We are now down to 15 days and a "wake up". Between all the holiday festivities in little Oriental and trip preparations, we are beside ourselves with how much we need to do. But the good news is that we heard from the school about our home stay host. We will be living with Maria Blanca Castro and her two cats. She is a "retired" 75 year old that lives in Palermo, which looks like a very nice residential area. We will be three blocks from the zoo, a botanical garden and the US Embassy in one direction and three blocks from an area full of restaurants, cafes and shopping in the other. The apartment is about two miles from our school. There is a subway line, buses or a walk down the blvd. We think this is all ideal and are getting more excited each day.

We're glad you are coming along! Merry Christmas!

Twenty two days and a wake up, as we used to say in the Army. Christmas shopping and mailing, party preparation and attendance all seem to confuse our mission of getting ready for the Argentina trip. What is a little odd is that for the 6 months we will spend in Argentina we haven't done much of our usual trip planning nor have begun to pack. We have the reservations at the school for 12 weeks, our home stay and we have a timeshare condominium reserved for one week in April. While we have developed a whole list of places to see and visit like the Iguazu waterfalls, the colonial cities of the NW, the Mendoza wineries in the Andes, Patagonia, glaciers and Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world,we aren't making any more detailed plans because we aren't sure how well we will do with the language school. We are committed to some level of success learning Spanish. So when and at what pace we do the touring will be determined as we go. Through friends that have gone to Buenos Aires before us we have found an excellent travel agent to work with for these other parts of the adventure.

Anyway, the house sitters are coming on the 29th. We have found homes for the cars with neighborhood garages. The credit card companies are warned. Twenty two and a wake up!

We have less than 30 days to be ready for our six month adventure to Argentina. We have plenty to do in getting the house, computer, clothes, prescriptions, house sitters, etc. ready for the change. We are continually reading other blogs of people that live in Buenos Aires or have traveled there which give us new things to think about all the time. We will arrive on January 2nd and start Spanish language school on the 5th. On arrival we will move in with our home stay family. We wonder what that will be like. We plan on this arrangement for at least a month. Given our age, we might be moving into our own apartment the second month. So the planning continues. A few holiday parties to attend, New Years Eve running with the dragon and then off we go on January 1. What a way to start the new year!