Transience, abandonment, and the flakiest people in the world

Most people can't relate to me. My friends and supporters seem to find me interesting, intriguing, filled with stories, ballsy and independent, experienced as hell, well-traveled, free-thinking and adventurous (not to mention slightly insane), but can they actually relate to me? In many ways, yes, but in my transience, almost never.

It's a lonely life, being the one who's always saying good bye. Your skin just kind of thickens after a while, I guess. I keep pushing on. I can't really explain it, but there is something inside of me that keeps me moving, and it hasn't yet found its final resting place. I am (and people like me are) happier traveling, experiencing new people, places and things, and constantly living life in a challenging and slightly uncomfortable way, than I am living a comfortable life in the same place with the same people, doing stuff that makes me, well, "normal."

I sound like such an alterna-hipster, but I assure you, my soul is speaking quite directly right now, regardless of the current trendiness of transience. And the consequence of all of this, the dirty truth of the wandering soul, is that I live my life saying good bye to people I love. I grow attached, and then people disappear, or I do. I hate good-byes.

I'm really, really struggling with this right now. More than ever, my two selves are in conflict. One self wants to travel, see the world, keep moving, and continue to seek new adventures in new places for as long as the wind keeps blowing. It wants to be free, totally independent and guided by instinct. It doesn't want an office job, nor does it crave normality. My other self wants to create a lasting community, live my days with the ones I love most, grow old with those people, find lasting love, and umm.... be financially stable!!! Yes, this other self is quite sick of stressing about money.

They are in total conflict. For example, I simply cannot live in a different country every year while simultaneously creating a lasting community.

So last week, my close friend Megan left, and I was devastated. It was a little reminder that the friends one meets while traveling are a whole separate category. There's no promises made, no longevity expected. We'll always be friends, of course, but I most likely won't be seeing her for the next couple of years.

Then last night, at an amazing concert by a group called Onda Vaga (Highly recommended! Listen to them here.), my close, close, close friend Paul announced that he is leaving in 2 weeks to live in Brazil with his dad. Abandoning me!!! Then I lamented this fact later on with my friend Kieran, and that is when Kieran told me that he would also be leaving Buenos Aires in less than a month.

Anyone else want to kick me while I'm down???

This kind of thing is exactly what I should expect, but yet I can't get used to it! It is starting to feel like everyone I meet is going to leave me, and is making me feel like I need to conduct some sort of extensive interview with people when I meet them, to find out how long they plan to stay, then judge accordingly how worthwhile it is to get to know them. For example,

"Hi, Person X. How long do you plan on sticking around Buenos Aires?"

a) 1-3 months --> Sorry, let's not be friends. You'll only break my heart.
b) 3-6 months --> Cool, let's hang out, but I will try not to get too attached.
c) 6-12 months --> Alright awesome, let's be friends! I will deal with emotions later.
d) 1 year or more --> Let's be BFF!!! We can say good bye to everyone else together.

A big part of the problem, of course, is that all of my friends are also from other countries, who are traveling or living here for reasons similar to mine. So of course, there is an inherit level of transience that just comes with the territory. The solution, then, is to make local friends right??

Right???

This brings me to my next topic of discussion/ lamentation. "The flakiest people in the world." AKA Argentinians!!!!

Hey, Argentina-- you're flaky!!! And I'm SO NOT INTO IT!!!

Argentinians seem to operate on a "yes to all questions" principle, which basically means that nothing an Argentinian says ever means anything. Seriously. Ask anyone who's spent any significant time here, and I can almost guarantee they'll agree.

For example, you're at a bar, and you meet a group of Argentinians. You start to hang out, and the next thing you know, an hour as gone by, and you've been chatting it up and hitting it off. You're thinking, cool, new friends! They give you a hug good bye, maybe you even exchange numbers, and then they say, "let's go out sometime!" or "see you later!"

Uh oh. That's bad. "Let's go out sometime" = "See you never."

Seriously, unless you make a specific plan right there on the spot, you will most likely never see the person again. They just like being friendly, and for them saying something like, "let's go out sometime" is equal to saying "good bye." It's just something you say as you walk out a door, but it doesn't actually mean anything.

Another example: You invite an Argentinians out to a party. They respond and say yes, they'll be there. They never show up. TYPICAL! Why? Because there's no such thing as the word "no" in Argentina. So if they can come they say "yes," and if they can't come they say "yes." Seriously. So yes means both yes and no, which means it basically means nothing at all.

The reason that most people seem to cite for this is that people here have generally had the same group of friends their entire life, literally since they were kids, and it's near impossible to find people who are willing to go through the trouble of opening up their posse to a new person. The task of initiation is just too much, I suppose.

Anyway, this makes making friends super difficult, because I keep meeting these awesome people (ahem, "awesome" being a purely subjective term in this case) and thinking we'll hang out, and I never hear from them again. There was a group of girls a while back, for example, who I met through a friend. They were all gung-ho about hanging out and insisted on exchanging email addresses, and then I sent them all an invite to go out last weekend, and not one single one responded! When I mentioned this to my friend who'd introduced us, she was like, "ummmm, Erica, are you surprised?! Don't be! That's just Argentina."

"That's Just Argentina." The slogan of my life. Where no rules apply.

Yes means no.

Live your life (wah ohh wah ohhh wah oooohhhhh)

(I hope at least someone gets my TI/ Rihanna reference)

I never wrote about my day trip to Uruguay last Saturday, so here goes.

As I mentioned before, I have to renew my tourist visa every 90 days, and the way you go about doing that is by leaving the country and then coming back. The easiest and fastest way to do that here in Buenos Aires is by going to Colonia, Uruguay which is an easy 1-3 hour boat ride (depending on the speed of the boat) away, straight across the Rio de la Plata, the gorgeous dirty brown river on which my lovely city resides.

My friend Megan and I both arrived on the same day, and thus our visas were expiring at the same time, and we decided to take the trip together. We went via Buequebus, a very misleading company name, because it is a company that has the word "bus" in it, yet only seems to operate boats and planes. Ha!

Anyway, the boat left at 8:45 am on Saturday, so Megan and I met there about 7:45 am, a time that I personally believe is so early that it should not even exist, especially on Saturdays. Since last weekend I was sick with a cold, I'd stayed in on Friday night and gotten a decent night's sleep, but Megan had been out drinking all night and rolled in drunk and reaking of alcohol. Hahaha!!! With me sick and her drunk/tired/hungover, we were in for an interesting day.

However, when I saw her, I knew immediately that something was wrong. She pretty much burst into tears the second we saw each other. And that's when she told me-- her boyfriend back in California had been in a motorcycle accident. He's fine, but he broke a ton of bones, including his femur, and was in the hospital.

(Life is precious... this reminded me, and I hope it also reminds you, to always live life to the fullest.)

... anyway, Megan was obviously freaking out worrying about her boyfriend, but also there was a more complex issue, which was that she'd already been feeling really unhappy here in Buenos Aires and had already been having doubts about how long she'd last. She was more homesick that the rest of us, was having more doubts, and on top of that was hating her teaching job and feeling generally frustrated. This was sort of the icing on the cake. She decided to go home and cut her trip short.

Megan leaves tomorrow. I'm soooo sad. She's become one of my best friends here, and it's just a very real reminder that I'm living in a foreign country, and when you do such a thing, people come and go more than usual. It's a transient place to me. How long will any of us last? She's the first to go, but I'm sure I will go through this many more times before I depart. It's awful.

So yeah, there we are, 7:45am on a Saturday, waiting for a boat to Uruguay, and she's telling me that this is her last week here, that we're saying good bye.

We decided, no matter that I'm sick and she's hungover and hasn't slept and it a mess about leaving and her boyfriend situation, damnit!! we're going to have a fun day!!! And we did. Albeit mellow and relaxing, we ended up having an amazing day in Uruguay.

It started off nicely because we'd bought the cheap tickets on the 3 hour bus, but they transferred us for free onto the 1 hour fast boat, and we arrived by 10am. The whole day before us, we just started walking and exploring. The town is tiny and cute. It's certainly not the type of place I personally could spend a very long time, because there is not too much to see, but it's an ideal relaxing day trip. We walked down the main drag and then wound around to one part of the coast, where we found an artisan market and a cute beach. The day was gorgeous and sunny, and there were people sunbathing, and sailboats drifting out in the water.



The we decided to wind down to the "old town" part of the city, which is really considered to be the big attraction, for tourists anyway! Founded in 1680, the town still maintained a lovely colonial feel, and features very well-maintained old tile and stucco houses lining pretty, cobblestone streets. There are a variety of museums and even a lighthouse, but we decided to take it easy and do a more self-guided tour, so we just enjoyed the sites from outside.







Also, the pedestrian signs are hilarious in Colonia! We decided that the image looks more like someone doing "the robot" than walking. Ha!



Along the river, there are plenty of grassy areas and beach spots to relax, share some mate, read a book, or sunbathe. I imagine it gets very crowded in summer! It was busy while we were there, but we still found ample spots to relax. We ended up finding a great spot overlooking the water and the sailboats, where we spent about 2 glorious hours. Megan slept, and I read a book. It was fantastic.





We started getting hungry and decided to have some lunch. We ended up in one cafe in the Barrio Histórico (old town) to have a soda and a snack, and then wandered back into the center of town to the main drag, where we had yummy sandwiches and I had a coffee. I was exhausted, after all, and oh man, I love the café con leche here!

After lunch we explored yet another part of town along the water, which we agreed was the prettiest part of all. We found a street that winds along the river and where there are a couple of docks you can walk out onto, where make for some amazing views of the land, water, and boats. This picture in particular really reminded me of Westport actually (where my Mom lives in MA, for those who don't know):



I thought this whole area was just gorgeous, especially as the sun was setting.





Overall, Colonia turned out to be a picturesque place to visit and a lovely little escape from the craziness of Buenos Aires. I'd recommend it as a day trip to anyone coming to visit Buenos Aires.

And now, as its Megan's last night in town, I think some shenanigans are in order.

Oh, Timing

Why is it that now that I am leaving in less than a month, I have started to make these really great connections with new people? I mean, I have lived in Boston for close to 3.5 years, and spent a good 1 of those years kind of lonely and wondering when I would find "my people." As time went on, friends slowly started trickling into my life bit by bit until I finally felt like I had a great group of close friends. And now that is has reached its peak and I feel happy and complete, and now that even more amazing people keep crossing my path, I am leaving!

You guys need to keep in touch. Seriously. I love my friends in Boston and I am going to miss you so much. And to all you new people in my life-- I hope you stick around. There is plenty of fun to be had when I get back. ;-)