Moving to and living in...Argentina

Ebook - the real story... Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club - a great fiction story

My ebook Moving to Argentina takes a less novelistic approach to Moving to and Living in Buenos Aires, Argentin, focusing more on a how to book with our experiences woven into the mix. But, for a fun chic lit about Buenos Aires try the debut novel from Jessica Morrison,  "The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club"
  about how Buenos Aires helps the main character of the story  get her "perfect" life back on track.

  The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (Paperback)
by Jessica Morrison (Author)
List Price:  $12.99
Price:  $10.39

  Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Obsessive-compulsiv e Seattle Web worker Cassandra Moore has a life plan (and many meticulous revisions thereof), but that's before she loses her job, apartment and fiancé in one fell swoop. One martini-induced revelation later, Cassie books a planless six months in Buenos Aires. Though a formulaic tale of rejection rebound, Morrison's debut is firmly digital age: Cassie blogs her heart away, collecting a global network of similarly emotionally bruised souls, giving birth to the Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club. There will be handsome men (Argentinean and American), sage girlfriends and even a melancholic political group of mothers whose cause Cassie champions. Finally, after a series of predictable misunderstandings, sensitive local artist Marco will attempt to teach Cassie to trust in love again.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  Book Description
28-year-old Cassie Moore has always played it safe, living
life according to a meticulously organized Master
Plan. But when she loses her Perfect Job and finds her
fiancé in bed with his ex on the same day, it's clear that
The Plan has failed her. She awakens the next day from
a drunken stupor to discover that she's booked herself
on a six-month trip to Buenos Aires. She speaks not a
word of Spanish, but she's already emailed the news to
everyone she knows, so there's no turning back. Once
in Buenos Aires, Cassie is reluctantly seduced by this
glorious city. Her exuberant landlady introduces her to
the handsome but haughty Mateo, a man Cassie clashes
with right from the start. She soon befriends other
lovelorn travelers and together, they start a "Brokenhearts
Club" at a local bar, attracting a cast of characters
that includes Dan, a sweet handsome man who lives as
carefully and predictably as Cassie. Before long, Cassie's
making a new plan: 1. Learn Spanish. 2. Stop obsessing
about impossible Mateo and fall for perfect-on-paper
Dan. But staying on track isn't so simple anymore and
Cassie finally realizes that sometimes life--and love--
defies her best-laid plans.

Direct TV better than Cablevision now?

Cablevision used to be okay. Notice I said USED TO. Starting back in January they began to go through some major changes after being bought out by Grupo Clarin. The channel lineup changed with no advance notice. The guide also didn't have the new channel numbers listed by the major programming so you had to guess at channels. The TV guide was also off by 1-2 hours when compared to on air programs.

Now, the latest thing is the loss of several major expat channels: CNN, BBC, TV5 among others, and the addition of a decoder box at $100.00 pesos and $10.00 pesos per month to rent it.

Direct TV never looked so good!

Vonage to hit the dust??

Sorry I haven't been posting much, but little Caitlyn is keeping us SUPER busy! I still owe some posts about getting Argentine and American passports for her.

In the meantime, just a quick post about the VOIP service Vonage which has become such a needed and integral service for expats everywhere. It seems that Verizon has brought a lawsuit against Vonage and wants them to cease and desist all activities. The case is still in court but proceedings should be finished soon. Yanqi Mike has done a great post on his informative website so why don't you check out his site and his post about this.

Walrus Books

Are you tired of paying top dollar for books in English? Frustrated that there isn't much of a selection of those top dollar books? I was, and because I have just spent the last week sick in bed I had plenty of time to read and read I did creating a need for a refill. So I finally got into over to the Walrus Books bookstore which recently relocated from Palermo to San Telmo.

Walrus has a great selection of used books - lots of different types of fiction, some childrens books, classic literature, and travel guides, among others. The shop has a homey feeling with a warm atmosphere perfect for browsing for your favorite read. Think cozy cool little bookstores before the age of Borders and Barnes and Noble superstores (although I love them too.)

By the way, Walrus not only sells books, but they also buy them as well. You can be paid in cash or put the amount more books, of course in books sounds good to me.

I managed to walk out with two travel memoirs - one about India and the other about Paris, an Anne Rice novel that had escaped me, and a replacement to my Time Out Buenos Aires guide that somehow got lost when we moved here. I could have kept going but the poor hubby is not a bookworm and I started to feel very guilty. But there will be other times.

I highly recommend checking out Walrus Books. Their address is Estados Unidos 617 near the intersection of Peru, in San Telmo. They are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

As always, would love to hear what you think

Cable and HBO in Buenos Aires

I got my wish yesterday when I got to add the premium programming of HBO, HBO Plus, and Cinemax, as well as an additional sports channel, to our cablevision lineup. It's amazing what you can get when you barter with the husband - I wanted HBO for those yucky pregnant days when I just feel like sitting in front of the the TV watching movies, and the hubby wanted to pick up an additional channel to try and get a few extra World Cup matches with the French team.  So we both win, but I think I made out better! The cost of this extra programming? Well with the HBO package we got the cost of the decodificador included (normally approx 7.50 pesos/month) and the packages is costing us approximately 25 pesos/month.

This brings me to some questions I've received from readers. A lot of people ask about the programming here. Is it available in English? Is it subtitled? Are there any popular American programs being shown? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. Not only are there plenty of programs in English - both from the States and the U.K., but most programs that were originally in English are also subtitled in Spanish with a few dubbed in Spanish, and popular programs such as Lost are being shown here in English as well. Some of the channels that run English language programming are the: WB, Fox, E! Entertainment, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC World, Animal Planet, and National Geographic among others.

So not only can you see some of your favorite programs, but it's a great way to pick up some Spanish as well with all of the subtitles. And, as your Spanish improves, you'll be able to see if the subtitles are really accurate or not.

One last note, in addition to English and Spanish language programming, the typical Cablevision package also includes the French channel TV5, German Deutsche Welle, and Italian RAI. It's amazing though because in the States we had to pay for an additional package to receive TV5 and it was only available with one satellite company, whereas here it comes as part of your Cablevision or DirectTV packages.

 

Mattress choices in Argentina

We received our new colchone y sommiers today from La Cardeuse. It came just in time since Charlie arrives tonight and we would have had to fight over who got to sleep on the one mattress that we had.

We've been looking at colchones and sommiers for the last three weeks while trying to decide which brand to buy. The problem was that with my back problems and the possibility that I could be embarazada later this year, I had to have good mattress and was willing to spend more money on that little cosita than on muebles.

The search took us to many stores and brands, some of which were familiar to me, and others that weren't. The variety of brands is pretty good and many companies maintain their own stores that sell their brand exclusively, others sell several brands under one roof.

One place we never got to, but which had a variety of brands and pretty decent prices was Dormicentro Sonemos. I planned on getting there b ut since it was downtown it just kept getting put off. So we ended up looking at the Simmons store in the Unicenter Mall, La Cardeuse in Martinez just near Unicenter,  King Koil in Once, and finally ended up at a La Cardeuse store on Avenida Belgrano, where we finally purchased our new resortes style colchone and two sommiers.

I actually never knew about La Cardeuse since they're a French brand and I've never seen them in the States, but my husband knew them well. They have stores all over Buenos Aires so they're easy to find. And, most importantly, the people in both stores were exceedingly patient with my Spanish, and extremely friendly and helpful. I think it's one of the things that sold us, besides the quality, and of course the fact that the equivalent by Simmons was about 700 pesos more and only had one boxspring instead of two sommiers. The original price of the La Cardeuse set was 3010.70 pesos which with descuentos and a bit more negotiation ended up at 2192.00 pesos, a very nice deal for an excellent mattress.

The length of the mattresses tend to be a bit shorter here, although it is possible to get a longer one but the price will jump up as well. We ended up with something pretty close to a standard American queen, just a bit shorter, at 160cm x 190cm, but that size works well for us since we're not tall people.

We also went for two sommiers instead of one boxspring because it gets tricky to get a box spring up old narrow staircases. As a matter of fact, it's usually a hot seller here because they're also easier to get into apartment buildings.  When the guys came for the entrega de domicilo today, they still had to pass the mattress up and over the balcony and then in the balcony door. Once they finished with setting everything up, I asked them if they minded doing the same with a full sized boxspring that had become like a piece of furniture in our downstairs hallway (because it wouldn't go up the staircase) for almost three weeks. They said yes, they did, and then they got a very nice tip. We were happy, they were happy, hey everybody was happy.

Incidentally, all of our negotiating for the bed was done in Spanish - yayyyyy, since it's improving rapidly here. I think that because I had some ability to express myself in Spanish, plus the fact as I've said before, cash is king and we said we would pay in efectivo. We actually paid for most of it in U.S. dollars at an exchange rate of 3.05, and then the balance we paid upon delivery. Delivery by the way was within four days and was sin cargo.

I'll let you all know how the bed works out and if you're interested in a bed, I could send u to our salesman, but he only speaks Spanish y el habla espanol muy rapidamente and even when we were there I often had to remind him to habla mas despacio por favor.

chau

Useful Vocabulary

*colchone y sommier - mattress and boxspring
*embarazada - pregnant
*entrega de domicilio - delivery to your home
*efectivo - cash
*sin cargo - without charge
*y el habla espanol muy rapidamente - and he speaks Spanish very rapidly
*habla mas despacio por favor - speak more slowly please

Insurance

I've been meaning to mention that we were successful in procuring health insurance during this past trip. The plan we got even includes maternity benefits after only two months!!!

We signed on with Medicus after looking around at the different plans. Why Medicus? Well they were one of the best companies out there (besides OSDE) AND we found someone who was happy to try and speak English with us (and she was really sweet) to walk us through the plan.

Cost for our new insurance for me and my husband... $ 516 pesos per month which is less than US $200. Once we have a baby it should go up to around US $200. No co-payments or deductibles and we have sanitarios (hospitals) available around the city and in the suburbs. In addition we have some coverage outside of Argentina as well when we're traveling.

I sent my Argentine friend to this same representative and she got insurance just for her for approximately 200 pesos. She took a plan with slightly less coverage, but still very good.

We are able to make payments at the center, by phone, or by the Internet.

If anyone has any questions feel free to drop me an email!

chau!

Grocery Stores (Supermercados) in Argentina

These are the major supermercados in Argentina. Although small family run markets are available everywhere, these are the biggies where it's sometimes easier to find those obscure items you might be looking for. Of course some have better product selections than others so you'll just have to decide what works best for you. But, case in point, I was looking for REAL buffala mozzarella the other day, the mozz made from water buffalo milk, and I found it both at the Jumbo Mall on Av Bullrich and Cerviño as well as at the Carrefour located in Palermo Chico in the Paseo Alcorta shopping mall.

Coto

Carrefour ; map of locations throughout Argentina

Disco

JUMBO

Norte

MAC Cosmetics, Unicenter, & Ebay's Mercado Libre

What do MAC Cosmetics and Ebay have in common you might ask? Well, actually not much, except that I was doing a search this morning for  "MAC Cosmetics Argentina" and it turned up some not so interesting things and, one much more interesting thing.

Although I already knew that there was a MAC counter somewhere in Buenos Aires, I didn't know exactly where, and I'm always interested in seeing what Internet searches turn up. Anway, I got the address and I'll be checking it out on my next trip to make sure they don't give me a hard time about accepting the MAC PRO card for my make-up artist discount and if the store is really the same as in the U.S. I'll do a post with more about them once I check them out. FYI their address in Martinez in the Zona Norte:
Unicenter
Falabella - Parana 3745
Store 1000
54 11 47 17 14 77

(Incidentally there is also a DHL dropoff  at Unicenter at Parana 3700)

If you don't know about MAC Cosmetics then please feel free to ask me about them...I'll give you all my rants and raves...a lot less rants though.

Now, about the Ebay part. I'm an Ebay fanatic and, although it's sadly not the same Ebay as it was just a few years ago, there are still some great deals to be had...like the great deal on our factory refurbished Canon EOS that we're currently waiting to receive! Anyway, my MAC search this morning turned up someone selling it on Mercado Libre. This is basically the South American version of Ebay (licensed by them.) It's definately worth checking out...although before you buy something I would HIGHLY recommend you read the feedback even more carefully than usual. It'll also provide an opportunity to practice reading your Spanish.

Now, if I can just find some sort of Amazon in South America (and I'm not talking about the rain forest,) to keep up with my book addiction. Gonna really miss the great library system here too because lately I've had to review a lot of books about freelance writing and I don't even want to begin to think about how much they would have all cost to buy. So if I find out about an Amazon look-a-like I'll let you know...otherwise...I'm STILL gonna take all of my books! sorry dear husband...