Pão de Azucar mountain and the bay.  I was crushed.   The closest I actually got to touching Brasilian soil was walking from my plane onto the tarmac and onto an airport bus.  If my student hadn't been with me, I may have taken off running on the tarmac.  

Within this holding area was a Brasilian bookstore, two gift shops, restrooms, and a pretty expensive jewelry shop.

Jackie and I had our backpacks with us. Mine had my laptop and other peripherals, and I certainly didn't want to leave them sitting around in a chair for someone to grab. Latinos, no matter if you're Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or French, have a tendency to be kleptomanaics for wayward belongings.

Downstairs, there was a small cafe that sold some pretty delicious croquetas of ham, chicken and cheese and sandwiches and desserts.

I speak a little Portuguese, so I was really excited to be practicing my skills with NATIVE Brasilians!

"Perdón, voces tem...." (Excuse me, do you all have...?) and then my brain shut down.

Because my Portuguese is pretty rusty, I could not remember how to say "chicken". I asked first, if the lady spoke Spanish.   "Voce fala espanhol?"

"Não." No...

Crap...hmmm...  I then asked if she spoke English. "Voce fala inglês?"  Nope on that one too.

"Cómo se dice "pollo"? " She gave me a blank stare.

"Cómo se dice "chicken" em portugues?" I was mixing my Spanish and English with my Portuguese. At least I was trying!

Another blank stare.

I then began to do something that I find silly to admit, but what have you...I began to imitate chicken noises.  "Bok, bok bok!"

My student began to roll on the floor with laughter and so did the lady behind the counter.

"O, voce quere FRANGO!!!"

Sim!  Isso e o qué eu preciso. A minha estudiante não pode comer o "jamón". - Is what I told her. (Yes, that's what I want!) and I couldn't remember how to say "ham" in Portuguese.

I paid for a few chicken croquettes and a few ham and beef ones as well. Since Jackie follows Kosher, I ate the ham ones.

We ate, went back upstairs and then waited for our flight to leave at 1 p.m. in our holding tank.

I browsed around the gift shop and was pleased to see that they had 12" tall Cristos Redentores (Christ the Redeemer) statues in three shades of green, yellow and blue.  At least if I can't see Cristo Redentor in person and up close and personal, I can buy one!  Since my student is Jewish, I asked, "why don't we get one of these for your parents?" since her parents have a sense of humor.  She laughed and said no.

At 1 p.m., we hop on our flight to Buenos Aires and arrive around 6 p.m.. It's cold. It's windy. It's rainy. I'm not having fun with the weather.

We get a taxi to take us the Estación del Omnibus in Retiro.  It's a $50 cab ride there.  It took us about an hour to arrive. At least, Jackie was able to see what kind of Speed-demons the Argentines really are.

Jackie was so excited when we arrived at the bus station,  she began to chatter away like a little parrot.  I had warned her ahead of time to keep her voice down in the bus station, but she must have forgotten.

Needless to say, her chatter alerted people around us that we were

• A) Foreigners and 
• B) English-Speakers and by the way were dressed, 
• C) Americans.  

According to most of Latin Americans,  Yankee's have lots of money.  That meant we were sitting targets.

I am a woman of Faith, so I kept praying the entire time that we were there that we would not get accosted.  While no one robbed us, we were interrogated by the local police after they realized that were were not Argentines.

Jackie was wearing a bright red sweatshirt, jeans and had two huge suitcases.  I was wearing a big red coat and carrying two suitcases.  One suitcase had a palm tree scene and the other had a scene of Paris.  Argentines do not really wear or do most things that call attention to themselves when they are out in public.  I am quite the exception.  I want to make sure no one is going to steal my stuff at the airport nor at the bus station.

The police men saunter by and seeing that I am the older of the two, ask me in English, "Ladies, do you speak English?"

I roll my eyes, and respond in Spanish. "Si, hablo inglés.  ¿Qué necesitan Ustedes, señores?"  (Yes, I speak English. What do you need, sirs?)

"Can we see your passports and bus tickets, please?"

We fork over the passports. I cock my eyebrow at them. They look at me and smile.

I then ask "¿Para qué necesitan ver nuestros pasaportes y boletos?"  (Why do you need to see our passports and tickets?)

I was trying to fly under the radar and not get noticed. These guys were jamming my vibes.

I think once they saw I really did speak Spanish and that I was annoyed, they left us alone.  They thanked me in Spanish and wished us a good trip.

Finally, at 12 midnight, our bus came to get us.  We were finally able to sit down in the lap of what I call Argentine luxury.

Buses in Argentina are amazing, especially the overnight ones.  They are double decker buses that have seats that can fully recline. You get a pillow and blanket, a packet of food, you can watch a movie pirated from the US with Russian subtitles and dubbed in Spanish all night! You can draw a curtain between you and the person sleeping next to you for "privacy".

It's amazing!

The bus ride was a total of 8 hours and we arrived at around 8 a.m..  I awoke on the bus.  We got off the bus, got our luggage and bid Jackie farewell at the bus station and she went off to her host family for two weeks.

And that, my friends, was the 43 hour trip I took just to go see some friends on the other side of the world.

I would do again in a heartbeat.

(This trip took place in July 2012)