Monday, March 22, 2010

Brazil Beckons



Brazil is a powerful force. There can be no more attractive beach idea than that of Northern Brazil, land of legendary music and white sand, where beautiful brown people dance in the sun, shaking impressive tushes all over the place.

That's the idea anyway. These photos are of Buzios, a beach peninsula an hour + outside of Rio de Janeiro. I was there a year ago during carnaval with an Argentine friend who had never been on a plane. I spent too much of my time working online in the hotel but I did get to see what's here for a couple of days and it was beautiful.

I wanted to post these then but it was winter, there was a major recession, and it just didn't seem right. But now it's spring in the Northern Hemisphere and here it's autumn. I've just had surgery to remove what threatened to take away any baby-making possibilities for the future. It was scary, my middle hurts, and Brazil is going to make it all better. If anything can, that tushy shaking dream sounds like a safe bet, right?






On the north coast of Brazil, between Natal and Salvador, near Recife, there's a beach town famous for surfing where dolphins swim right up to you. I'd heard of Pipa before Toni told me that's where she and her Brazilian-Italian husband would be for the month of April. They spent this year riding a BMW motorcycle from New York City down to Antarctica and back up to Pipa. They've gone penguin.

"You should come, there's plenty of room," she said. So I am. I'm leaving and going to a town full of Italians on a white sand beach in Brazil. To look for monkeys and dolphins.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Of Cats and Women





You know you're starting to do alright on the job when you have no time to enjoy what a few months ago was big news. And what is now regular biz. March brought new freelance work, visits from old friends, and a trip to Brazil on the horizon.








Lately I've fallen into a few time traps. You know how there's the thing you have to get taken care of that eats up your week? My February consisted mostly of:
  1. immigration appointments
  2. hospital/ health insurance admin negotiation
  3. planning my sister's bachelorette party, minus me
  4. plane tickets and cat transport
Lucky I had friends in town to distract me from the bureacracy.

When I got back here from Italy, I pursued a job at the newspaper, the Buenos Aires Herald, where I used to work. I interviewed and was offered an editorial spot. But it'd require a more permanent resident status. I put up a good fight at immigration.

But it's time to go. The same feeling that led me to settle down here in Buenos Aires 3 years ago, is taking me back to NYC, to an apartment and job in Brooklyn. Can I get a, ye-uh!? I am not complaining. But leaving is a very strange idea at the moment. As they say here, I've become Argentinesado. San Telmo meanderings, friends, bands, boys and habits. I'm not a travel journalist, I'm a resident of San T. But only for 2 more months I guess.

This last month brought a visit from an old friend who lives in San Francisco and another from Zaheda from New York. There were waist-high floods from the storms that hit Peru, and there were blackouts, though no destruction like in Chile.

I started work on a project at the Center for Small to Medium-Sized Business in Argentina, la Fundacion Observatorio PyME, comparing similar small companies here, in California, and in Germany. I'm doing a polo article for Ralph Lauren magazine and some music and fashion entries for the upcoming Encyclopedia of Latin Music.






Kasha got some visits from neighbor cats with aggressive territory marking. We live in a maze of an apartment building with all sorts of cat hiding places. She walks the maze looking for adversaries.

Molly from SF made friends with a new local each night out in Buenos Aires. On one of our nights out, I made a new Argentine friend who plays guitar with me out in the square. And he is so easy on the eyes. Summer.

End of summer is always a nostalgic time. For Kasha and myself, it's time to get ready for a big change. Back to life in English, with less Argentine beef.