Today it was time to get my documents in line to become an official Argentine (temporary) resident. Fortunately, my work hires a visa company to organise these things, and I just have to get a taxi to the Registro Nacional de Las Personas at 9am. A rather handsome and confident young man from the visa company immediately spots me as the stand-out Brit on arrival and greets me at the entrance to the government building. He begins speaking to me in very broken English and I have to wonder why he assumes I don't speak Spanish. Fair enough, I've only just moved to the country, but it's fairly safe to assume I will be able to at least get by in the local language, given that I'm working as a journalist here.
Mr Handsome escorts me to another entrance, where he isn't allowed to pass. He tells me to put my passport in a box at the front of the waiting room and then proceed to wait for up to two hours for my name to be called. He will wait outside. I wonder how incompetent my employer and the visa company must think we are if they think I can't do this myself without Mr Handsome waiting outside for me. I mean, not to be cocky, but it was more than 11 years ago that I moved to Brazil alone and managed to get myself a visa at the Federal Police station in back-of-beyond Palmas, Tocantins. If I could do that at the tender age of 18 with only three months of Portuguese then I think I can just about manage this one at age 29 years old, with 14 years of Spanish under my belt...
Nevertheless, Mr Handsome waits outside and I take a seat, immediately pulling out my Blackberry. After a few minutes, I start to hear some background noise and I look up to see that the security guard is trying to get my attention. What have I done now?! Mr Gruff Security Guard points at a sign behind me and I crook my neck around to see what he's pointing at.
"No Mobile Phones," reads the sign. Oh Jesus, no mobile phones in a waiting room?! Whatever next?
I look at my number tag. I'm number 104. The little ticker machine is on number 54. This is going to be quite a wait. And I have nothing to read.
I study my surroundings. The waiting room is packed full with hundreds of people, but they are almost all Hispanic-looking, with most of them speaking Spanish amongst themselves. At first, I think they are Argentines, but eventually I decide this place is definitely just a registry office for foreigners and therefore they must be from all over Latin America. I spy a few passports and realise they are Peruvians, Bolivians, Colombians mostly. I'm the only Brit I can see, though there appears to be one American.
A man comes around with a big silver tin of coffee and I jump at the chance of refreshment, since there is no shop or drinks stand in the building. I pay a few pesos for the coffee and take a sip. Uggh. It's full of sugar - there's actually sugar in the massive vat of coffee he's carrying. Gross. Why do South Americans automatically sweeten their coffee?
Finally, after about two hours, my name is called and I get my photo taken and sign some forms. Now I just have to wait a couple of months and I'll be all official with my Argentine national ID card, the DNI! Yay!
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