Fate, or in other words, someone fucking stole my passport

Apparently, I'm a dumbass. Tamara's family has gone to Tigre, a nearby pretty place, for the weekend, so on Saturday, I had to leave and find somewhere else to go. I chose a hostel downtown. I took a light rail train downtown, then the subway. Once I got out of my first train in the subway, I reached back to my backpack to assure that the outside pocket was closed, as I always do, and it wasn't! I looked inside, and I had put various things there. My passport, credit card, some cash, MP3 player, maybe my camera.... I could not find the passport! Strangely though, everything else was there! I am almost certain I put my passport there, and I have no darn clue why. I think for some reason I've internalized that things are safer in a bag than in my pockets because in a crowd, someone can pick your pockets, but a bag has to be opened. However, an easily accessible pocket on a backpack that is fully on my back, is easy as pie to pick! So I got somber, lost some of the pride I'd had on coming into the city myself, full of glee that here I was in the majestic city of Buenos Aires.
I went to the hostel I'd planned on, told my sob story, and settled in, puttign things in my locker, when the cute guy who showed me my room, Christian, told me that I couldn't stay in that hostel without my original passport. An issue of security, of course. I had a copy though! Turns out that my Pennsylvania State ID would have worked, but I didn't think about that when I was still there, and when I remembered, a few blocks from the hostel, and I called from a pay phone, they told me that a large group of Brazilians had JUST came in and there was no longer any space. So I walked to the V&S hostel, which was in my guide book I'd bought in Salvador, and have been there since.
That evening I went to the police nearby, to make a report, as I would need it when I go to get a new passport. The police told me I needed to go to the special subway police, so I did, 2 trains away. All this time I was accompanied by Adriano, a Brazilian I met in the hostel, and who agreed to come with me. Turns out he's gay, and we eneded up going to a club that night. As cute as he is, we've been friends, which I think is better -- a gay friend is more useful than a hookup - more reliable, trustworthy, and well, friendlier.
At the subway (Subte) police, I filed a denúncia.
Yesterday, I made copies of that denúncia. And today, I bought passport pictures, and went to the American Embassy, and wonderfully managed to get a new passport reissued, and it's in my hands as we speak! So I'm fine for being in Argentina, and getting back into the US, the problem is, I'm going through Brazil! And as you may know, a visa is required for American citizens to go into Brazil - I had a student visa when I came here. Of course, that visa was in my old passport, which is now either in the subte trash, or on its way to being sold to some happy Argentinean. (Mind you, I did call the lost and found of the subte this morning, as the subte police recommended I do, and that hadn't found anything, but they did take down my name, email, and the phone number of the hostel.) For that, I needed to go to the Brazilian Consulate.
I managed to get my passport at 12:30 and get over to the Brazilian Consulate before their schedule closed at 1pm. They told me though, that I should get a tourist visa, as to have my old visa reissued, even though I have a fotocopy, and it's undoubtedly in computer systems somewhere between the US and Brazil, I would need authorization from Brasília, and that could take god-knows-how-long. I didn't have time to do a tourist visa anyway (this was around 1:05, and the woman to whom I´d go for tourist visas had left), nor the desire, as it would cost 331 Argentine pesos, or about $100.
So I decided to call UFMG, and see if they had any advice on contacting whoever in Brasília, and they did! I got 2 phone numbers for some people there, and I just called them, and after emailing my details and the JPEG image of my visa I scanned in January (that was of my own accord), they say I should have a response by the end of the day, and the guy seemed pretty confident I could have a visa emitted in Buenos Aires before leaving on Friday! So for now I'm happy.
I suppose that for my having been in South America for 6 months, and the only thing to happen to me be the robbery of my passport, that's not really so bad. It wasn't a camera, souvenirs, something sentimental (aside from the cute lil stamps in it), and I wasn't assalted or hurt or anything. And, hey, I got to see both the American Embassy and the Brazilian Consulate, from the inside! Living in Brazil has made me quite chill, hasn't it?