Bones

The chilly rain-air nips my ankles
     My ratty sweater is no down comforter


It is not enough to block Mother Nature's breath
     from tickling and stinging my skin
The rain is too light
     Not the pounding, streaming kind
     that can lull you to sleep
But leaky-faucet-rain
Unpredictable
Drip, drip..... drip drip
     Making you strain, listen


My sweater is no down comforter 


Mother Nature wins tonight
     I will sit here, awake with her
Until the peach light of dawn spills over me
Warming my exposed parts
     like an apology

Ah! The end is near!

How is it possible that I have been here for ten weeks already?
I guess, as my enlightened father would say, "Time flies when you're having fun!"
Anyway here's a timeline of the adventures to come:
An hour ago: I know that this is not in the 'to come' category of time but I thought I would share with you my proclaimed 'last dreaded trip to the grocery store!' It was short and sweet, I did not go down every aisle like I enjoy doing, I was on a mission. Two heavy bags of fruit, medialunas (sweet croissants,) some peanuts, and a declined credit card later, I was out of there.
10:15 tonight: Yes, yes it is hype, yes it is badly done, but yes, we are still going in a large group to see New Moon. If you don't know what that is, consider yourself lucky.
Tuesday November 24th: My final day at the (usually dreaded) internship! Funny actually, this last week they magically found this huge project for me to do that would have most likely taken me the entire stay to finish. But they just 'realized' it needed to be done. Anyway I will be working on that on Monday (there is a goodbye party for 3 of us hardworking interns that are leaving) and Tuesday, and then, bon voyage! And a glittering letter of recommendation, too, por favor.
Tuesday December 1st: My beautiful mother will be joining me here in the city! WooHoo, we can hardly wait!
Thursday December 3rd: My madre and I will be leaving for an extended adventure in the beautiful and mountainous city of Mendoza Argentina, on the eastern side of the country, near Chile.
Wednesday December 9th: After a very, very quick BA turnaround, we will be heading to the infamous resort town for BA's elite, Punta Del Este in Uruguay. We will be sure to let you know how our tans are progressing.
Tuesday December 15th: Fly home!
Although this will most likely not be my last blog post, it will be one of the few. I want to take a minute to thank everyone for following my adventures, posting positive comments, and supporting me and my wanderlust.
I'm not quite sure yet what will come of this blog... but I have tentative plans, tentative, I tell you, to begin a fashion blog. I have been an internet hitchhiker as of late, and have been falling in love with many fashion blogs (most of which you can find on my profile, under which blogs I follow.) I am considering a blog that combines couture runway trends, street trendspotting, and styling. We'll see. It would probably take a lot of time and energy to be any good (as do most things.)
XoXo
Besos,
Breezy

Some Would Call This Heaven

Wipe the drool from off your face... these are my new, and my only Argentine goodies.
The bags (cross body in forest, fringed clutch in deep purple) are from a small, independent design company Luria here in BA that I fell in love with on my aforementioned graffiti tour. When we stopped in on the tour, we had mere seconds to touch and lust over the oversized, studded bags in this closet-sized boutique. I am not one to make any rash (expensive) decisions, so even though I was enamored with every single purse I touched, I vowed to take her postcard and eventually return to allow proper perusing time.
Yesterday I hassled a few roomies and got a nice little entourage to accompany me on an hour long trek to and through Palermo. On our way we checked out BASOHO Rooms, a little B&B that my mother and I will be staying at near the end of our trip.
Anyway, on to the fashion. All three of us bought bags! The owner (who was 1/2 of the local design team) couldn't have been happier, especially since each of us bought at least one thing from her winter/fall clearance line.
I don't want to boast, but I will- I got BOTH fabulous leather (I know, I'm a horrible vegetarian/quasi vegan) bags for only $70US!! It is the first time I really appreciated how much cheaper luxury (local that is) good are here in Argentina than they would be in the States.
The other little trinkets smattered in my photo are from various small kiosks, the San Telmo market, and boutiques near MicroCentro.
I have been allowing myself to drool endlessly over the fall/winter trends online, promising myself I will save my hard-earned and saved money for the holidays and for discounted US retailers. As I have mentioned previously, yes things here might be 'cheaper' with the 3.8 peso to dollar ratio, but they are not 'cheap' in a way that allows me to shop freely, buy in bulk, go loco, as I may want to.
I find myself scoffing at $849 peso leather bomber jackets, thinking, pfff, I could totally beat this price at the Rack (Nordstrom's that is.) Or think about some cute studded gladiator sandals until I encounter the $167 peso price-tag and realize that, you know what Argentina, you've got NOTHING TJ Maxx.
Maybe I'm being a snob, maybe I'm being financially savvy, but to all you US discount stores, malls, and outlets, you better watch out because I will be back in full force in a little over a month. Guard your loins.
Besos,
Breezy

PS I have added a few photos to my 'nights out' album on Picasa, check me out.

The week of FOOD

This week has been an absolute flurry of activity.
We've had a ton (maybe around 10 or so) people move out, either to return home, or move into an apartment or homestay.
On top of that activity, we have had such an intense week of food!
On Tuesday we had an empanada party, which, I mean how could that not be amazing?!
We have a brand new toaster oven (a huge one) that we used to bake our lil emps and one of our housekeepers brought a special stovetop oven (since our oven does not work/is too scary for anyone to light by hand.)
We bought pre-made empanada shells which are dime a dozen here and then prepared carne, steak, pollo, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, red and green peppers, cheese, garlic, basil, potato, pesto and other goodies in little bowls for do-it-yourself empanda making. It was fab. And when everyone was stuffed to the brim, ta-da! we made dessert empanadas. Although these are not technically traditional, we still wanted to try it out. We got canned peaches, carmelized/cinnamon baked apples, dark chocolate, and marmalade. Topped with ice cream, these little puppies were nervana.
After recovering from that feast, we dove into yet another one, an asado (traditional Argentine barbeque) the next night, Wednesday. Although I obviously did not partake in much of the asado eating, it was still a fun, family style eating and drinking fest on out terrace. The hosts bought $600 PESOS worth of meat, that is a LOT here, usually asados are like $100-200 max. They went all out. Lots of bloody meat. Yum.
THEN, last night, Thursday, we had our monthly welcome dinner. The welcome dinner is imfamous! Our placement company, Road2Argentina brings in these caterers that specialize in thin crust amazing stone grilled pizza. They make a ton of pizzas throughout the night and just circle around, passing little squares out to each open hand. Needless to say, it is very easy to become overstuffed (in the best way possible.) My favorite of the pizzas is the Neopolitana (may have botched that spelling) but it is a mozzerla pizza with sauce and fresh tomatoes. Yum.
Tonight, who knows? We're fighting between Indian and Mexican. I may try a water-only diet next week for recover! Haha, yeah right, that would not fly here.
Besos,
XoXo Breezy