Sometimes they don´t. Sometimes they do.

A year ago today, I very tearfully boarded a plane and left New York City to begin an adventure of epic proportions. (I ended up back in NYC 4 months later for a spell, but who´s counting?)

6 months prior, I called my parents to tell them I just quit my job and would be taking time off to travel solo in Central and South America. You might imagine how they reacted. Mixed feelings. But not a day has gone by in the last 18 months (save last 29 years) when they didn´t support me. In fact, I think my travels have opened their minds, that I´ve taught them things through sharing my experiences. They don´t always understand me, but they always stand behind me-

One thing I remember vividly is the conversation I had over and over and over again with my dad. It went something like this:

Dad - Ok, tell me the plan again.
Me - Dad, I know it´s hard, but there is no plan.
Dad - And who are you going to go with?
Me -  Dad, I´m going solo. I´ll be fine, I´ll meet plenty of people.
Dad - Let´s just hope you meet the right kind of people.
Me - Yes, Dad, let´s hope so.

It continued on like that. And we literally had the same conversation once a week for months. And I understood that he needed to keep having that conversation, and that he would back me up whatever I did, but that it was his right as my parent to worry and freak out and ask those questions.

I received this email from him the other day. What a difference a year makes!

Reading a Readers digest article and thought you'd enjoy
From writer Paul theroux
Who wrote
Enlightenments from lives on the road

1. Leave home
2. Go alone
3. Travel light
4. Bring a map
5. Go by land
6. Walk across a national frontier
7. Keep a journal
8. Read a novel that has no relation to the place you're in
9. No cell phone
10. Make a friend
Upon reflection , you get an A+
Love Dad
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

To both of my parents. Even though you don´t always understand me, thank you for always giving me the room to grow and figure it out myself and for backing me up in the end even though it´s not always clear that there´s a method to my madness.

Ugh. Stupid Teeth.

I hate the dentist. Seriously. And I know. Everyone hates the dentist. But my hatred goes beyond your usual twice-a-year teeth cleaning.

My dentist in New Jersey - a hack. Seriously, who has to get their fake teeth redone 3 times in 3 years? Me. That's who. Yes, I have fake teeth. Goes way back to a drunken piggy-back-ride incident in my 2004 Broadripple days. I had a legit snaggle tooth. It took me a long time before I could laugh about that. It's not that funny when your dentist sucks and you keep having to go back for emotionally and physically painful teeth procedures.

Last week I had a terrible pain in one of my molars (left top side of my mouth). After 2 days of pain I realized it wasn't going to fix itself so I did some exploration with my compact mirror. The culprit? My old-ass silver filling fell out, and was attached to the inside of my tooth. Sweet. Cause that's on my list of things to do while in Buenos Aires...go to the dentist. But you know what else I realized? My teeth were dirty. A year and some change away from the dentist doesn't do you good (even if you do brush and floss religiously). It was time to return to the dental arena.

So I got to it, called my travel insurance company looking for a dentist who was in business on a Sunday. No luck. Then, using my internet searching skills, I found a Sunday dentist, and next thing I knew was looking into the eyes of possibly the world's best looking dentist. Seriously. Incredible. And I didn't lie. I told him straight up that I hated him just like any other dentist, and if he could make this as painless as possible I would appreciate it, and could maybe learn to love him. He only understood a fraction of my humor. A lot of times my personality gets lost in translation.

So he put me on the calendar for the next day. I went, got a cleaning, replaced my filling, and got two new ones (I always lose to cavities). I spent 3 hours in the dental chair. What's worse? I didn't even get to enjoy the eye candy during the procedure because his woman assistant did it all. Boo. But I felt good leaving the dentist. Clean teeth always feel good, hate or love.

Then the next day, the other two teeth (the newly filled, previously unbothered ones) started to hurt. What the fuck. Why does my mouth hate me? Why is dentistry out to get me? So I returned again. I told his handsomeness about how my dentist in New Jersey was a hack (which took about 7 full minutes to translate in Spanish), and how maybe he could understand my frustration with having to come back a second time. And the handsome man calmed me, "fixed" my teeth and sent me blushing back out into the world, truly humbled by his good looks.

Then I woke up the next day. And the next day. And the next. And my bottom newly filled tooth still fucking hurts. So now I have to go back again. And that's not so bad because he's so pretty, but going to the dentist this many times in 2 weeks when you already hate the dentist is torture. Why oh why do I always have the worst dental luck? I mean, after a while, the novelty of world's most handsome dentist wares off when he can't get the job done right. I think he should make it up to me by taking me to dinner. Am I right?

is that a good looking dentist or what?

One True Thing.

http://blog.jackcheng.com/post/4994335780/one-true-thing

I read this post randomly off of Facebook. Jack is a guy I worked with way back in the day at SS+K. He is way smart beyond his years. I appreciated this post for many reasons. Mostly because I´ve always felt like I´ve been looking for that one thing. But it always seems to evade me. Travel. That´s one thing, but I don´t think it´s the one true thing. I mean can I really live the rest of my life in a state of traveling? The short answer is yes. I could. Probably I could figure out some way to do it.

The other thing, and the big push behind choosing to travel exclusively this year in Latin America, is Spanish. I love it. Every word. The ones I understand, and the ones I don´t know yet. Right now I´m obsessed with it. I love the challenge of trying to understand the world through the lense of another language. I´m fascinated by all things Spanish. The only real way I´m going to gain real fluency in Spanish is to stay somewhere long term. Maybe Spanish is my one true thing. Or my window into that one true thing. I have a passion alive in me right now that is bigger than anything I´ve ever experienced. It would be dumb to walk away from that, don´tcha think?

So with all that said, I´ll tell you now, I´ve decided to stay in Buenos Aires. How long? I don´t know. Right now, indefinitely. When will you come home? I don´t know. Still don´t know that answer but you probably shouldn´t be looking for me in New York this fall as originally ¨planned¨. But this was the plan. The plan to leave everything behind, jobless and homeless so I could be open to every possible opportunity.

This is another reason I´ve been falling behind on the blog. I´ve been job searching. And being unemployed and job searching in Buenos Aires is just like I would imagine it to be in the US. It´s just not that exciting to blog about. Until now.

Ladies and gentlemen. It´s all happening. I got a job. In Buenos Aires. Where I will be able to work pretty much half in English and half in Spanish. I´m in it for the long haul. And I couldn´t be more excited. When I left to travel I talked about cultural immersion. How I wanted to learn the language and really immerse myself in the culture. Guess what? That´s pretty tough to do when you´re moving from hostel to hostel every few days. So it´s time. Real deal.

Frank Sinatra says if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. And I always believed him. But did Frank ever live in Buenos Aires? Cause it´s tough here. Wages are low (for Argentine citizens as well), things are expensive, inflation is out of this world. But I´m hoping that New York luck will follow me here. Only differences are that when I moved to New York, I was fluent in English and had US Citizenship. Ha. Now I´m an illegal immigrant, working part time, trying to make ends meet, not always fully understanding what´s being said to me. And it´s going to be a challenge. But I´m going to make it. And some day. Mark my words. I´m going to be fluent in Spanish.

So what´s the gig? I´ll be working a part-time admin job for 6 hours per day. This is great because I can still take classes in the afternoons. I´ll have the chance to work closely with the ins and outs of Argentine beauracracy, and see what it´s like to live in Buenos Aires on a local salary. I´m extatic.

So if you wanna see my face. Buy a plane ticket to Buenos Aires. Gonna be a while till I´m back state side.

Empanadas and other stuff

Maybe you´re wondering why I haven´t been blogging. Maybe you don´t care. Let me tell you all about it.

Spanish. In my last few weeks in BsAs I´ve made a big effort to up my Spanish game. I got a new amazing teacher, Lisbeth, who works with me 2 hours every afternoon. I found an intercambio partner named Paula who was born and raised here. We are meeting one night every week to help each other in our respective languages. I´m reading everything I can get my hands on. Watching only Spanish movies, trying to listen only to Spanish songs. Every time someone tries to talk to me in English I just keep going on in Spanish. I´ve been speaking with my friends here, locals and foreigners alike. Because the only way I´m going to get better is to practice, make mistakes, and learn some more.
Cooking. My friend Vera has become my cooking partner. Last week we made empanadas. This week she made a vegetable torta. The empanadas, while good, were kind of a disaster. I´ve never claimed to be a good cook, or to always have common sense. When you put empanadas directly on the baking rack in the oven, chances are they are going to break and drip all the insides to the bottom of the oven. We managed to salvage them, but learned an important lesson for the future.

Dancing. Still going out dancing every Friday and Saturday (and sometimes Thursday too) until 6am. My body does not like this new schedule. In fact, it hates me. We´re trying to work it out.

Live Music. I have seen some incredible bands in the last weeks. Two shows at Marquee, which is a legendary underground music venue in Palermo, and one at the coolest most chill bar I´ve ever been to. Think Welcome to the Johnsons but twice the size, 100 times nicer, and way cooler. So not really like that at all, but it was awesome.

Going Away Parties. Sadly, the thing about traveling (even when you don´t feel like you´re traveling because you´re staying in one place so lng) is that people come and go. In the last 2 weeks we´ve bid adieu to Alex and Loes, a big part of our posse. Loes made us pancakes on her last night (or crepes with dulce de leche), and Alex had a big group over for some great curry. I miss these girls already!

in the kitchen after a long night of wine tasting

pizza, empanadas, and fernet

can´t really tell, but it was damn smokey

our crew - andrea, vera, loes, me, alex

dance party action at ink

empanada pass/fail



it all worked out in the end...except that my computer won´t save this picture right



Pain-free Pati

Pati had her surgery last week. 6 hours of spinal surgery. She´s amazing.

The days leading up to the operation I asked her how she was feeling and if she was ready. She told me she there was no point to be nervous, it had to be done. On the subject of being ready, she told me she needed to get her nails done and go to her hair appointment for a cut and color. No one looks as good as Pati after a 6-hour spinal surgery. The day she left for the clinic her friend Florencia and I joked that it was as if they were headed to the theater for the afternoon. No big deal.

The day before (last Tuesday) we made a date to spend the afternoon at the movies and to eat hamburgers. Pati walked out of her hair appointment half-colored to go, telling the hairdresser she had to go to a last-minute emergency doctor´s appointment. I love this woman. We went to see a French movie called Afternoons with Margueritte. It was a beautiful movie that made us both ooze with love afterwards. Just your average feel-good movie, and the realization that love comes in so many forms and is possible for every person. Sigh. Then we chowed down on cheeseburgers and fries at McDonalds and I won´t lie, I enjoyed it!

I have been visiting with her every day in the clinic along with a long roster of her friends. This woman is loved by so many people. What a testiment to her life. The first few days she was pretty drugged up, but always chatting and laughing like her usual self. She moved out of Intensive Care on Sunday, and is walking around the halls on her own now, so she is starting to heal. She´ll return to the house this weekend, and I can´t wait to have my roommate back. I so look forward to the days when she is recouperated and doesn´t have to live with the chronic back pain anymore.

I have realized my dream.

This does not mean that I have any further answers to life´s questions or what I´m going to do when I get back, or any of that. But I think realizing dreams is better than having answers.

I had a real dance off. With a stranger. In a club. To Outkast´s Hey Ya.

It happened last Friday night with a young Argentine hipster. The night began with drinks with my ladies at El Unico bar in Palermo. After hours of chatting and carrying on at a table outside near heated space lamps, the wind got crazy so we headed to find warmth in a dance party. We as usual counted on Loes and her blonde hair and sweet talking to get us in free. Oh to have blonde hair in Buenos Aires! She gave the bouncers a song and dance about it being her last night in town, and after some haggling they lifted the rope and we were in.

I felt old. And kind of like I had been transported to a hipster dance party in Williamsburg. I actually like hipster dance parties, so I didn´t mind so much. But I think it was like get in free for the 21-22 crowd. We were dancing like crazies per usual, and I was kind of bumming out because not one, but two oversized men stomped on first my right then later left toes in their haphazard jumpdancing.

Enter super young group of Argentine hipsters trying to break our girls dancing circle of trust. First I tried the ole box out, move em back trick. But they just butt danced me harder. Then the music changed from good old rock and roll to Hey Ya. Next thing I know I am smack dab in the middle of a legitimate dance/sing/rap-off with one of these young bucks. The thing I had going for me is that English is my first language and I used to have a slight obsession with Outkast, so I blew him out of the water. And as you may or may not know, I have some pretty sweet dance moves. It was sort of like Westside Story, you know when the main guys are fighting and the Jets and Sharks are standing behind their respective leader cheering?

Problem was that the dance-off started with me doing the box out move trying to rid us of their unwanted wandering adolescent hands. But engaging in a dance-off had the opposite effect, and eventually Andrea had to just tell them like it was, all niceties aside.

Then a band came on. And it was something like I´ve never seen before. They are called the Barmitzmidis, and they showed up on stage with electric instruments and played dance music that was a mix of Jewish Batmizvah music and electronica. They were crazy dudes, but you know what? They made me wanna dance.

vera and i warming up by the heat lamps

the ladies

me showing off our options for the evening

dance party

loes and i right before the dance off (of which there are no pictures - sorry)

yes they are all wearing either ffake hair or fake beards, hats, sunglasses

but they were amazing