A month from today I will have been in Buenos Aires!!!

I'm starting to feel nervous about the whole idea of going to study in Argentina. First, I haven't gotten my visa yet coz of the differentiation the Argentine government made between US and non-US citizens. So, on Wednesday afternoon, I spoke to Miriam, the lady in charge of the student visa in Argentine consulate in NY. First, she told me that all I need was---> application form, acceptance letter, passport, 2 photos and a prepaid envelope. I was like, oh cool, then I don't have to go to NY to do all of this. Then I realized that I forgot to ask about the money order thing, since again... the privilege of being a US citizen is that you don't have to pay for any of your visa application! (>-<) Anyway, when I spoke to Miriam again, she was like... "wait a sec, since you're not a US citizen (oo.. so she had thought that I was one...) you must come to the office ASAP and we will ask you to fill out a separate form and have an interview with you" Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggghhh!!!! I actually didn't mind going to NYC, is just that everytime I go there, I'm always struck by weird things :( so, I asked my beloved Mas Yogi to accompany me to NYC, and of course he said yes :P love you, Mas Yogi... (I can't wait to see you tomorrow ....) So, I spent my weekend in Boston, shopping (bought a Rp 500.000 jeans :p), planning to go on a duck tour (as we always said whenever I visit Boston :p) but again, didn't happen, and mmm.. nosotros nos peleamos y casi terminamos nuestra relaciones (>-<) me alegró que ese no ocurrió porque quiero a Mas Yogi muchisimo. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa... Me molesta mucho que no pueda escribir en espanol ahora y el día de salida es un mes de hoy!!!!!!! voy a escribir en espanol hasta hoy, és importante que pueda exprese mi emoción y mi pensamiento en espanol a los argentinos!!! Ok, so on Monday morning at 12.40ish am, Mas Yogi and I left his house for South Station, coz our bus is at 2.30am. We're scheduled to arrive at 9am at Port Authority. BUT... when we got to Central Sq. unfortunately the station was closed! I panicked immediately... (>_<) so, we decided to take a cab, but none of use had enough cash with us, so Mas Yogi went to withdraw some money. After 5 min sitting on the taxi, Mas Yogi realized that se le perdió su tarjeta de credito!!! OMG, what could happen next, I thought :( In the bus, we tried our best to sleep, but I kept on getting hit on the head everytime i leaned on the window (>-<) I thought Mas Yogi was able to have a better sleep, but unfortunately the idea of sleeping in the bus didn't work out well for neither of us. ... As soon as we arrived at the station and got "dressed", we took the subway to the Argentine consulate. I'm sooooooooooooooo glad that I went with Mas Yogi since el sistema del tren de la ciudad de Nueva York me molesta! It was on 12W56th st. When we got there, the first comment made by Mas Yogi was "how come the people waiting (I guess, for various immigration purposes) looked so stressed??!!" It's true... mmm.. I guess it's like that everywhere, not only at the US embassy in Jakarta! Then, not long, a tall, long haired lady came out from the office and asked me to follow her---> Miriam. She asked me to fill out a form that didn't look too complicated. Then it turned out that I had to know the name and the address of the family that I'm staying with and I must have a specific date on my return ticket!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggggggghhhh... Why didn't they tell me on the phone last Wed so I could have gotten enough time to search for those info. Luckily Emily Keene was at her desk and I'm sure that she was suprised also that for non US citizen, the Argentine govt requires such info. She had to call Argentina, Thx God, Argentina is only 3 hours ahead of US, otherwise things would have to wait till the next day...
Apprently, Indonesia in on the list of the countries that requires a special authorization. WHY???!!! I wonder if this was true before the 9/11. If so, then I guess it's the why it is.... So I waited...and waited... Mas Yogi kept on falling asleep on the bench and so was I. Both of us were sooo tired and sleepy!
At almost 1pm, (we ended up staying there from 10am-1pm) Miriam came out with a piece of info of my host fam. Pheeww... But since I didn't have a copy of my itinerary with a return date on it, I was asked to come back again tomorrow! aaaiiiyyyyaaaaaaaa....

So, we had to look for an internet café, luckily it wasn't afr at all from the consulate. Paying $2.50 for 10 min (porque está cara???!!! In mi país solamente necesitamos pagar $.30 por 60 minutos :P cuantos pesos tendré pagar en Argentina???), I was able to call the travel agent, who was sooo helpful that I manged to get a proper intinerary :)

Next, we had lunch at the park :p I thought we're able to sit on the grass, but they had fence all over the park :( we saw 2 cute elephant statues and both of us ended up taking pictures with them :p hehhehe... afterwards, we went for shoes hunt! As usual, if on the first look I don't "fall in love" with the shoes, that means those aren't for me! (>_<) it took us hours looking for a new pair of sneakers for me. First, I was tight of budget, my size is tiny (well, ok I guess... 6,5 :p) and mmm.. I'm pretty conservative in term of sneakers. Soooo.. after a long walk, I ended up with empty shopping bag :( hix..hix... poor Mas Yogi ! I think he started to know how I shop :P we had dinner at Jaya restaurant in Chinatown. I had laksa... hot and spicy :) and mas Yogi had sweet basil chicken.. was good too :) at 830ish we decided to go to CS' place at 68thSt. We reached a fancy apartment with a nice looking car parked in front of it. I was like... "is this the place??" the doorman called CS' place "Sir, your friend Yogi is here. Shall I let him in? (pause...) OK Sir." ooooo... sweet! We took the elevator to the 8th floor and greeted by a chinese calligraphy :P CS and Sharyn came out and we had a chat till about 10pm. I immediately fall asleep after I took a shower and woke up around 8pm. Although we both didn't sleep on a bed, the couches were nice and comfy (thx CS... ). Mmm... prolly when I'm "big" I should get an apartment like that :P hheheh.. At 9ish, we left his place and started walking to the Argentine consulate again. I don't know why, but my bag seemed to grow heavier! I don't know how many times I had to ask mas Yogi to carry the bag for me, or I ended up being pretty grouchy! (>-<) I had everything prepared, so it didn't take us long. Miriam told me that the authorization is going to take 3 weeks, Aaaaaaaaaa... Ya Allah, ojalá que reciba el visa antes del día de salida para que pueda ir con los otros estudiantes. Amin... We went to the internet café again, to look up some stuff to do before we both headed back to our "origins." We decided to go to Guggenheim museum near Central Park. We had lunch at Sanur, an Indonesian-Malaysian restaurant, coz Mas Yogi was craving for gado-gado :p I ordered an Indoensian nasi goreng dish, which wasn't too bad. But I think the gadp-gado was better :p heheheh... Guggenheim wasn't bad, but with the mix of tiredness and the burden of carrying a heavy bag, I couldn't enjoy the place that much.... We then left for another shoes hunt. I kinda know which shoes I would get, so we only visited on store at 34thSt. When I almost decided on which shoes to get, Mas Yogi asked me to have a last look at the entire section and... I found a better one! :p they were blue and cute :p mission accomplished (^_^) we then went to Port Authority and waited for the bus. At first I thought Mas Yogi was gonna be on the same bus with me till Middletown, but I realized that it would have been 9 hours of abus ride for him then. So we said bye..bye.. at the station and left off on different buses.... Ooooooooo... along trip to NYC. Two days in NYC made tired, even till today :P hahhaha.. shower time!