Happy New Year!

After 36 hours of travel, followed by 15 hours of sleep, I had quite possibly the tamest new years. But, it was FANTASTIC!! We had no expectations, and it turned out great! We actually laid around the apartment until about 11:30 (luckily my roommate had a friend in town, so there were 3 of us not a lonely 2) when we popped a $4 bottle of pink champagne.


Then we heard what could have only been gunshots. We rushed to the window to discover the incredibly loud booming noise was our neighbors setting off fireworks. YAY, no rules!! We rushed to the roof and saw literally a 360 view of fireworks being set off all over the city. It was incredible!! Our neighbors were setting them off on the next roof over, so they were really close. How close? The ashes were falling on us close. It was great!


After watching an episode of 90210 (old version), we all went to bed by 2-3am. Great night!!

My Roommate

I know I’ve been terrible about blogging about Argentine life, but it’s because I’m living it (anyone? No? Understood). But just to give you an idea of my life here, I wanted to write a quick post about my roommate. I have a fantastic apartment in Palermo (pictures on facebook), and I live with one other person. Who is that lucky lad? Him:


You're welcome.

Kissing in the Workplace

I’m sure you are all wondering what this post is about. So in different cultures there are different customs. And in Argentina, it is customary to kiss someone once on the cheek when you see them. I’m totally fine with kissing my friends when we see each other, but then you kiss on the cheek goodbye too. You also kiss people that you are introduced to (friends of friends), and really, anyone you sort of know. Again, fine with all of this.

Recently, however, I started teaching English at another company, as I’m beyond broke. They were beyond desperate because they hired me on the spot. Seriously, I can PR myself anywhere. So I started the next day. Cut to the next day: In walks my male boss. And, you guessed it - he kisses me on the check. Little project: everyone imagine walking into work on Monday and kissing your boss. This is even more understood if you are female and he is male (glass ceiling, I know). It’s weird! It’s just weird. And, of course, we had to kiss goodbye as well. Now what makes me so giggly about all of it is that every time it happens (twice a day Mon-Fri), I picture this custom in the US. Specifically with my former male boss and it makes me laugh.

But no, it’s totally normal here. Sidenote: our neighbors just came over to see our kitchen (or something, it was all in Spanish), and I kissed the man too. I guess the handshake just never really caught on here…