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

Stream of consciousness re: argentine time

Yesterday I made plans with my friend, Jacinto. The plan was he would go to dinner with his friends and call me after to meet up. I texted him at 10:30 to tell him I was at home, tired, and didn´t know if I wanted to go out, but to text me and we would see.

I finished a puzzle with Pati. I caught up on the blog. I did some situps. Then I said self, I´m tired. I´m not waiting for dinner to finish. We´re going to bed. So I donned my pajamas and climbed into bed around 12:30. Approximately 4 minutes later I receive a text from my friend, Nelle, checking in. She tells me she´s kicking it at her house trying to figure out what to do for the night. I tell her I´m doing the same, feeling completely lame because I´m not doing that at all, I´m actually tucking myself in for the night. I ask her if she´s up for a drink, and she says sure, but their house is on Argentine time as usual and they don´t know what they´re going to do. It´s 12:36. At this time I am usually well into a night out. So this time I said self, let´s do this. This is hard to get used to. But you know what? I´m in Argentina. And damnit, I´m going to live like an Argentine.

So I climb out of bed and back out of my pajamas into the same outfit I wore out two nights ago (this lack of fall clothes is a personal challenge sometimes), and walk the 10 blocks to her place. As I´m en route Jacinto texts me to tell me they´re going out in a bit and do I want to join them. Imagine his surprise when I say I´m now out being Argentine, and that maybe we can all meet up at some point in the night.

So I go hang out with Nelle, Derek, Chong, and Anina, and we finally decide to hit the town at 3:15. AM people. So I text Jacinto and we all meet up at 3:45 to begin our night out at a club/bar, where he tells me I´m adjusting just fine to the Argentine nightlife, laughing at my bi-polar going out decision making skills.

I go to bed at 6am, wake up at 12:30, go to Spanish class, and now will take myself for a nap before meeting my girls at 10:30 for a somewhat early dinner. What is this place?

Old School Players to New School Fools

People. I have rejoined this century, or at least an older part of it. I am now the proud ownder of a small Samsung cellular telephone. I´m texting old-school style with T9 Abc. And it takes me about 10 minutes to write a text, Spanish or English, like my mom.

Why a phone you ask? I specifically made a point not to have a phone-like device on this trip for many reasons. But now I have reasons to believe I am benefitting from a phone. Running back and forth across Buenos Aires to check my email or Facebook to see what bar to meet my friends at is getting old. And since I have more blissful Buenos Aires time, I´ve opted for the no-contract pay-as-I-go option.

Originally I was only going to stay with Pati for the month of April, but she will be having an operation the first week of May so I offered to stay and help out for that week. When I asked her when I should plan to find another place she replied, ¨I like your face. Stay as long as you like¨. I know. I told her it was a mistake to say that because I will stay forever and it´ll be obnoxious after a while, but she insists. Who am I to argue? We will split the bills and continue living as jigsaw puzzle partners and roommates, and that´s alright with me.

our most recent puzzle masterpiece

What else have I been doing? As I told my dad yesterday, I´m kind of failing on the whole learning more Spanish thing right now. The school I signed up for only has room for me to take like 1-2 hours per week, which is the opposite of helpful. My dad said, ¨well honey, you´ll just have to go back after you return in October for the Spanish part¨. Ha. So I sent off a string of panicked poingnant emails to Craigslist Spanish teachers last night demanding 10 hours per week starting ASAP. I start tomorrow with my new Colombian teacher Lisbeth at 3pm, and we´re on next week for a full 10 hours. Boom.

I´m also becoming a staple at La Bomba del Tiempo, which is a weekly drum show at one of the cultural centers here. Like religion, I go every week to shake my tail feather.

dancers at la bomba

Yesterday kicked off the Feria de los Libros. Did you know BsAs is the 2011 UNESCO Heritage Literary site? I waited in a pretty bad-ass line today to buy my ticket in and was totally overwhelmed by the convention center-sized display. Hundreds of booths, cafes, books, books, books, lights, shiny objects. Now, I can spend hours in one Barnes & Noble. Imagine this place is the size of like 100 B&Ns. I could have died. Amazing.

Of course I stopped in the booth with all the books about yoga, healing, energy, all that good stuff. And wouldn´t you know it, they were reading auras. I have always wanted to get my aura read ever since Lu showed me hers at the office. What better time to do it than at the book fair in Buenos Aires in Spanish? I can think of plenty. But, here´s the deal. I am in balance. My aura is greenish-blue. I am a good communicator, as my throat chakra is very open, I´m calm, relaxed, and I need fresh air and the outdoors. I should play an instrument or use my hands in some way for work because my hands have strong energy. And know what else? This lady saw something because she got really serious, looked at me and said, ¨my child, you cannot control everything. You struggle with that and while you´re improving, you have to let it go. Life will bring what it will bring, nothing more, nothing less. There are too many forces outside of you to control. Let go.¨ Damn lady. Did you sit in on my first session with my therapist or something? People - these aura readings are the real deal. (Let me believe this. Don´t rain on my parade if you disagree.)

After the reading I realized I couldn´t look at any more books or words or chakra readings, and took a long walk back home. On my way I found PEANUT BUTTER!!!!! I have been looking high and low for my beloved peanut butter, and now I have it. BsAs is as it should be.

What else is happening? My hair is growing. This is a good thing, and people - when it gets all long and beautiful again please don´t ever let me cut it all off because I want to donate it or for any other reason! Also, my bangs are growing out. Probably the biggest lesson I´ve learned in 2011 is that I am not a hair-cutter and I will never attempt to cut my own hair ever again. Because even though it´s growing out and looks semi-normal, I don´t know what I´m doing I have way too much bangs circa 5th grade (I just finished living those bangs down and now they´re back at 29). It´s not even a little cool.

sometimes when the wind blows my bangs look like this and i don´t realize it. yikes!

Jane´s Last Days in BsAs

It´s definitely fall here in Buenos Aires. I LOVE FALL.

Jane and I returned to crisper weather on Saturday morning, but that didn´t stop us. We took the morning to chill out a bit and recoup from our bus journey. Saturday afternoon we walked to Palermo to check out the famous outdoor designer´s markets. Just as I finished telling Jane that I didn´t need to buy anything, we stood outside a stall filled with dresses as I tried them on one after another. So much for budgetary responsibility. But, finding my sensibility, I didn´t buy one, and settled on a more practical sweater later in the day. Sweaters, necessary for fall. Dresses, not so much. We caught about 5 minutes of a street tango performance then headed back home to change for dinner.

Characters. The world is full of them. Our cab driver to our Puerto Madero sushi dinner was no exception. Pati had made us reservations at Sushi Club in Puerto Madero so we hopped in a cab and by chance got some important back-seat Spanish lessons. Our driver showed us the difference between various Spanish accents - Mexican, Argentine, Colombian - putting on quite a linguistic show. Then he gave us a history on Argentine newspapers and their slants, taking cues from Jane´s NYTimes connection. I worried a little bit that we were going to die en-route because he seemed way more interested in watching us watch him in the rear-view mirror than watching out for oncoming traffic. But then those are minor details. As I paid him with a $100 peso bill, he gave us a v e r y  s l o w lesson in Spanish about the importance of never paying with a 100 due to counterfitting. Thank you Mr. Cabaret.

Safely in Puerto Madero we walked around the harbor admiring the views before checking in for our 930 reservation at Sushi Club. Something to get used to in many parts of South America, is the difference in restaurant service. It´s not always about the customer. It´s not always get things out quickly so people don´t get angry. It´s just what it is. That´s the best way I can explain it. Go in with no expectations and you´ll be fine. Go in with American expectations, and you´ll be pretty frustrated.

By the time we sat down to eat we were dying of hunger as we had been waiting for sushi all day. Bad idea. I almost ate my own arm. And after Jane told me that she heard an interview where Janet Jackson said a secret celeb diet trick is to eat paper because it fills you up without calories, I almost ate the menu. How mortifying would that be? And paper? Really? I hope I never go there. But alas, we found our patience and we ate a lot of really good sushi and all the world was good.

Sunday we decided to round out the week with a trip to La Boca. We took the bus with all the rowdy football fans who were heading to the Boca Juniors game, and were a bit surprised as we watched armed police escort in buses of fans from the opposing team. We were told later it was best for everyone this way. I can´t wait to go to a game. But we didn´t trust ourselves to buy non-fake tickets off the street, and continued heading to the touristy area instead.

We admired the colorful buildings, the outdoor tango and the perfect fall weather. When a nice young man told me I was beautiful and that he was looking for someone to teach him English, I wished him luck. When he asked me for my Facebook I said I didn´t believe in it. Sometimes honesty isn´t the best policy.

Sunday night we went for a tango show with Pati at the Jorges Luis Borges Cultural Center, which was fantastic, the perfect way to end our last night together. Monday we walked around the microcenter and had lunch in a hidden gem of a garden in an old monestary amid the financial district.

We did it all. Well, not all, but we did a lot in our 9 days together, and I can´t believe Jane has already come and gone. Time is going to quickly. I am well past 5 months on the road!!!!!

tango street dance in Palermo

puerto madero

la boca



after the tango show - jane, pati, me (in my uber high heels)

"Yeah, but we’re on vacation."

If there’s been a theme to our time in Mendoza, this is it. Every time we started to doubt our decisions about that other glass of wine, a nap, buying something, or dessert we just reassure each other that this is vacation and we deserve it. Imagine if I used that reasoning when I’m by myself all the time? I would have had to come home a long time ago.

We were a bit overwhelmed with what to do in Mendoza as there is no shortage of amazing options. We sat in our room yesterday with brochures spread over the beds taking turns with the Lonely Planet trying to figure it out. Andes and vineyards. We knew we had to experience these two legendary aspects of Mendoza. Bike wine tour, luxury wine tour, adventure Andes expedition, bus tour, this company, that company, etc. It’s a different experience for me to have a partner to make such decisions with, and we laughed at how difficult it was to come to these seemingly simple conclusions.

With the help of the Internet and recommendations from my friend Dipal (thanks Deeps), we decided on the full-day Alta Montana tour on Thursday and the full-day vineyard tour on Friday.

With the help of three alarms we awoke early yesterday, breakfasted, and jumped on the 20-person tour bus. We spent the next approximately 11 hours winding through the mountains, taking in the great outdoors. I’m happy to say my love of the outdoors is still alive after having spent some time back in city life. Luckily I listened to the concierge and traded in my sandals and thin hoodie for my heavy fleece and hikers because the weather got more crisp as we climbed eventually to 10,500 ft elevation to see the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands as a peace-keeper on the border of Chile and Argentina.

We stopped on the way back down for a home-cooked comfort food lunch where we enjoyed some traditional Argentine dishes and one of my favorites, corn on the cob. The separated tour group got more friendly and boisterous as the red wine flowed. Exhausted from the elevation, we napped most of the 3-hour ride back to the hotel until we were awoken by a young chap barfing all over himself behind us. Poor guy. After a quick stop to use the toilets and disinfect the bus we arrived home exhausted from such a tough day of bus riding. We enjoyed a cheese plate "for 2" that we could have shared with 5 of our closest friends and talked about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

This morning we were up and at em early again for our full-day vineyard tour. 4 wineries, 4 tastings each followed by a 5-course lunch/wine pairing at the last. Have you ever started drinking wine at 10:30am? It makes for a very quickly close-knit tour group. 

Now we’re once again in the comfort of our black leather first-class bus seats heading back to BsAs. My how time flies.

back in the great outdoors

eyebrows

loved these bathroom signs...lindas y feos

fresh water action

slightly off balance

switch backs

yay peace

it was pretty cold up there

warming up on the bus

comfort food lunch

vineyard owner's private stash

10:30am white wine tasting - the new day drinking

barrels

vintage

grapes

grape separation

we got to mix and create our own wines

i am so classy it hurts