Dora

I saw this today and laughed out loud because it's as if someone pinned it just for me!

Yes, I now watch Dora the Explorer in Spanish while my children are at school. And yes, I couldn't answer any of her questions because I didn't understand them.

You think I'm kidding, I wish I was. When Dora talks, it's at lightning speed, and the same goes for Boots. I never thought I'd see the day when I was wishing I could speak as well as a toddler and her pet monkey.

Until next time, Adios!

Life is like a Rollercoaster .....

So first first things first, for some reason the pictures from my last post weren't working, so I fixed those.

Second, this post is like a jump off post from my last post. Yesterday on my way to Joonbo again, (actually I guess it was on the way home), I was sitting in the front seat on the bus, which faces towards the back, so I could see everyone else on the bus. I was looking out the window and kind of zoning out after my shopping ordeal. After a stop, a few people shuffled onto the bus, then suddenly a man started talking in a loud voice. Of course, I had no idea what he was saying.

I looked up and saw a man in black standing right in front of me, but he was facing everyone else, so I couldn't see his face. Immediately my stomach dropped and I pictured this:



I felt like I was sitting at the top of a rollercoaster and it was about to speed down the hill and through two upside-down loops. I froze as I tried to understand what the heck he was saying. I even saw a women start to open her purse.

Mike had warned me of guys coming onto buses and into stores and robbing everyone.

A second later I looked at the faces of the other passengers, and they didn't look terrified. I looked closer at the man in black, and saw a basket at his feet. He lifted it up and it was full of home-made goodies. Apparently he was trying to make some extra money the right way.

While it was only a three-second ride, I felt like I had just been on the world's craziest rollercoaster and we just pulled back into the loading zone. After a few deep breaths, I chuckled, and I might have cursed my husband just a little bit for his "preparation."

Until next time, Adios!

Shop Talk

So let's talk about shopping today. After four weeks, I finally feel like I am a decent hunter. I say hunt because what I'm doing is not as easy as gathering, it's hunting ... I'm talking about food.

Today I went to a store called Jumbo (pronounced Joonbo - the bus driver won't know how much to charge you if you say Jumbo, and he'll keep saying Que? Que? with a few laughs in between). Fortunately the bus I pick up to go to Joonbo is only a couple of blocks from my current house, so I hop on the bus and get off fifteen minutes later right in front of Joonbo.

Joonbo is a large supermarket full of products I don't recognize, and can't pronouce, or read about. An interesting fact about Argentina is they don't like imports. It's not that they just tax them heavily, they don't allow them. For example, BMW wants to sell cars here, and they don't have a plant here. But Argentina has declared you must manufacture the same value in products here in Agrentina that you are going to sell in Argentina. So in order to sell here, they have a plant that makes mayonaise (I think it's mayonaise - or something like it). I guess they feel the Argentines can manufacture good mayonaise, but not the best cars.

So because of all the import restrictions, 99% of what they carry is Argentine products. My first week here, I walked up and down isles of different grocery stores looking for anything I recognized, and wondered what I was going to feed my family. The hunt was on.

The hunt is still on. While I have figured out what some things are (mostly due to the kindness of others - I had a couple of women take me shopping and show me what they buy), I feel like I am cooking with one hand tied behind my back for a few reasons:

First, I don't have any of my stuff yet. Our air shipment that was supposed to take ten days still is not here. I just got an email that while it was supposed to arrive today, it didn't. It was in the port at Miami a few days ago, so I just pray that Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac didn't soak everything.

Why does that matter? Because I have a skeleton kitchen with a meager selection of pans and utensils. I have a mini-skillet to feed a family of 6. Oh, but they did provide two pie pans, because with all the stuff I have I'll be making pies?

The other reason I would like my stuff is I need my spices. All the spices (I say all with a little laugh, because it's really only a few) come in these little bags. Kind of like this little tiny bag of baking soda:

I put the spoons next to it for two reasons: first to show how small the largest packet is, and second to show you my measusring spoons. When I need to add a teaspoon of baking soda, I pick up the small one and eyeball it, and hope for the best.

The second obstacle I have is figuring out how they do things. For example, milk comes like this:

So at first, we bought a glass pitcher so we could pour the milk from the bag into the pitcher. The problem was, we spilled it every time. All over the pitcher, the counter, the table. Until we saw these:

I wish I had sound effects and it would make that heavenly choir sound. With this little piece of plastic, my life got a lot easier. Before this little concoction, I was constantly spilling, wiping, then washing pitchers. Now, I just plop the bag in, cut off the corner of the bag, and pour. :)

Okay one more thing about the milk, it tastes like powdered milk. The way we solved that:

Heavenly choirs again. So I know I said they don't import things. Nesquick makes the chocolate powder down here too, because the milk needs it!!! For those of you who don't know my feelings about processed foods and such, let me fill you in. I'm not a fan. I like to keep it simple and as close to real food as possible. So for me to be singing heavenly choirs about Nesquick, you know the milk tastes pretty weird.

Are you ready for the third obstacle? My oven/stove. It's terrible. All four burners go from really high to pretty dang high. I burn a lot of food. Especially with the mini junk skillet. I wish it stopped there, I really do, but the oven is just as bad as the stovetop. First, this is a picture of the temperature gage on the oven:

As you can see, there is not a single temperature marking. You light it and take a guess where along that curved line 350 degrees might be. After burning a few things, I ordered this from Amazon:

Last night I made banana bread (I borrowed a 9x13 pan from a friend), so I turned on the oven, stuck the thermometer in and checked it. It was at 400 degrees, so I opened the door, cranked the knob counter-clockwise a little and waited until it was 325 degrees. I stuck the pan in, but set the timer for 10 minutes. When I checked at ten minutes, it was down to 300 degrees, so I cranked he knob clockwise just a bit. Five minutes later, 375 degrees. Open oven, crank counter-clockwise just a bit. Close oven. Five minutes later, 315 degrees. Crank clockwise. Suddenly, husband comes in pleading: "Just take it out. I don't want it to burn. It doesn't matter if the middle is gooey." I guess too much anticipation for American food, followed by burnt disappointments leaves one's family desperate!

So after all this burnt-food frustration, you'd think I'd be a super-svelte soccer mom, right? Well, the problem is they have this stuff here called, Dulce de Leche. They have a whole isle of it at the grocery store. It makes everything taste better. You actually don't even need to put it on anything. You can just eat it right out of the jar. And they make ice cream out of it ... technically I think it's gelato. And there's a place right around the corner ... it's just so easy to go get some dulce de leche ice cream for dinner to soothe our burnt tongues!

This post is already way too long, so until next time, Adios!

Order of the Phoenix

So as I mentioned in my last post, Mike talked me into getting this:

His name is Phoenix. The reason his name is Phoenix is because of the follwing:

1. In three weeks time, we already know three families who have had their homes burglarized.

2. I was reading an expat Buenos Aires post and it did a survery about crime. Half of the people who replied had been a victim of a crime. Not the best odds.

3. Mike will have to travel from time to time.

So as much as I pleaded and maybe even cried a little, he convinced me we needed to get a big dog. He's not big yet, because we needed to familiarize him with our current dog, Cali, before he gets too big. But within a year, he will be about 150-200 lbs. He is a great dane, so he will be huge!

So the reason I named him Phoenix is because he will be the Eckel family's "Order of the Phoenix." For those of you who have no clue what that means ... shame on you! No, but seriously, it is from the Harry Potter books. The Order of the Phoenix is the group of Aurors who protect Harry Potter when things get really bad.

So our hope is first that things won't get really bad, and a distant second, that if they do, Phoenix will be our protector.

How is the training of a new puppy going, day after day in the rain? It has made me cry a little more, and reconsider re-naming him, Dang Dog!

As for if Phoenix and Cali are getting along, I'll let you be the judge:

I really don't want this to be about politics....

First off, a wise old woman once said, "Never move in the middle of winter!"



"Especially if you don't have a car!"

(For those of you who may not be aware of it, in the Southern Hemisphere we are in the middle of winter right now)

"And never, under any circumstances get a puppy while living in temporary quarters, and while adjusting to a new country, language, and culture!"  ...More about this in my next post.


So now for today's topic. I really don't want this to be about politics, but this has to do with what life is like here in Argentina, so just for today.

I feel like we are making a choice as to the future of America with this Presidential election. I realize that is the case with every election, but I believe with this election we are truly at a crossroads. Romney and Obama have very different ideas about what kind of country we should be.

The reason I feel this way is I believe President Obama is a Socialist at heart, and if re-elected, our country will further "Bolt" (that guy can run!) that direction. I say further, because if you look at Obamacare, and the advertising and promotion that has gone into the SNAP program, you'll see that another four years, and we won't be able to turn back. Once you start a program that is bigger than the government itself, it's almost impossible to do away with it.

The reason Socialism is on my mind is because Argentina is a Socialist country. I've only been here for three weeks, and I've noticed the effects of it.

In an effort to bolster the Argentine peso (their form of currency), the government recently passed a law stating that Argentine citizens traveling to the U.S. can only exchange pesos for dollars in the amount of $75 a day. Can you even get a hotel for that? And who is the government to tell you how much and where you can spend your money?

This is all in an effort to stop people from going to the States and converting their savings of pesos to the more-secure dollar. They had already stopped them from doing it here in Argentina, now they are reaching out and stopping them from doing it in America as well.

This manuever is a sort of shadow. About ten years ago, also in an effort to bolster the Argentine peso, the government reset the peso to a 1:1 ratio with the dollar. They just declared it. So all of the Argentines who had any dollars in the bank were forced to convert them to pesos at a 1:1 ratio.

Right now the exchange rate is about 5:1, so two dollars is equal to ten pesos. As an Argentine, if you had $1000 in your bank account, it's as if the government came in and said, "Your money is now worth $200."

In my opinion, that is way too much government control.

From what I can see, the result is a society made up of mostly lower class, and a small wealthy upper class, with not much in between. Essentially it kills the middle class.

Not only does it kill the middle class, but it kills the desire to do and be more.

For example, let's look at toilet paper. I had heard before coming that I needed to bring extra toilet paper. Now I know why. Basically everything you buy is like the commercial crepe paper toilet paper you find at public restrooms. Not only is it a terrible product, it is very expensive! About 3-4 times more expensive than Charmin in the States.

Why hasn't someone stepped up and made better toilet paper!?!

Because of limited ACCESS to resources, and limited power in the hands of the people. Government regulations have killed resourcefulness here!! It's ten times harder to get anything done here, because instead of a government that supports business growth, it stifles it with regulations.

Okay, I hope I didn't bore you to death! And lest you think I am just a greedy Capitalism freak, I do see the Utopian side of a Socialist government. I really do, I just think that for it to work, you need a HIGHLY virtuous, self-motivated, altruistic society.

Until next time ... Adios!

It's Electric

Let's talk about electricity. I'm a simple-minded girl, you grab the plug of your appliance, you plug it in, and it works! Electricity is electricity, right? Nope.

Okay, so we knew the voltage was going to be different here before we left. I left a lot of appliances in storage because of it. I just didn't know exactly what that would mean.

So before I tell you about our electricity I have to tell you about Ooma. We bought this little Ooma box at Costco before we left. You connect it to your internet, and you can buy your home phone number for a small fee, and then for about $3.50 a month you can have a phone hookup. We did this before we left, so we could keep our San Diego home phone number.

So the people who are down here from the States all either use Vonage (sp?) or Skype to call each other. The Argentine landline will usually drop the call within about 10-20 seconds, so to talk to someone minutes away, we are connecting from across the world with our U.S. phone numbers - crazy!

Okay, back to electricity, so we brought our home phone along with Ooma in our suitcases, so we could have a phone as soon as we got here. The first day we were here, we went to the hardward store and bought adapters that look like this:


Because the plugs here look like this:


We researched our phone system and the research suggested our phones would work with multiple voltages. So we came home from the hardware store, plugged in the phone base and, #*#*##*#**#***. It burned out the entire phone system.

The next day we went to lunch at our sponsors home, and we told them about our experience, and as luck would have it, they had an extra phone they had purchased from Amazon and never used, and they let us buy it off of them!

When we got home, we plugged the phone into a transformer,



then plugged the transformer into the outlet, and it worked! Yeah!

Lesson learned, right?

The next day, I took a shower, then pulled out my handy, dandy travel hair dryer made to work from 110-250 Volts (it says it on the hair dryer itself). I plugged it in, it ran for two seconds, got as hot as Hades, then stopped completely.

I had never before thought about how much more electricity 240 Volts is than our American 110 Volts. Twice as much is A LOT more!

The sad part of the story is I couldn't blow dry my hair. For some of you, that may not be very sad, but if you saw me with  no blow dryer, no flat iron, and no curling iron for my hair, you'd cry for me!

So for the next few days, including my first day to church, I had sad, sad, hair!

Eventually I made it to the store and way overpaid for a hair dryer that would work here - I say overpaid because everything is so expensive here!! I'll tell you about that in a future post - I'll tantalize you by telling you that inflation here is 25%. Can you believe that? Prices have gone up 25% in the last year!

If I'd have blown my hair dryer out (pun intended :) ) last year, I would have saved myself a boatload of money!

Until next time, Adios!

Home Sweet Home ... Temporarily

Today I'm posting some pictures of our temporary home. It is a charming little house. It is older, but I love a lot of the little details. The word is we should get into our permanent home in 4-6 weeks. The great thing about that is I get to move again! I've lived in 5 different houses in the last 5 years, so what's one more!?!

Before I post pictures of the house, I'll tell you Lance's train story. It was a week ago today, and our sponsor invited us to go to La Boca. It is a famous neighborhood in Buenos Aires with brightly painted buildings, tango dancers on the streets, and shopping.

Solo, my sponsor, told me I should leave my house ten minutes after she called me from hers, and walk to the train station and wait up by the front platform, and she would be on the first car, and would poke her head out, so if I saw her I would jump on with her and her two kids. I wrote down exactly what I needed to tell the clerk to buy my tickets, "Cinco bolettas a Retiro, y vuelta."

I got to the clerk, and a note said something about regreso. Apparently she was on a break. So I went to the other side of the train tracks and bought our tickets there - fortunately for me the first clerk I had gone to was on the wrong side of the tracks, so it saved me getting on the wrong way.

So the kids and I stepped out onto the platform to wait. We waited about five minutes before we saw the train. As soon as the train doors opened, we saw Solo, so we stepped up next to the train along with a few other people.

As we stepped onto the train, I didn't notice there was a gap of about twelve inches between the platform and the train. So when I stepped onto the train, Lance stepped into the gap, and his body fell in between the train and the cement platform.

Fortunately, I'm on heightened alert, so I was holding his hand. As my arm dropped, so did my stomach! Although he was dangling below, I had a firm grip on his arm. Taelor immediately saw what had happened, and the two of us pulled him up together just in time for the train doors to close.

As I stepped onto the train, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and my heart was pounding in my chest. The first car of the train has a large empty area where people were standing, some with their bikes. I moved to the center and tried to stabilize myself in between all of the people, so the kids could hold onto me as the train swayed on the tracks. Lance wrapped both of his arms around me, and I could feel him go limp. I looked down and his face was completely white. It looked like he was about to pass out. I said in English, "Is there a seat anywhere?", and a nice Argentine woman understood me and gave up her spot on the bar (it is a bar you can sit on) and motioned for me to sit. I went and sat/leaned on the bar and Lance climbed onto my lap.

Lance doesn't scare easily, but this scared him enough that he couldn't stand. After about ten minutes Lance's color started to come back, and I spent the rest of the afternoon yelling, "Lance get back here"!  I was hoping the experience would have made him want to stay next to me at La Boca, but he was already over it. In fact, yesterday at the school he said, "Look Mom, there's a ramp here that I can ride down and fly off of and go over that gate!" (It goes down about two stories) I just rolled my eyes and sighed, knowing I won't be bringing his bike over to the school!

So here are the pictures of our temp house:

This is the front of the house.

This is the staircase leading upstairs.

The living room.

The Parilla (I think that is what they call it),  patio with a barbecue station.

The maid's quarters. Unfortunately it doesn't come with the maid, so at this point I have to go outside of the house and up those stairs to do my laundry. The house is on the right, just on the other side of the trees.

The master bath.

The gate/wall that surrounds the property. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but there is barbed wire on top of the wall.

This house we are at is right across the street from the President's Compound. It takes up about four city blocks. A couple of times a day, we feel the house shake, and hear the helicoptor flying in or out of the compound, and we pray that she (President Christina) has good helicpotor pilots!

Adios!

Soaking Wet

Super awesome day! I guess today I'll post about getting groceries. As I mentioned before, we have no car ... so actually, this is a transportation post with a little groceries sprinkled in. Because I (I say I instead of we because Mike has a car come and pick him up and drop him off everyday) so because I have no car, I basically have four choices for getting around - walk, take the bus, take the train, or take a private taxi called a remis.

This morning the girls all had placement tests at the school, and it is too far to walk, so my wonderful sponsor, Solo, called the remis company near her house and asked them to pick us up and take us to school. Because I don't speak the language, I could not guarantee getting us to the Lincoln school in Martinez, instead of the Lincoln school in NYC, so Solo graciously offered to do it for me. The only problem I encountered here was when he came it was in a small sedan with only room for quatro passengers. I begged him if he would let all five of us go this un tiempo. Fortunately he agreed, so Lance and I double-buckled.

The tests were quick, so when we finished I went up to the guards in front of the school and asked them if they could call a remis with room for five. Oh no, there are no remises with room for five. Okay, so I had to get them to call two remises. Sally and Taelor rode in one, and Lance, Xani, and I rode in another. No problema. We arrived home safe and sound.

After lunch (food will be another post), I told the kids I needed to go and get some groceries. There is a little tienda (store) a few blocks away, so I decided to walk there, and only get as much as I could carry home. I grabbed a hand-held basket at the door, so I would know when it got too heavy.

After circling the store, trying to figure out what the heck to buy, I paid for it using pesos. Pesos seem like fake money - when you don't really understand the value of it, it's easier to hand it over.

I had about 8 bags in hand, some heavy, so it was hard to walk. The good thing about that is two minutes after I left the store, it started to pour. Remember, it is the middle of winter here, so it was  not a fun little spring shower. It was a cold, cold, shower.

The other super fun part is that I have a key to let myself in the gate, and I've been told if I'm alone and I see a man close by, don't just open the gate. So of course by the time I got to our gate, there was a man approaching me, so I had to walk a block past our gate, and then circle back, quickly drop my bags, get the keys out and throw myself and the bags into our yard as quickly as possible.

As the picture clearly shows, by the time I go home I looked like a drowned rat!

When Taelor saw her poor mother soaking wet on the surveillance camerea, she ran down and opened the door forgetting the alarm was on, so a minute later Post One called to make sure everything was okay. I debated whether or not to tell them that everything was not okay and that I'd really like a car, but instead I said cheerily, "False alarm. Everything's great!"

I know I said I would tell you about what happened to Lance, but this post on transportation is already way too long - so my next post will be about Lance and the train.

Adios!