New Friends and Positive Outlooks

At the end of this week I will have 3 weeks left in Argentina. I am a bit sad but excited to be ending this chapter in my life and heading out to Great Britain for a vacation with my mom. I’m nervous about coming back to California in August, fully knowing that if I don’t find a job by October, it’s going to be a long and cold winter for me. Although I do have the shining light that if nothing happens, I am going to use my Southwest flight credit and fly out to North Carolina and help (more like crash or sponge on) my dad with his marketing and sales plan for his brewery, if all the permits come in on time. Might not be a bad idea, but I would love to find that perfect job in sunny Southern California, I am not one for harsh winters, if it’s under 65 for too long I start hibernating. In my last blog I talked about all the good-byes to my Buenos Aires friends, but with good-byes come hellos as you encounter new people. Connect 123, the company who found my internship, has 8 new interns, mostly university students or fresh graduates, but its 8 new personalities, experiences, lessons and additions to my network.

Since I am one of the “oldest”, that’s relative in age and time, spent here, when I met the bright-eyed, optimistic new people, I was immediately happy at their energy level but also a bit nervous because they already knew so much about me and were looking for recommendations right away. It was weird since I have never met them, but exciting as well.  I will get to share my knowledge and love of the city with them before I leave, be able to share my employment history and lessons as well as be renewed by their sheer enthusiasms and optimism. Exciting!

To get on to a bit of the fun in my life, Tuesday I went to “happy hour”, they don’t have a term for this here; they just use English, with my friends from California and a friend from school. It was fun conversation and since they are like me, a few years out of college and stranded in careers, we had a pretty good conversation session on happiness in work and life, as a note all 4 of us have NO idea what we want after this, and it’s comforting to have a group just like you. Wednesday, I went to Bar Seis in Palermo to meet the new Connect 123 crew, like I said they were wonderful and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better on our city bike tour Saturday. Thursday I went to the Recoleta Cultural Center for Festival Ciudad Emergente, an art, film and music show, all for free, with VOS. It’s a four day event spanning the weekend, where you can view new art styles (including graffiti), short films and an array of rock, indie, electronic, fusion artists. I would say the festival was fun, but we spent most our time drinking beer and talking in Spanish at a café nearby, while we were waiting for a “good” band to perform. It was interesting to say the least.

Friday night, was Sexy and the City 2, Porteño style! We ordered Empanadas in, had wine and beer, got dressed up and headed to the movies. Fun! I do have to say that, a lot is lost in translation! The movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, and as with the other movie I watched, I tried reading the subtitles and there are so many things they say in the movie that don’t really translate over quite right, a shame, but everyone seemed to love it and be laughing hard none-the-less.

Saturday, I went on a bike tour of Palermo and Recoleta with my internship company, Connect 123 and Bicicleta Niranja, it was nice to be on a bike although it was the first time in my life I voluntarily wore a bike helmet (the Porteños are known as bad drivers, especially the bus and taxis, I have to pray when I use those, which is everyday). It was a fun tour, and I convinced the group (well hunger did) to eat at my favorite Parilla (street vendor); everyone was content with my recommendation, which was awesome to hear. That evening I went out to dinner with some of the girls from the program to an Italian Mafia restaurant (or a restaurant that bastardizes American Mafia) but the gnocchi’s were incredible. Now you may wonder why I am eating Gnocchi or Italian for that matter in BsAs, but along with casserole dishes (from the north), empanadas, carne, and milanesa; Gnocchi is a main dish of BsAs, due to their heavy Italian influence. Sunday, I would like to say was relaxing, but was not. I hate shopping and decided to get my entire souvenir shopping done this day, so I can enjoy the rest of my time here without thinking about it. I am proud to say, I attained everything for very cheap, but that’s because I staked out all the markets in my time here. This shopping trip led me from the street market in Plaza Serrano, Palermo, to Defensa in San Telmo, down Florida Street and all the way over to the Recoleta Fair, whew; I probably accomplished 15 miles. But, I am done, exhausted, because I am not really a shopper (would love to be one, but I hate spending money and traveling from store to store when I am on a mission, to meander is another thing). When I got home I headed back out to see the free bands at the Recoleta Cultural Center, but there were so many people, and I was so tired of people from shopping all day, I headed to the supermarket to grab dinner and had to wait in a 35 minute long line! Ugh, such my luck. I did get to see the final product of the graffiti art at the Cultural Center, which was fascinating, especially since some of the artists weren’t completed even after working for 4 days, good graffiti can take ages. I have a new appreciation for mural graffiti and would welcome more graffiti if it was mural graffiti; it makes ugly places more colorful and interesting. But I am digressing, after my LONG wait at the supermarket I came home to cook, only to have all the lights go out. In an apartment, that’s dark, and at least we are on the top floor but still when the whole block goes out, it’s dark. At least we have gas appliances and I could continue cooking. It wasn’t all bad tough, because my roommate cooked too and we had dinner together and a great conversation, in Spanish, of course. The silver lining to the power outage actually was the best part of my day. I am grateful for it.

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