Finale

Every one's at school today except Buddy and I! Whew! A few hours of quiet time after a month of rushing, stress, goodbyes, hellos, stress, packing, traveling...did I mention stress?

We officially moved out of the house on December 11th. Our movers were awesome but incredibly slow so the process took five whole days...8:30-5 PM each day. We gave Lilian the Thursday off so she could come in and clean the house on Saturday when it was finally empty. Each day after the movers left, John took exceptionally good care that things were clean, patched and perfect. It was driving me a little crazy but he did an amazing job.

Backing up in time a bit...the night of the final performance of Aida, we had a huge flood in the house. The gardener came to clean the pool and set the water pump incorrectly, causing our water reservoir container to overflow into the house. Since we were enjoying the play, obviously we weren't home to catch it in time. The kitchen was ankle deep with water (at least it was clean water!) and because the reservoir is up by the attic, the kitchen ceiling was a mess. We dried it out very well, lost a few things to water damage but the wood floors were saved and no one died. Unfortunately, the landlord decided to blame us for the damage to the house. Interesting thought process but there you go.

We had been told by people at the Embassy to use our security deposit ($4400 straight out of our pockets) as our last month's rent. It was warned that we would never see the money again if we left the country without it. I had a hard time imagining our landlord taking our money - we really loved this guy...until he blamed us for the gardener leaving the pump set wrong. We had already used the deposit for November's rent (our last full month) and Dr. Claros was very unhappy about it.

Fast forward a few weeks - our closing on the house was December 17th. I was running errands but John was so very ready. He had a list of about 25 improvements we had made in the house, including five sets of lights - and they were a huge improvement over what had been there. We had always expected to leave them with the house as a "Thank you" to the doc. We'd installed a cabinet over the washer and dryer, John had removed and fixed some stained glass windows, small stuff and not so small stuff but this all was over a span of just 10 months. The doctor dismissed the improvements with barely a sniff and tried to charge us $150 for replacing the hot water pump which kept dying on us because it was so old.

To say I was upset was way under estimating my dismay. I was heartbroken. I was disgusted. I was beyond angry because I felt sick with disbelief that this man we made part of our family was playing money games. This all went on for over 3 hours. I showed up about 45 minutes after it started and tried to cool John off - he was shaking with anger. Then I got a full picture of what was going on and told Dr. Claros I was horrified by his behaviour. That's when I started taking down the things we had planned to leave with the house.

It was a terribly sad way to part with our Argentine home. I cried my heart out and didn't want anything to do with the dinner we were planning to go to with some friends of John's from his class. We went anyway and had a great time. It was balm I needed to restore some faith in the Argentine people. Funny how one person can really upset your view on the whole.

The only silver lining in the experience was it made it much easier for us to take our leave of the country we'd made our home for 2007. We left behind some superb friends - especially Mary and Drew - the kids left behind some superb friends of their own too. Nicole's heart wrenching farewells to her two closest friends was simply exhausting.

We had an amazing year, full of adventures and experiences we'll treasure for always. Our visitors added so much to our time there. It's wonderful to have adventures but it's more memorable when you can share them with those you love.

My favourite memories of Argentina ~

1. Iguazu Falls
2. Ushuaia - penguins!
3. Dog walkers with a dozen big dogs attached to them!
4. Cafe con leche
5. Medialunas
6. Tostados
7. Watching Kim learn Spanish
8. Petting a lion and two tigers (sorry Mom!)
9. Aida - my star!
10. SCAC - soccer tournament - my other star!
11. Getting lost finding the zoo then it was closed when we finally found it!
12. John's work hours (7:30-3 with every Friday off!)
13. Hippie Fairs
14. Tango lessons
15. Tango shows - even the never ending one!
16. My first Mate
17. Our parties
18. Nicole's Quince!
19. The kids' wonderful school
20. Our beautiful home

Adios Buenos Aires - looking forward to visiting you again!