Time and Travel

It may be a cliché, but it’s amazing how time is essential to travel.

There is often little time to travel, as our busy lives are filled with prior commitments and responsibilities beyond the realm of crossing geographic borders. Aside from that, the time it takes to make the necessary arrangements detracts from the idealistic jet-setting lifestyle many of us imagine when traveling internationally.

In order to travel to Argentina, I not only had to book a chain of flights and connections from Philadelphia to Dallas to Buenos Aires, and finally to my ‘home’ in Corrientes Capital, but I had to take detour to the Argentine Embassy in Washington, D.C., earlier in the week. Who knew the road to Argentina was through Washington, D.C.?

Although only three and a half hours away, the trip to Washington, DC took twelve hours and involved fingerprinting, the issuing of visas, and a frenzied search for chocolates. Allow me to explain.

In many Latin American countries, it is customary to bring gifts when completing a business transaction. “You should bring her chocolates,” my travel agent told me, referring to the woman at the embassy who was supposedly difficult to deal with. “But remember,” she added, “you must give them to her after you get the visa, because if you give them to her before, it’s a bribe.” “Isn’t that what it is, though?” I asked the travel agent. She didn’t answer.

I told my mother we were not getting this woman Godiva chocolate unless we walked out with the visa — no visa, I said, then she’s getting Russell Stover.

So as we drove into Washington, I panicked—we had forgotten the chocolates—the bribe that was not really a bribe!

After circling a rotary, I jumped out of the car and ran into a CVS and quickly grabbed the cheapest box of chocolates I could find; I did not have a good feeling about this trip; after all, I was supposed to have left for Argentina the week before but was stranded when no visa materialized.

We eventually found the Argentine embassy, illegally parked on a corner, and ran into the old white stone building where the blue and white flag of Argentina waved and I declared in a state of mild panic, “I’m here to see Rosaleah!”

And there she was—all four feet nine inches of her and about a size zero waist—looking at me, as she happily said, “Okay, let’s get the visa,” as if there was nothing to worry about.

An hour and a half, two sets of paperwork (I had messed up the first set because the directions were written in Spanish) and about twelve sheets of my fingerprints later, I was issued a legitimate Argentina Student Visa at last.

I reached for the box of chocolates I had stashed away in my purse and handed them to her, smiling as best I could so as not to laugh, and she gladly received them, opening her arms to hug me.

As we hugged, I received what will be the first of many Argentine kisses, as the small woman planted one right on me as I blushed, not used to the warm embrace of strangers considered traditional in South American countries.

In that moment, I felt like I was already in Argentina (actually, I was, considering we were on a little square of Argentine soil). And I didn’t even need Godiva.

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