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We were riding the Portland Streetcar the other day and a woman behind me was having a LOUD conversation on her cell phone, the volume of which led me to have a re-entry moment where I lamented how much harder it is to tune people out when they are speaking one’s mother tongue.

As she blathered on, I couldn’t stop listening. A funny thing happened though — I soon became riveted by her conversation, which provided a perfect snapshot of the hurdles that exist for those seeking employment in the United States.

She was telling her friend the story of applying for a marketing job in the radio industry, and even with all of her experience, still not making the cut to count herself amongst the top ten applicants. She asked the station manager why and he said, “we have former radio station directors from major markets with decades of experience applying for this job.”

After a sigh, she continued to say to her friend, “this is what we’re up against.”

Then, her story proceeded to get worse.

It turns out that this poor woman fell for a scam in her job hunt that goes something like this: thieves posted job openings for American Airlines on Craigslist. They then set up meet and greets with respondents who revealed their home addresses, and proceed to rob these job seekers’ homes when they were on the way to the phony American Airlines job interviews.

My fellow passenger sent off all of her personal information to these scam artists, but then managed to avoid the robbery/phony interview because she heard about the con on television.

She said she now lives in fear of home invasion, and has a hard time answering Craigslist ads, which are often blind, thereby encumbering her job search even more.

Thank God my stop came up at that point in her phone conversation…I couldn’t handle any more bad news!

1. All of the amazing people we’ve met in Argentina — Argentines, Australians, Malaysians, Brits, Canadians, Irish, Americans, Brazilians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Chinese, parents at school, the Zs Spanish tutor Maria, their tennis teacher Cesar, and lastly, the wonderful cab driver who returned Zelda’s school blazer after she left it in the back of a cab one day.
2. Radiant floor heating.
3. The Zs school.
4. Living in such a child-friendly city. Really, Buenos Aires has a million things for kids to do, and showing up with your little ones in tow never phases anyone. LOVE IT!
5. Coffee, tea and medialunas.
6. The central boiler hot water in our current apartment building — it is scalding hot with awesome water pressure and we.never.run.out! This will, of course, present a problem when we return to the States and the girls have to begin rationing their shower time.
7. All of the vendors around our apartment, including the verdulería family from Bolivia, the Deli guys who laugh at Tom’s lomito munich order every week, and the Persicco ice cream guy who doggedly tried to converse with Tom in Spanish every time he visits.
8. Our doormen (although one of them has fallen in our regard since he forced us to buy the less-than-stellar CD of his band)!
9. For the Zs: their friends, buying junkfood at the kiosko on field day, the fact that we give them a few Oreos in their lunch once a week “because all of the other kids have them every day!” (That will come to a halt when we return to the US!)
10. Traveling in this beautiful beautiful country.
11. The adventure that is gadding about Buenos Aires on the colectivo (city bus)! We will especially miss the 64, which is our closest bus…I swear it goes everywhere. We’ve been all over the city, by cab, and invariably we look up and there it is, the 64. I ADORE that bus.
12. Zoe and Tom: attending chess tournaments on the outskirts of the city with Gil and Sebastian
13. The fact that no one complains about noise in apartment living. Granted, that means we hear our neighbors at ridiculous hours engaged in ridiculously loud activities, but on the flip side, no one bitches about our loud music, running little person feet, us screaming at the kids, you know — life.
14. Spring, fall and winter in Buenos Aires. (Summer, not so much!)

There’s going to be a lot of waxing around here for the next few posts…forewarned is forearmed!

Why the need to expound on our pondering? Because our 14 month family mid-life crisis sabbatical is coming to an end. I know, boo hoo for us — everyone feels really sympathetic! *smile*

Of course, the end of the free time means that we must resume the mantle of adult responsibility and actually earn some money. THAT is a bummer.

10 more days in Argentina. It’s all going by so fast, and we have a zillion little ends to tie up…end-of-school dinners, play parties for Zelda, chess tournaments for Zoe, goodbyes to tutors and teachers, farewells to all of the wonderful wonderful people that we’ve met, cleaning the apartment, donating stuff to the Z’s school, figuring out what we’re packing and what we aren’t, making cards, going through paperwork… .

I’m not even mentioning all of the shyte we have to get done on the US end, but I won’t go into that…at least not now!

Suffice to say that the knowledge of our departure looms large and we have much to think about. More later.

Taking a Dive. Being 43 years old and from the United States means that I was raised without any tradition of watching soccer as a sporting event. American football, basketball, baseball, boxing, skiing, Winter & Summer Olympics…all a yes. Soccer, almost never. (I had heard of Pelé and that was it.)

Perhaps this is why I have such a strong negative reaction to the rampant dive taking that takes place in the sport. Now, I know that a penalty kick can be a game changer, thus there is an incredible incentive to try to induce such a call, but I consider it to be flagrant cheating. Truly, I have a hard time getting past the feeling that they’re acting like a bunch of sissies.

I also am consumed with the question of how a team can tell if one of their compatriots is actually injured, you know, for real? I currently picture players using complicated baseball-like signals, that change every game, to indicate to the coaches whether they are hurt or faking.

Short Games. The length of a soccer match (its compact nature) is to be lauded. The contests last only a few minutes more than regulation — I believe this is something from which American sport could borrow. These days, I feel like watching a baseball game requires an investment of my entire day.

The “Boring” Thing. We were at an end-of-year school dinner the other night and Tom was talking with some Argentine dads. Said fathers were discussing American sporting events that they had attended. In general, they believed baseball to be boring, which we found ironic, since “boring” is the most oft used adjective to describe soccer by Americans. Baseball and soccer actually have a lot in common — they are both competitions that are decided by low scores and require their fan base to have an understanding of the history and the art of the sport to appreciate the game.

We first experienced this phenomenon after taking some English relatives to a pro baseball game, in which we saw a suicide squeeze, an in-the-park home run, and a triple play…ALL IN ONE GAME!! Tom and I were going crazy, but my relatives didn’t get it at all. You just can’t explain…

Marta, Best Female Footballer. I’ve done my fair share of grousing on this blog about the dismal state of women’s soccer in Argentina. In Brazil, it’s like a whole other world. (Golly, you would think it was a different country…) They have a strong professional women’s league in the Portugese-speaking nation, and the female football players get mucho respect from the men. Currently, the world’s top woman player is Marta, from Brazil. She is amazing (we caught her on TV in a Brazilian league match when we were at Iguazu falls). She also plays professionally in the US. Catch a clip of her below. (Be patient, there are some great moments in the video.)

The opposing team’s fans at the soccer game we attended on Sunday (Boca vs. Gimnasio) were relegated to two sections on one side of the stadium behind a goal at the very top tier of seating. Hardly a premium location. But, it was packed, and while they were a small group, yowza, they really generated some noise.

We were sitting below them and to the left, and had a great view of what we called “The Berlin Wall,” which marked the separation between the home fans and the visiting fans with iron bars, plexiglass, rolled barbed wire, and multiple policemen.

As you can see in this photo, the game was not a sell out, but still, there was no one rooting for Boca that you could spot anywhere near the Gimnasio fans.

At the end of the game, we foreigners on the various soccer tours had to wait for 20 minutes or so while the stadium was emptied in sections — the opposing team’s group leaving first.

When it was our turn to depart, they whisked us out of the stadium and to our van, parked maybe 40 yards away. We weren’t home free though! Once we had wended our way through the fan-filled tiny streets of Boca onto the freeway, we had a final “intense soccer fan” moment.

Our transport merged onto the autopista behind some beaten down colectivo buses that were being followed by an official police van that had its lights blazing and was stuffed to the gills with officers outfitted in full riot gear. ALL of the policemen were glaring daggers at our van, and we couldn’t figure out why. Finally, as we went to pass the bus/police caravan, our driver had an epiphany about the lawmen’s stink eye — the buses were filled with partying Gimnasio fans (literally hanging out of windows and doors) and we were about to drive by in a van labeled “BOCA EXPERIENCE” with a bunch of clueless foreigners.

Our conductor lunged and tore the sign from the windshield/dash just as we pulled within visual range of partying Gimnasio passengers. Whew.

A far cry from the mellow west coast American fandom to which I’ve grown accustomed.

We went to see the Boca Juniors play on Sunday. We chose Boca for two reasons: 1) The stadium, known as La Bombonera, is small and super intense, with the stands abutting right up to the field; and, 2) Boca has claimed Zoe’s loyalty, at least when it comes to Argentine soccer.

A little video footage for your enjoyment below. Unfortunately, the audio in my camera really doesn’t do justice to the noise level, but you can still tell that it’s loud. Zoe wanted to race home and learn all of the Boca chants, which her Spanish tutor promptly informed her involved a lot of bad language. Naturally, she was undeterred. In fact, she was proud that she was picking out Spanish curse words while attending the game, such as the one shouted very loudly at the end of our video!

As I’ve oft discussed, one of the biggest challenges for us living in Baires with kids is trying to get them to bed on time, which, of course, requires that they eat an early dinner.

But, if you want to dine out sometime before 8:30 pm, while still consuming an edible and healthy meal that does not involve pounds of melted cheese and “Close Encounters of Third Kind” mountains of carbs…well, let’s just say that you have your work cut out for you!

In the spirit of sharing, we thought we’d let you know about two of our favorite light & early dinner options: Natural Deli and Le Blé.

The Natural Deli (there are two) that we frequent is in Las Cañitas. It is a health food store/bakery/restaurant that is open all day and well into the evening, serving interesting sandwiches, homemade breads, pastas, and fruit smoothies. Their sandwich options can be had with yummy greens on the side, and if you opt for papas, they try to make them better for the bod with oven-roasting instead of deep frying! They also carry vegetarian options and do some vegan baking as well.

Another favorite option for a late lunch/early dinner is Le Blé in Colegiales. This is a French bakery/cafe that has amazing salads at lunch and very good sandwiches available during merienda (which they serve with a generous side of fresh greens). I wish we could get the salads during tea time, but we can’t, so instead, we go for the delish sandwiches and turn them into a 5:00/6:00 pm dinner. The portions are HUGE, so feel free to split between kids, or adults that aren’t ravenous.

My favorite tea at Le Blé is a red blend called Pu-er Fresh. Also, at lunch, their breaded chicken strips are tender and delicious as well.

A note about service — it seems the healthier the food, the more crunchy the service (in other words, the waitstaff can be more laid back than your typical Argentine cafe)! In both of these restaurants, but particularly at Le Blé, we have had to almost throw a body block to get a server’s attention. What we Americans will do to get some salad greens at 5:00 pm!

Here in Argentina, if you want to join a gym for any length of time, they make you get a physical from a doctor.

Up until today, we had avoided this by signing up for short stints at the gimnasio, and then moving on to a new workout place every few months (this was easy to do given that we’ve lived in 4 different apartments).

Most recently, we had joined the tennis club where the girls take lessons because they had a gym facility as well. We gave that up after a month though, because the weight lifting and cardio equipment was soooooo bad. (It was too expensive to maintain just for tennis.) Not happy with any of our local options, we decided to return to the Always Club in Palermo, because it presented the best cost to benefit ratio of any of the gyms we have frequented.

That was our fatal mistake. Returning to the same facility we had used before apparently triggered their “take a physical” requirements.

So this Wednesday morning, we went to see the doctor (who was an asshole). What a waste of time. He asked us about 6 questions, took our blood pressure, and then gave us each an ECG — yes, a resting electrocardiogram. Which, as I understand it, is pretty useless. But, he was shocked that neither of us had ever had one for screening purposes. I explained that they generally weren’t used unless a person had heart problems or was experiencing symptoms related to heart disease.

On the bright side, the office for visiting said doctor was upstairs at the gym, so we could pop in before a workout. Still, I found the whole thing to be ridiculous — just a stupid bureaucratic hoop to jump through.

Tom and I have been very surprised at the groundswell of interest in Michael Jackson that has arisen amongst the elementary-aged kids at the Zs’ school since his death. In fact, this Halloween, there were gloved-hand costumes in class.

These newly minted Argentine fans practice a wide array of his dance moves together. They love all of the man’s music: his later work, the Jackson 5 and his early solo stuff. They bring lyrics to school and memorize them, even if they don’t know the tune. They ask questions like, “Which name is cooler, MJ or Michael Jackson?” They look up all of his old videos on You Tube. They invent their own variations on the moonwalk.

To be honest, if Zoe doesn’t stop singing I’ll Be There, well, let’s just say we might have to use some duct tape! And, of course, this obsession means we are going to see This is It! tomorrow. Zoe has heard from her classmates that it’s really great… .

My new favorite museum in Buenos Aires is the Museo de Armas de la Nación. The kids adored it. It’s not too big. What’s not to love?

I encourage you to take a walk through this historic building laid out like a rabbit warren, each room containing its own treasures. You will be treated to a mix of very old guns (handguns and shotguns), historic knives and swords, ancient spear replicas, cannons, Gatling guns, suits of armor, a life-size diorama of traditional Japanese warriors, collections of toy soldiers, and, yes, even a gas mask designed for a war horse.

One of the things that struck me while perusing these killing artifacts was the shift in personalization that happened upon the advent of mass production. Older swords and guns were often heavily decorated, and one could tell, treasured by their owners. Their import to survival reflected in their painstakingly beautiful adornments.

Modern weapons, by contrast, seemed cold and plain.

I also wondered about the difference between curved swords and straight swords — what were the advantages and disadvantages of both? From what I can tell, it seems that the curved blades were used by cavalry men and were good for slashing motions. Infantrymen, on the other hand, were issued straight swords so they could impale their enemies with a thrusting motion in hand-to-hand combat.

Apparently impaling is difficult with a curved sword. Who knew?

Pictured above is a Gatling gun that was used in the Revolución del Parque in 1890.