On July 30, we returned to Buenos Aires from our trip to Paraguay and Iguazu Falls. As I mentioned earlier, I lost my I-Phone at the airport and I had to deal with the possibility that we had brought bedbugs with us from Paraguay. These two concerns were my primary preoccupations, so I wasn’t really able to enjoy the apartment that we had for 4 days and the end of “winter vacation” before school started. There was nothing to do about the lost phone; the boys and I spent more than an hour trying to see if we could get it from Lost & Found at Aeroparque. Fortunately, John had brought an extra smart phone (that isn’t so nice) from the United States, so I was able to reconnect to the Internet after a couple of days and get a local phone number after about a week. Trying to kill any bedbugs was a major task. I washed all of our clothes in hot water and dried them at a laundromat. Our apartment had a washing machine, but like most Argentine apartments, it did not have a dryer. I also wiped down stuff that couldn’t be washed and put an assortment of items in the freezer.
John returned to work (from the apartment) on the afternoon that we returned to Buenos Aires. He also had to work that Friday. The boys and I kept busy. In addition to washing clothes, we had to get ready for school on Monday. They already had their uniforms (blue polo shirt, blue fleece, gray slacks, and black or brown dress shoes for regular days; white t-shirt with the school logo, blue sweatshirt, blue sweatpants; and white sneakers for sports days) except for F’s dress shoes and their school supplies. We needed to buy their books and dress shoes for F; we also needed to change dollars in order to pay their school application fee and tuition for August. These tasks were not straightforward at first. The 2 bookstores that the school director recommended did not sell textbooks. Fortunately, the second bookstore told me where there are various bookstores that specialize in textbooks. The drawback was that those bookstores were about a 30 minute walk from the ones where I first went. Buying F’s dress shoes took much longer. At first it was challenging to find a store that sold children’s school shoes in the middle of the school year. When we did find such stores, the shoes were very expensive. John spent 2+ weeks looking for decently priced shoes and ended up spending almost 800 pesos (almost $60). Shoes are very expensive here, even shoes made in Argentina. Changing money was also a challenge at first. We had to change a significant amount of money to cover the boys’ school expenses and 2 months of our apartment rental. We didn’t want to change such an amount on Calle Florida. To get suggestions, John turned to a Buenos Aires Expat website. We knew that there are a lot of money changers and we wanted one that was secure and gave us a good exchange rate. The website recommended a service where the money changer comes to your house with pesos. We received a very large stack of money because the largest bill is the 100 peso note, equivalent to just over $7. It was a relief to have changed money.
John returned to work (from the apartment) on the afternoon that we returned to Buenos Aires. He also had to work that Friday. The boys and I kept busy. In addition to washing clothes, we had to get ready for school on Monday. They already had their uniforms (blue polo shirt, blue fleece, gray slacks, and black or brown dress shoes for regular days; white t-shirt with the school logo, blue sweatshirt, blue sweatpants; and white sneakers for sports days) except for F’s dress shoes and their school supplies. We needed to buy their books and dress shoes for F; we also needed to change dollars in order to pay their school application fee and tuition for August. These tasks were not straightforward at first. The 2 bookstores that the school director recommended did not sell textbooks. Fortunately, the second bookstore told me where there are various bookstores that specialize in textbooks. The drawback was that those bookstores were about a 30 minute walk from the ones where I first went. Buying F’s dress shoes took much longer. At first it was challenging to find a store that sold children’s school shoes in the middle of the school year. When we did find such stores, the shoes were very expensive. John spent 2+ weeks looking for decently priced shoes and ended up spending almost 800 pesos (almost $60). Shoes are very expensive here, even shoes made in Argentina. Changing money was also a challenge at first. We had to change a significant amount of money to cover the boys’ school expenses and 2 months of our apartment rental. We didn’t want to change such an amount on Calle Florida. To get suggestions, John turned to a Buenos Aires Expat website. We knew that there are a lot of money changers and we wanted one that was secure and gave us a good exchange rate. The website recommended a service where the money changer comes to your house with pesos. We received a very large stack of money because the largest bill is the 100 peso note, equivalent to just over $7. It was a relief to have changed money.