Life Imitating Hacked E-mail

Many of you reading this may recall approximately three weeks ago when my gmail was hacked into by some dude in Nigeria and he sent out an e-mail to everyone in my gmail contacts, pretending to be me and saying that I was mugged of my passport while vacationing in Wales (or something like that).

Well, between the last customs check at the airport and the door of our hotel, I lost my passport when we first arrived Friday night. I had to have dropped it in the cab while fumbling through papers looking for the address of our hotel, but it was the craziest thing ever. It completely vanished. So bizarre.

I didn't want to mention it on the blog until the entire situation was resolved, so that nobody would worry. The hotel staff was a tremendous help - they printed out a new passport application, came to the Argentinian police station with us to file a report (a requirement for a new passport) and told us where the nearest Kodak store was to get passport photos (which is why we went to the mall on Saturday).

This morning we went to the US Embassy to get the "emergency passport," which is good for 90 days. Being a US citizen there was a huge benefit, because we jumped to the front of every line, while dozens of Argentinians waited in chaotic lines for various visas. We were back at the hotel in time for a late breakfast (despite being briefly detained outside the US Embassy for attempting to take a commemorative photo, which is apparently against the law). All in all, the loss of the passport didn't hamper our vacation too much, but it was quite a worrisome feeling when upon arriving at your hotel thousands of miles from home, you reach in your pocket and your passport is missing.

Here's a picture of my spankin' new passport...



... right before I dropped it over this ledge.



(just kidding)

Also noteworthy was this truck delivering entire sides of beef, which was parked right outside our hotel when we returned from the Embassy: