my father spent an exorbitant amount of money on making my younger host sister's birthday a really good one, and i'm really, really grateful. one of the things my family here has stressed to me is the idolization of the brand gap, although of course no one can recognize when i wear things from that store because nothing i own has the iconic letters on it. so i informed my dad of this infatuation (a surprising parallel to my host family in spain a few years ago, incidentally), and sure enough, he pulled through in flying colors as is his custom. however, to explain the negative tone of the title of this entry, i have to outline the process of retrieving said presents. fedex sent me a letter in super technical spanish which i understood but didn't want to think i did, in which i was informed of the necessity of my going to ezeiza airport to receive my package. i wanted to throttle someone. i had one of the coordinators of our program call in for me just to be safe and she told me i'd be expected to pay some fees for them to have held the package that was supposed to be delivered to my host family's house, and to take a remis. lisa, danielle, and julie came with me because they're awesome, and after forty five minutes and driving to the airport, i proceeded to spend another hour and a half or so going back and forth, back and forth among three offices. literally: "back to office one, sign another form," then "take this form back to office two," "okay, great, now what was in the bag? anything illegal?" "yes, if you consider goodwill illegal, you freaking idiots."
at least it's all over. i would not encourage anyone to send anything to argentina unless you know the recipient really, really wants it.
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