[Paisleychick-lj] Inauguration wasn't the only great thing today!!

[Beatrice M's blog]

[![][1]][2]  
[President Obama's Virtual Inauguration][3], originally uploaded by [blmurch][4].

I didn't make it into the Inauguration party at Sugar Bar in Palermo. I got there *way* too late for that. The doors opened at 2 pm and the place was packed by 2:10 I got there about 2:50. Instead, I went to a local Internet Cafe and got a terminal. I logged onto Facebook and watched via the CNN/Facebook event. Everything worked, but the broadband could have been better. I really liked reading what my FB friends were saying. There was a wonderful sense of awe, inspiration, amazement and togetherness. On the one hand, I wish I had made it inside as it would have been great to see people and take photos of the joy and watch the inauguration with other expats. On the other hand, I'm really glad I didn't have to deal with the crowd and it was packed. I met up with friends afterward and shared a good toast to our new President and a nearly empty nearby Brazilian bar. I have a good feeling in my body when I hear the words **"President Obama"**. I feel proud of the United States of America again. His speech gave hope for a difficult, but strong, future.   
  
Today was another step in our future as well. In the morning we met up with our translator and picked up the commercial reference from Ängstro that Veronica translated from the scans last week. [Veronica Pía Lopez][5] has translated all our documents from the USA in order to process our visa application request. I highly recommend her. We had everything for our visa application in mid-December except three commercial references. We asked five and four came through! It was close as we didn't get the official documents until Monday and Tuesday for the last two letters. Many thanks to Alejandro, Marcelo, Patricio and Rohit! This means that we have temporary residence permits here. We are to check in again in March to see about making them more permanent. We have been working towards this goal for about a year. This is a very big deal and we are relieved to have come this far. We sighed a big sigh of relief after we walked out the door of the _migraciones_ office. We rode the 5 bus home from Retiro.  
  
Our friend Cate bought a bike from her friend Sarah who left with her girlfriend to live together in Columbia. We're storing the bike and I'm taking it on rides when I'm running errands. This afternoon, I pedaled to Palermo. I took the main roads which are easier to navigate, but there are *a lot* of buses and I feel pretty small on the bike. I think I'll take side streets the next time. It's just that the intersections are harder to cross as no one really stops. I've been keeping track of where I'm going on walks and rides on Google maps. It's nice because I'm able to plot out the maps and it tells me how far I went. It's a very handy tool that and I'm so glad that it now covers Argentina.  
  
After I left the meetup, I stopped and took photographs of Tipa trees over Honduras at Gascon. I have been so busy with stuff going on that I haven't had much time lately for photography. It was nice to spend some time on [my favorite subject][6]. I rode home and watched the speech again with Kragen. I'm very glad that we shared this moment of history together. We watched a repeat on MSNBC.com Overall, this was an amazing day!!

   [1]: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3453/3213799881_7dd81b1cea.jpg
   [2]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/3213799881/ (photo sharing)
   [3]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/3213799881/
   [4]: http://www.flickr.com/people/blmurch/
   [5]: http://www.oneononeargentina.com.ar/
   [6]: http://losarbolesdebuenosaires.blogspot.com/

URL: http://paisleychick.livejournal.com/352993.html