Lost in Argentina

I was writing to a friend and the thought came that at this point in time, I know my way around pretty well.
I know people in the neighbourhood, we walk everywhere, so I know some little quiet streets and hidden corners that are not so noisy, busy or crowded.
And yet, I still feel like a visitor and know that  it is  time to go Home.

There is political unrest, the people are angry and feel cheated and times are very hard for a lot of  people.
We are lucky to live in a beautiful neighbourhood with lovely neighbours and the people look out for each other and have big hearts.
But we are and will always be the extranjeros .. the foreigners .
We shop and the salespeople assume we are tourists and after 5 years here, this is annoying.
Someone will speak to us and even though we understand them, they hear our answer and say never mind, thinking we are tourists.

We look at homes online in the US and find some that would be perfect for us.
We look at homes online in the US and think, that one is ours, we have to grab it before someone else does.

So here we sit, For Sale.
This can take a long time, I know this, I will fight depression and impatience and enjoy being here while we are here and enjoy the anticipation of the next Home and the next Adventure.

Summer is around the corner.
The tree outside the living room window is covered in little yellow-green balls that will unfurl and become big leaves. A Plane tree, so French. Home to flocks of green parrots stopping for a break and a chat, little tiny birds that chirp and fly away, and the doves, who coo and flutter and sometimes land on the balcony and check out my plants.
Which plant will make a good base for her nest this year..

It has been raining a lot.
It is easy to fall asleep at night, hearing the rain coming down.
The tree is gone from the garden and there is no longer that whooshing sound of the leaves and branches in the wind. The doves are not there anymore and the tiny birds who made their home in the branches.
So the back of the apartment is quiet now. I miss that noise .. little bird noise.

As much as we travel and move house and explore, I am a homebody.
I can make a home in a new place but that home has to be "homey" for me.
Making this place a home was easy and has been good  but change is good too.

It is time to go home.

On a Cold Wet Day in Argentina

It is cold and damp today.
The sort of cold and damp that causes a continual chill and sweaters are piled on and fuzzy socks and big chenille sweaters that offer a bit of baby blanket comfort on a raw grey day.

We went to do some fact finding regarding selling our home.
None of the facts were to our liking and after coming home, we decided to stay put.
Books, online newspapers and tea and scones has been working well so far.

I look at houses for sale using a website called Trulia.
I have become quite adept at using the birds-eye view map, the zoom option, so I can  see if there is a truck stop next door  to the house that just seems too perfect.
Something has got to be wrong with it !

Now Trulia and I have become Best Friends Forever and I get emails from Trulia.
A House That I Might Like ... yep, they send me houses that they think I will like.
Often , they are right.
Sometimes they are right if I had a million dollars and sometimes the sad fact is that even if they gave me the million dollars, I would not live in that house.
So it can be fun, interesting, informative.
But most of all, it keeps me from getting crazy/anxious about selling our home and moving to a new place again.

I find rooms in magazines online, I spend too much time on blogs like The Paper Mulberry ,  Zsa Zsa Bellagio and for the love of a house and countless others who are all on my Favorites list and who aid and abet my online house decorating mania very nicely.

I thank them all and want them to know that one day, if they were to visit, they would see something familiar and realise that I got that idea from them !

This is my dream today, on a grey wet city day in South America.
I would like to open my door in my home in the US and look out and see this ..

Save the Elephants

Stop poaching, Save the Elephants

Can you imagine a world without Elephants ? How horrible would that be ? How sad.

Monday Look At This Blog

Have you ever heard of Hyperbole and a Half ?

Try it, you will like it ..

Sunday

You know, when you don't work and you are pretty free to do whatever you want , whenever you want to .. when malls are open 7 days a week and you have no set schedule...the week isn't really tiring or difficult to get through .

But for some reason, Sundays are still the day we are the most lazy ( well, one of us is  ) and most relaxed.

We leave the house later , we wander around, no set plans, no dates made, just the two of us, wandering around. 

Now that the weather is getting better every day, we find ourselves stopping now and then, in a cafe or like today, sitting at the base of a huge monument in the park  and watching skateboarders fly down the hill.

Fearless, very good at what they are doing and fun to watch, they go down a hill where cars still drive up and down, they synchronise their boarding so they get to the bottom of the hill, and go up the one way avenue, the wrong way, and then turn off into another street, all flying at top speed on their skate boards.

I am always so impressed !

Our week might be full of new developments. 

We have to meet with people and talk to people and make more decisions.

I am not a big fan of having to make decisions, but these might be easy to make.

And the weather is better, I look forward to shopping sprees and lunch in outdoor cafes.

And yesterday I saw a house, with a driveway , lined with orchids growing.. along the driveway !