Hay Que Tener Paciencia

One has to be patient. Over the last two months we former Air Force brats have relearned how to hurry up and wait. Since our last posting, we've had some exhilarating moments with federal bureaucracy, ranging from the officials who approve national identity documents (or DNI, in the castilian - as they say here - abbreviation) to the customs inspector charged with establishing the value of and approving delivery of our household shipment. Then home to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait some more.

DNIs will be ready sometime around mid-August. With this important number we'll be able to get credit cards from our bank here in Argentina. 

But our household goods finally made it to our apartment yesterday evening, 2 and 1/2 months since our Texas shippers hauled off everything from our Austin apartment. Delivery time was set for between 4 and 5 pm, but actually occurred between 6:30 and 7 pm. "Technical difficulties with the truck" was the way the local agent described the additional delay; the guys handling the delivery more plainly (and accurately) said the truck had broken down.  A second truck had to be dispatched to retrieve and deliver our container.

We had sold or given away most of our accumulated goods over the past several years; our shipment consisted of about 50 boxes/wrapped items total, mainly photo albums, clothes, and kitchen ware. After living with so little, though, we were overwhelmed by the amount of extraneous stuff in those 50 boxes. We are realizing we need to pare down even more. Already we've made a good start at downloading our CD collection to the MacBook Pro we bought earlier this year. We plan on buying an IPod and Bose docking station to eliminate the more than 300 CDs we still own. Next up: another go at culling the wardrobe. We'll get there.