Things Argentines Like: PDA

As I've written about before, Argentines loooove them some PDA. Its very common to see a couple making out on the street, or even in a restaurant (that one was pretty shocking for me- sitting down at a restaurant and seeing the couple at the table next to you just goin at it).
Its not just public DISPLAYS of affection that they love, they also love public DECLARATIONS of affection. Take the sign pictured below, it was hanging in front of the university building by my house. It reads "Xavier- I fell in love the moment I saw you". This one is a bit unusual because its from a girl to a guy, but nonetheless - can you imagine seeing something like this in the US? It seems like Argentines are much more free and open with their feelings. I'm not saying we should go around hanging signs everywhere to let the whole world know that we love our significant other, but maybe we could learn a thing or two from this? Who doesn't like to hear that someone loves them?

my gym's pool

Yesterday I tried to go swimming at my gym for the first time. Its summer here in Buenos Aires which means that its about 90 degrees and humid every day. What that really means is that its WAY too hot for my Upstate-NY ass to go running. I decided that the pool would be a much more comfortable work-out option. Little did I know how much would be involved...
As everything here seems to be unnecessarily complicated I had the sneaking suspicion that there might be some hoops to jump through here as well. Two days ago I asked the girls at the front desk if I had to do anything special to use the pool. "No just go in", they replied.
So yesterday I got into my bikini and headed over. I went upstairs to the womens locker-room and looked (unsuccessfully) for the pool entrance. I asked the attendant there.

A: Do you have a card?
Me: What card?
A: Your pool card. You have to go back downstairs to reception and get a card and then get checked by the doctor.

So, I went back downstairs, got a card, and then went back upstairs to the attendant. "Ok, I'll bring you to the doctor now", she said. This is where things got really strange. He checked if my feet and hands were webbed. (Is it good or bad that I don't have webbed feet? Wouldn't I swim better if I did?) Then he checked my armpits. I still have no idea what that was for. I guess I passed because he signed my card and sent me back to the attendant who finally showed me the way to the pool.
I got down to the pool and handed my card to the lifeguard.

L: And where's your swim cap?
Me: What? I don't have one.
L: No swimming allowed without a cap.
Me: You've got to be kidding me.
L: Go back to the locker-room and see if the attendant has one she can lend you.

So, back up to the locker-room I went. When I got there the attendant said, "Oh you don't have one? I figured you did." I wanted to shout at her "Lady, I'm standing here in a freakin bikini at the gym's pool. I don't even have a real swimsuit and you assume I've got a swim cap?!?!?!?"
Anyways, she handed me a swim cap and some goggles and I went back down to the pool. I handed my pool card to the lifeguard for a second time.

L: And you can swim?
Me: Yes.
L: Ok, hop on in. If you share a lane stay to your side.

What????? After all that you don't want to see if I can actually swim??? How much sense does that make??

My second expat Thanksgiving

As I've spoken about before, one of the hard parts about being an expat is of course, feeling homesick around the holidays. I think the funny part was that this year, for thanksgiving, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Unfortunately, we didnt get to have thanksgiving on Thursday because everyone worked (I spent half the day watching thanksgiving sitcom episodes with my students). However, we did have 2 awesome thanksgiving dinners, on Saturday and Sunday. One of the tricky things about thanksgiving as an expat is that they dont celebrate it in other countries so its not easy to find things like say.... turkey. We had to pre-order turkeys a week in advance. As we are all 20-somethings who are busy and scatterbrained, planning a week in advance does not come easily.
Saturday Thanksgiving was awesome--- shout out to my friend hannah who cooked the most amazing turkey i have ever eaten in my life. There were about 15 of us at this dinner and I think that Hannah and I were the only Americans so it was really fun to share this tradition with people from other countries. I made potentially the most sinful gouda mac and cheese known to man (an easy 2000 calories per portion) but it was awesome.
Sunday was really nice because while there were definitely some thankgiving first-timers, there was also a group of us long-term US expats. In a life that is often very transient, I felt really happy to be able to share thanksgiving with these friends for the second year in a row. The food was amazing again, and we made blueberry sauce that was unbelievably good!! (Cranberries don't exist here, but I discovered that blueberry sauce on turkey is actually really really good.)
Hope you all had a thankgiving that was as good as mine! I know I definitely had a lot to be thankful for...
Pictures to come soon!

things i would tweet 2

So today I saw a man in the most awesome pair of cutoffs. It made me a little homesick.

mood regulation...

One of the absolute hardest things about being an expat is learning to regulate your own moods. As a woman especially, we are often dependent on our support system to aid us in mood regulation. At home, if something crappy happens in your day, you call a girlfriend, bitch about it, she tells you it will be ok, and you move on. Crisis overted. As an expat, and especially an expat living in a country where cell phone calls are prohibitively expensive, thats just not an option. Its funny because I often feel like a baby, ferberizing myself. Just as babies have to learn to calm themselves down when something happens, or when their parents leave the room, we as expats, also have to learn to calm ourselves down all on our own when something bad happens.
The other day a friend of mine had a very unfortunate and disgusting run in with some perv on the subway (she had to go fill out police reports and everything). She commented that it wouldn't have been so bad if she were at home; she could have called her mom to come down to the police station and fill out the report with her, but having to do it alone just made the entire event hit her harder.
Thankfully, nothing quite so horrifying has happened to me, but I too have my bad days. My business is kind of always in flux. I get new students all the time. I also have students drop me (yet thankfully not ALL the time). Today I got dropped by a student, and while its not at all a dire situation, it just kind of sucks. Being dropped by a student sucks because you often become quite close to your students (as you spend several hours a week talking). Its kind of like getting dumped, except it has financial implications instead of romantic ones. The first thing you always do after getting dropped by a student is calculate what percentage of your income you just lost. The next thing you do is think of who can console you, tell you it will be ok. Can you go home and call them?? Is it worth the insanely expensive cell call? If you decide that you cant go home and you cant make a cell call, you then go through the process of trying to calm yourself down. Repeating in your own head "its ok... its only money.... you picked up a new student last week... it all evens out..."
The flip side of all of this is that when you have a really good day, or a high, its like extra extra high. you feel like "that was awesome!!! and i did it all on my own!!!!" I guess its just like I've been telling myself - it all evens out.

things i would tweet

So I decided to start a new section of mini-blog posts called "Things I would tweet... if I had twitter". I don't feel like I should actually get a twitter account because I would tweet maybe once a week at most, but the mini-blog posts will work just fine.
here goes...

So today, I saw this long line of really overweight people. I was confused because on the whole Argentines are thin, and you almost never see people who are severely overweight. The whole scene seemed really strange to me. Later I found out it was a casting call for a reality TV show on losing weight - like an Argentine version of "The Biggest Looser". oooohhhhhhh.

Halloween madness!!!

AHHHHHHH!!!! Happy belated halloween everyone! So, I had a wonderful halloween (but more about that in another post). This is actually a follow-up post to one I wrote a month or so ago. I was recently informed that Paula Deen dressed up as butter for halloween a few years ago. A quick google search revealed that this was true! Check out this picture!!!!