allow me to introduce myself...

Well, if this blogging relationship is ever going to work out, then I suggest we get to know each other a bit better...

Hmmm. How to start? Five months ago, I was working as a travel agent in Los Angeles. I had just earned a promotion to assistant manager of my agency, and whenever I wasn’t selling plane tickets, I was watching CSI or catching up on my reading for my monthly book club. Sometimes I bought jazz albums for me and my little cat to enjoy (she’s a big fan of Theolonious Monk). I even made donations to my local NPR and PBS affliates, and I always paid my bills on the day they arrived in the mail. So how did a responsible, vanilla individual like myself end up in South America? Well, I can’t say that I did it alone. I also can’t say that this was an uncharacteristic move for me to make.

I try to make it a habit to go live in a foreign country every couple of years. It all started when I was 17 and took off to Germany for half a year. While that experience was a mixed bag, I did end up with an addiction to travel. Three years later, I spent my junior year of college abroad in Jerusalem. That’s a prickly pear to get into for introductions, so let’s just say that while I fell in love with that city, I knew that the next time I took the plunge, it needed to be somewhere a little bit less violent. I carried around my expat itch for four years after returning to California from the Middle East. To the surprise of my friends and family, I didn’t try to scratch my itch right off the bat. Things just kept popping up. First, I had to finish college. Then I convinced a friend to move out to Los Angeles, and I got sucked into an unsatisfying world of dead-end jobs, first as the manager of a boating supply store, and later as a travel consultant. I wasn’t happy to say the least, but at least I had some good people around me. After listening to one too many horror stories of the trials and tribulations of selling travel, my former boyfriend, and now good friend Joseph set me straight. I had to leave again. Forget all my excuses about having no money and feeling attached to people in LA, I needed to follow my little nomad heart to someplace new. (Not to mention, my little brother was getting ready to move to Italy for an internship in a highly rated restaurant, and I couldn’t help but think I wanted a little something like that for myself.) So over countless dinners of pasta bolognese, mushroom risotto, queso fundido, and tacos seasoned with homemade salsas, Joseph helped me settle on moving to Buenos Aires and teaching English. Why not? My Spanish could use some work, and my Linguistics degree wasn’t exactly being put to good use selling plane tickets. Funny thing was that once I made my decision, everything else happened so quickly. Before I knew it, I had quit my job, broken up with Joseph, moved out of my apartment, given my cat back to my parents, cut off all my hair, and boarded a plane to Argentina. Whew! Who knew that being a nomad would be so much work?

So here I am in the “Paris of South America” with five months under my belt. I can’t say that I’ve done all that much since I arrived last October. My new friend Kristen says that’s okay because I needed a nice, honest break from my stressful corporate job at the travel agency. I think that’s a good enough answer for me. Although, now that my life is up and running down here, I can’t help but share what I’ve learned and what I’m experiencing with anyone who cares to read about it. Here goes nothing...more to come!