The Long and winding road, that leads to Brazil

This is me standing in front of the Argentinian White House, I mean, Pink House. But wait, what am I doing in Argentina?? Don't I live in Brazil? What's going on here?

Well, I'm going to work backwards a bit now to fill in some of the gaps in the Wedding-Honeymoon-Married life story. So let's take it one step back, right before getting home to Brazil. Well we made it back after a whole slew of adventures: the famous Helen, GA; Chapel Hill, D.C., New Mexico, Buenos Aires...

Ok, actually that last one was not on the agenda. The story goes that coming home, as we tried to go through customs in the São Paulo ariport, I was told that my visa was no longer valid! This came as a huge shock because I had gone to the Federal Police in São Paulo and spoken with the head of their foreign visas to ensure that we could go to the US without any problems, but well, without her there to confirm what she had told me, my word was as good as mud, and we were stuck with me unable to enter the country!

One glimmer of hope was that we could call the Brazilian authorities and explain the situation begging for them to wave the problem. When Gui finally got through to someone, they said we could not call them as mere humans, and we needed my government to ask on my behalf. Then I called the US Consulate in SP. They essentially washed their hands of me saying it was my own problem, and they could not do anything to help. So we were back to square one: leave the country and get a new visa at a Brazilian Consulate. The closest Consulate, we were told, was in Buenos Aires.

The emigration officers were very helpful and sympathetic telling us that as they had seen in the past, this option was fairly quick and rarely failed. So given the choice between spending at least $4000 (or more) on flights to the States (not to mention getting back on a plane for 10 hours!), and our other choice: a cheaper, 2 hour flight to Argentina, we went with the latter. Besides, Gui reminded me, hadn't I mentioned wanting to go to Buenos Aires just the other week? Be careful what you wish for!

I've never been deported before. I don't recommend it to anyone, but if you must, Brazil is not such a bad place to check that life experience off from your list. We were treated very kindly, and though we had to spend some 8 hours at the airport buying tickets and waiting for our flight, in the end the whole experience wasn't that bad. I even had a personal escort while in the airport to ensure I didn't run away and break into the country!

We got to Argentina kind of late, and the airport was far from downtown, so Gui, using his Portugnol skills found us a reasonably priced hotel right near the consulate. We crashed hard and then got up the next day, had some nice breakfast (Yes, Mammie, we chose the hotel with the free breakfast offer. You have trained me well.) And we arrived at the Consulate good and early. There was hardly anyone there, and all that we lacked was a photo which we got done very quickly. They were incredibly nice and even waved some of the visa requirements that weren't convenient! So we were told that we could pick it up in 3 days, i.e. we had that day, and two more for sight-seeing!

And well, when life gives you lemons, you take them, because hey, free lemons. (Sorry, that's this T-shirt Gui really want to buy, but you get what I'm saying.) Now, these lemons weren't all that free, but we were certainly going to enjoy our unplanned trip to Argentina all the same!

We went to the zoo one day! It's a zoo unlike any I've ever seen in that, you could feed all the animals, and I mean, ALL THE ANIMALS. See photos...





We also covered some serious ground on foot seeing the cemetary where Evita is buried, an Evita Museum, beautiful churches, government headquarters, and even some Argentine soldiers marching by!



Time went by quickly, but we managed to see just about all that we wanted in those 3 days. We stayed in a nice hostel the rest of our time there. We knew it was good because Gui had stayed there on his trip through South America from last vacation. Every morning we had cafe con leche and bread with buttle and rich, dark dulce de leche. Great way to start the day!

On the last day there, we went straight to the consulate, picked up my new tourist visa right away (a visa for 5 years even though now it'll be totally unnecessary because I'm getting a residency card, but hey, that's alright, the side trip was worth it!)

Besides, Gui got to have his Argentinian barbeque, complete with blood sausage and what I think where grilled intestines. I politely tried, and then went back to my awesome salad...



We made some new friends...



And we celebrated our marriage in style!



Yep, in the end, it was a very fun way to end our adventures! That is, for now!