Encounters with Argentine bureaucracy

A recap of our efforts to secure health insurance and cell service.

Cell phone store 1: Hello. We want a plan for our cell phones with data. With data. Data? Data, umm with internet?

Cell phone store 2: Hello. We want a plan for our cell phones with internet. No we don't have a national ID number.

Cell phone store 3: Hello. We want a plan for our cell phones with internet but we don't have a national ID number. 

Cell phone store 4: We're foreigners. We want a plan for our cell phones with internet. No we don't have a national ID number, we're foreigners.

….

Cell phone store 10: We're foreigners. Can we use our phones in this country? 

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Health insurance agent 1: Hello. We're foreigners. Can we have medical care?

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Comprehensive health insurance, it turns out, is easy to come by (for a mere $125 per month). But to get comprehensive cell phone service (for a reasonable $40 per month), you need to master a crazy litany of Spanish vocab, waste some shoe leather, and most importantly, find an agent who doesn't believe foreigners are automatically disqualified from using a 3G network.

- Steph