Periodically they collapse on the upper stairs, and hold each other making jokes, wiping away tears, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and watching the water pouring in.  Majo says, Oh Well, this is it. We are watching the end of our business. I take photos. (Just like an American Frederick says smiling at me.) We are safe - there are still two floors and a roof above us - just very aware that I am far away from "home", and of the precariousness of life, and the illusion of security.

The Brazilian women are speaking rapidly to Majo. They want to leave. Why? I ask Majo. They have a plane to catch in three hours, she tells me. They're afraid they'll miss it. She doesn't want them to leave - She feels responsible for their safety. But in the end they wade out through waist deep water, their backpacks held high above their heads.

A rooster crows. The sky lightens imperceptibly. Rain falls softly now. The bobbing cars across the street, settle back onto their tires and when I can see their headlights again, I go to sleep in an upstairs room. I awake  ten hours later at 4PM in the afternoon. The water has subsided and the house is filled with women scrubbing, sweeping, and sponging down every inch. Majo and Frederick who have not yet slept , are separating wet paperwork in the office.

I walk the ten blocks to the charming cottage where his girlfriend Julietta live. There is little curb appeal in Palermo - houses are set behind walls. One never knows until one enters. The house where Joe and Julietta live is a funky, comfortable cottage, part Indonesian thatched roof, part Berkeley cottage, part Soprano decor. Best of all, it has a backyard with a small pool and barbeque. Few houses in Palermo have "yards." 

They tell me that real estate, especially in Palermo, has already risen to bubble proportions again. They would love to purchase their home, but they have calculated that if they saved 3,000 pesos a month, they would have the money to buy it in two hundred years. Financing? Forget it.

About the safety of living in Argentina, Joe says that Buenos Aires is safer than any large U.S. city.  He says that the economy in the 1990's was like that of Tokyo today. Palermo is gradually becoming gentrified as the Southern Cone's answer to Soho. There are 350 restaurants in this area alone, he tells me. A fellow journalist walks in and they greet each other and talk a little business before his friend goes back to his table.

I ask the two about the melancholic nature of Argentineans, something I heard about in thes states but have not picked up on since I've been here. In fact, I've found Argentinians to be full of hope, open, and friendly. Most surprising to me, is that they are not bitter because I am an American, as is the reaction of many Europeans I meet. 

In 1997 when Argentina's collapse occurred, Joe tells me there were a record 181,000 Argentinean entries into the US who never returned.  "Since then, the US has tightened visa restrictions, and since 9/11, it is almost impossible to get in,"Julietta adds. 

Bryant Gumble did a piece on Argentina a few years ago in which he stated that Buenos Aires  has the highest per capita psychoanalysts in practice anywhere in the world. Yes, Julietta and Joe agree, everyone they know is in therapy. "We are a melancholic, introspective people Julietta says. "Compared to Brazilians who live only for the moment and are very happy." Wayne says he sometimes regrets not moving to Brazil.

ARGENTINA, LAND OF EMIGRANTS

During the two world wars, many Europeans took what they had and came to what was then the promised land to begin anew.  There was gold in the streets then. Anyone could succeed then and most did. 

About 60-70% of Argentina's population is Italian or Spanish and the rest are made up mostly of French, German, Jewish, and Swiss ancestry. Julietta's great grandfather was German, her mother Spanish. 

Joe, who was born and raised in New York, says that when his grandfather left Hungary to escape the Nazi's, he had a choice of two ships, one headed for Argentina and the other to New York. On a flip of a coin, his grandfather boarded the ship for America. Joe says, "I could have just as easily been Argentinian instead of American."

Is Argentina the flagship polyglot country? What the world will look like when and if borders blend?

As recently as the early 1990's, Argentina was the fifth wealthiest country in the world. It was the grain and livestock capital of the world. Argentina remained neutral as long as she could and profitted by selling to both sides. She only joined the allies in 1995.

So what do they like most about Argentina I ask the couple? The education Joe says. He has a 10 year old son who attends private school, but beyond private school, especially in the university system, educational standards are incredibly high. Many presidents have come and gone over the past 2 decades, but those who went fastest where those who proposed cutting funds to education. 

Julietta says her grandmother had only an elementary education. But her mother is a nuclear physicist.

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