It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.
But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ex-Pat



I never dreamt of being an "ex-pat".
I used to read the term , a long time ago, when someone referred to an Englishman in South Africa or an American in Paris but I never really thought to myself that I would like to be an ex-pat one day.
Even when we decided to move to Argentina, after wishing I could move to England and then wishing I lived in Paris ... I never thought, oh good ! now I can be an expat.

But here I am .. here we are ... my husband and I .. Ex-pats.

Pup was an ex-pat pup. He loved it.

I am afraid we are not very good expats.
We don't go to Starbucks, or  McDonald's or even the  Hard Rock Cafe.

When we did this- we did it All the Way .. we did not give it a try first, rent an apartment, see if you like it.
We arrived April 21st .
We rented an apartment for a couple of months ( more affordable than a hotel and there was a large doggie with us ) and we spent amazing amounts of hours doing paperwork and visits to various officials, police, fingerprints, photos and some more paperwork and then we bought our home.
We live here.
We are part of the neighborhood.
We speak atrocious Castellano but they seem to like us anyway.
They loved Tate.
That Pup was the most photographed and petted and popular pup in BA.
He was our passport into the neighborhood.
They could care less about two more people moving in, but that dog !
Oh , mi amore, pobrecito, kiss kiss  !!.. that was Tates first introduction to Castellano ..
He liked it.
Mucho.

We miss having a car but I still enjoy carrying my special bags for groceries to the market and lugging it home. Knowing that at around 4-5 am, a truck delivered the produce from the farm.
The eggs often still have a feather stuck to them.
The veggies are often still muddy.
We stand at the market and point out what we want and tell them how many and the boys put them into bags and send us home, the eggs wrapped in newspaper, never is one broken.

We take nice long walks to the various bakeries that have our favorites .. scones for him, scones for me and the French bakery where we buy loaves of bread and croissants made in ovens shipped from France to Argentina.

My husband enjoys Malbec, he enjoys the prices too..

So here we are .. two ex-pats. loving where we are, the people around us and the lovely life we have .

So what do we do ?

We sell our home, pack our bags and move back to the US.
to be continued....




4 comments:

  1. Oh, I was wrong, you're American... ;-). Are you really leaving BsAs? I still have a few years ahead, and I'm quite happy about it...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, we are really leaving .. there are more adventures for us to come ! I am glad you are happy in BA.. it is a wonderful place !

    ReplyDelete

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