Our first blog posting!

Hi everyone, welcome to our blog about our adventure to Argentina! In case you haven't heard, we've spent the last 5 months trying to get down to Argentina dealing with all sorts of immigration and legal issues... fun:) But we're ALMOST there!

We arrived in Los Angeles today. Man, has it been interesting so far. Danny and I are at a place right on the boardwalk of Venice Beach in Los Angeles, CA. The man who checked us in was quite the character and closely resembles UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighter Bas Rutten in every way. He actually used to be a cage fighter, and he used to live in Lake oswego, funny stuff. We couldn't have asked for a better location. Street vendors line the boardwalk and everyone seems to be pretty mellow here, I think it's a mixture of sun and drugs.

We dropped $100's on cab fare this morning just getting to our apartment, then to the consulate. We decided to take the bus from now on. I always enjoy the culture among bus goers. Everyone was really helpful in getting us to where we needed to be today.

The Consulate. This is the reason we're here in LA, we have to present every piece of documentation available on our lives in order to get visas to Argentina. Really intimidating. I didn't know it was so official. I crossed out a word and had to rewrite my entire application, twice. By the third time I figured out that they didn't want me crossing things out (there's already an english/spanish language barrier in LA, that's why I was a little slow to catch on). We were in the office just sitting there for about 2 1/2 hours with a dull silence in the room, and an occasional conversation in spanish here and there. There is ONE woman in charge of ALL the people trying to get visa's into Argentina in 11 states! That's a lot of work. Bad news for her, bad news for us. She thinks we can leave on Friday. So we'll be here for a week. I guess it could be loads worse. This is the place to wait if they're going to make us wait. Really fun people watching, and there's a place that serves Boar's Head meat across the street from the place we're staying, so I am in quite a joyous mood about that.

I have been up since 2:30am, in cabs, buses, and a plane and I am pooped. I am going to rest for a while. Give me a call anytime in the next week on my cell phone, after that I can be reached @ 503-616-3817. There's no charge for you to call this number or receive calls from this number because we have Skype. Adios!