I searched high and low for one favorable comment about US policy, but I could not find one person in favor of our position in regards to Iraq." Does he plan to ever move back to the U.S. I ask.  No. He says he gets bored after 2 weeks and cannot wait to get to Argentina. He is now an Argentinean at heart.  While we are walking through Palermo I ask the two what business a foreigner might succeed at in Argentina. Anything tourist-related they say. Hotels, tour operators.... We stop in front of an outdoor barbeque grill where there is a bar set up to serve drinks and food, some plastic tables and chairs - a man is turning a peice of beef on a stick over live charcoals..In the background are large steel tanks of water and folded plastic tents. "This is one of our favorite examples of Argentinian resourcefulness", Julietta says. "During the day it is a car wash.. At night, and on Sundays, it is a restaurant."

Monday, February 3, 2OO4

STILL IN KANSAS?

"Cecilia", a realtor from Reynolds Properties, asks me on the phone what kind of food I like. "Everything", I tell her. "Preferably, Argentinian."

The other to look for a place for myself.

"Bargains aside," I say, "Why should a foreigner buy real estate in Argentina?" 

"Argentina has everything," the Cecilias say. "You have a cosmopolitan city, with thousands of miles pampas, and miles and miles of farmland (and potential wine producing soil!) and the most beautiful mountain range in the world (Patagonia), and hundreds of miles of beautiful coastline. Not to mention, every climate from tropical to freezing year round and in-between."

They hand me a comprehensive packet which includes information on everything from rentals ($800 a month for a 2 bedroom French apartment in the most trendy neighborhood in the center of the capital, to $3,000 a month for a McMansion with a pool in the suburbs.) to sales of apartments and homes in the city and all the way to Bariloche, a ski resort in Patagonia. (See resources at the end of this story to contact Reynolds Properties. I highly recommend these ladies! They go way beyond their job description as full service relocation experts have three offices, one downtown, one in the suburb of Olivo, and another in Lomas de San Isidro.

Cecilia #1 is light skinned and blonde with blue eyes - her father is Scottish, her mother French. Cecilia #2 is darker, her ancestry, Italian and Spanish. I notice that the people in the suburbs are lighter than those in the city.  In fact if I blinked, I could just as well be in Martinez, California, U.S.A as Martinez, Argentina. I tell Cecilia #1 this, and she smiles and says humbly, "Yes, we do have a lot to offer here."

Both women haven't been home since they left early this morning, and both are married and have children. "How do you do it?" I ask. "In Argentina we can afford nannies," they tell me. Since they have to get to work early in the morning, we leave early (for Argentina) at 11:30 PM. We will meet in two days to look at apartments in the city.

As my driver takes me back through suburbia to the "Capital", I am amazed at  huge freestanding homes, the gated communities, the brightly lit main street with store after store where one can buy everything one didn't know they needed, past fast-food restaurants, and gaggles of wholesome looking teens standing around in parking lots. 

If you long for America the way it used to be, where families have Sunday barbeques (asados) with their neighbors and friends out by the pool, a brightly lit downtown street, restaurants where you see all of your friends even on a Monday night, you can order until 2 in the morning, where sycamore trees form canopies over the streets, where it's safe to be out at any hour, where you can afford a maid and a nanny and private school for your kids, and a driver too, where you can live in a large brick house with a pool in the backyard in a gated community, and where that 4,000 square foot house costs less than $500,000, where your grown children and parents either live under the same roof or in the same neighborhood,  where the sight of homeless people is something you only hear about, where a few minutes drive will have you back in on cosmopolitan boulevards lined with elegant French and Italianate buildings straight out of Europe - then get yourself on the next wagon train to Gaucho Country, specifically to the suburbs of Buenos Aires.

It's North America in the seventies, before moving back to the city became the trend.

LIFE IN THE CITY

I'm not sure whose idea it was to paint lanes on Argentina's roads, because they are systematically ignored. While I don't agree that Argentinean drivers are some of the worst in the world, distinct lanes of traffic simply don't exist. One drives where one finds or makes space.  Another interesting aside: In Buenos Aires the light turns yellow not only before it turns red, but also before it turns green.

That night, I open the fourteen foot tall French doors of my room at The Malabia House to my balcony and sit under the leaves of a sycamore tree. I am dressed in cotton pants, a sleeveless cotton blouse, and sandals. I'm not cold and I'm not hot and there are no bugs.  The moon is full, and even after midnight, the city is buzzing, cars and voices everywhere. The cafes overflowing with patrons.  A policeman stands at the corner in the shadows. 

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