The Great Pumpkin Pie and Other Adventures

I apologize for my hiatus. I have been incredibly busy as of late but I have missed my blog! To make up for my time being MIA I am writing a nice long update with crazy amounts of photos.

I wrote two more articles for Buenos Aires Stay on What to Do with Children in BA and Buenos Aires Culture and Children and I am now their principal expat blogger and their Childcare in BA special.

I had a little haircut party in my apartment. My friend Nina is a hairstylist and came over to dye Jenny's hair and cut mine and Phil's. We all look excellent!

I celebrated Thanksgiving in Argentina. As it is 85+ degrees every day we skipped the turkey and opted for a potluck that in no way involved any traditional food other than the apple pie. There were only 2 US citizens present so no one seemed to mind.

However, I couldn't give up on Thanksgiving completely so I took on the daunting task of making a pumpkin pie from scratch. Argentina lacks canned pumpkin puree, premade pie crusts and spices like nutmeg and ginger are not as easy to find as in the States. The pumpkins here are also not the familiar orange ones from home. This baking adventure was so time consuming I worked on this pie on 3 separate days. I photographed most of the process so I can walk you through it.

This is the pumpkin I had to deal with. No jack o lantern making possibilities here, just lots of jokes related to the incredibly phallic appearance.

I don't have a proper knife so I cut through the pumpkin with a steak knife (not easy or safe) and boiled the chunks.

Once the cubes were boiled I had to cut off the skin and squeeze the water out by hand and then leave in a colander to drain before I could mash it up to make the puree.

This is where I should have a photo of me rolling out the dough and baking the crust but I actually made the dough at someone else's house. My lovely boss Janet let me use her kitchen and supplies for that part.

I then mixed the pumpkin puree with eggs and sugar and poured it into my partially baked crust.

After making the pie filling I made a streusel topping with flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Nutmeg in Spanish is "nuez moscada" in case you ever need to know, as I did not.

45 minutes of baking and this was the end result. I was nervous to try it, but is is delicious. Success!

It's hot and not at all Christmasy here, but I have really amped up the Christmas music listening and I also bought a tiny little tree for 18 pesos and flashing lights for 10. I was too broke to spring for decorations. I might make some for the tree and my apartment if I have the time and energy this week. Jenny is leaving soon (another "Sick of Goodbyes" post is forthcoming) so she wrote me a Christmas card that I promised not to read until Christmas day. It lives under my tree for now.

I received 2 long awaited packages from my mother. She bought me lots of summer clothes because so many of mine were lost in the move and also sent the few pieces that survived it. The two boxes also had Reeses, 2 jars of peanut butter, drawings and a card from my 7 year old cousin Jodi and a ridiculously long letter from my Mama. I won't lie to you, I cried at the sight of my mother's handwriting. We both are devastated that for the first time in my 23 years of life I will not be home for All Day Cookie Weekend. I love my mommy and I miss her dearly. The letter was the best part of the package. 

This week was my last week as an Au Pair for the Ressia family. I'm still very much in contact with the family and will continue to see them and even do some paid work for them but we ended official au pair gig. I was pretty sad to say goodbye but I know I'll see them soon. 

This weekend was very eventful. On Friday I went to Jorge's fancy office end of the year party. A bus took us about an hour outside the city to a club. We arrived and there was a man in a suit playing the violin. Jorge and I almost collasped in giggles when the man raised his bow and began to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Absolutely ridiculous. After some classical music with the violin they switched to random 90s dance music including "What is Love?" and other favourites. After that a Merengue band from the Dominican Republic performed. So strange but I had a good time. 

On Saturday I woke up early just to take on the pie making challenge and then babysat for most of the day. After that I went to the BuenaOnda Moonlight Yoga event, which I always enjoy. It's an hour and a half long yoga class at night followed by a homemade vegetarian meal. Afterwards Jenny and I went out for drinks. We ordered a couple shots called "Ball of Fire" and I swear the bartender looked like a chemist. It took no less than 5 minutes to make the concoction and the finishing touch involved putting the shots on an iphone for the light and he poured the vodka in and tiny rainbow coloured balls of some other alcohol danced their way to the top. I wish I had a photo of those crazy shots!

Today Jenny and I woke up early, considering that we went to bed around 4:30 and met up with Jorge. It's Jenny's last weekend so we went to Parque de la Costa, a theme park about an hour train ride away from Buenos Aires. The weather was great and the lines weren't too long so we had a great time, as you can see in this ridiculous photo. (Jenny and I are on the far left)

After all that awesomeness, I am exhausted but I was determined to finish this blog before passing out tonight. I will not wait this long between updates next time!

Also, because I'm obsessed with Christmas and especially my Cookie Day tradition with my mom, I'm curious- what Christmas traditions do you have that you would be sad to live without?

Coffee Shop Nights and Days Full of Running

I've been busy in the best of ways. I've got a pretty decent amount of students now, though I could definitely take on a few more, especially after dropping one especially creepy student. I vaguely mentioned that episode in the last post, let's just say it was really unfortunate and I might start carrying mace.

I've also been working really hard to get Travelated ready. One night last week I had a coffee shop night in my house. How do you like my set up of a laptop, instant cappuccino and medialunas bought from the bakery on the way home? I realize I have never fully explained Travelated so I shall do so now. Obviously, it's a website focused on travel. Alex is the founder and does the web design as well as the advertiser relationships. Emily is the Editor, she writes original articles and also hunts out/edits traveler submissions. I am a Staff Writer and the Travel Advisor, which means I get to write a lot of articles and also serve as the the expert on traveling and living abroad. I also help out with advertiser stuff and will be getting into that more as the site grows. The hope is to get users to regularly visit the site and also sign up for our monthly newsletter, which will consist of travel deals (like coupon codes and discounts), travel blogs, helpful travel tips, etc. We also allow comments on all posts and traveler article submissions- so if you would like to write something for us please let me know!

I'm really proud of this site and excited about it. I know I always take on too much but this is something I really love doing. I hated working in Search Engine Marketing before because I hated how the company I worked for managed it and I also hated the company. However, I was always pretty good at my job. I'm pumped to be working with Alex again, who was always my best coworker at Announce Media and Emily is a really talented writer and knows how to get the site attention. The articles are fun to write, this part of my working life hardly feels like work. We're hoping to do a big push for publicity next month so I will be bothering all of you to help me out.

I also started working as a Personal Assistant. I actually enjoy it. I work for a woman named Janet, or really the entire Choi family, Janet, Doug and their 2 children Alyosha (3) and Soren (7). They're a Korean-American family living here, they speak Spanish but not completely fluently and they are also just busy, admittedly unorganized people. This week my tasks included researching deep freezers, portable air conditioners, Argentina business health insurance plans and Argentina vaccination abbreviations. This requires a lot of phone calls in Spanish and writing up reports that summarize everything I have found. I know that sounds really boring but it really forces me to use my Spanish in interesting ways. Did I know how to properly say "coverage for pre-existing conditions" before this week? I cannot say that I did. I also get to use my experience with kids because I write up detailed activities and make little educational play kits for Alyosha. I created a template that Janet loved, a completely bilingual set up, with materials needed, instructions and also a section explaining what educational or physical developmental benefit each activity has, so that both Janet and the day maid/nanny can understand the instructions and purpose. This job was made for me.

This weekend will be a pretty relaxed one and I am not the least bit upset about that. Last night I cooked myself a delicious meal, even after failing twice at the grocery store looking for ingredients. It was a rainy night so it felt perfect to stay in, watch a movie and work on new Travelated articles. I also had ice cream delivered. I love that I can order ice cream at midnight and it is at my door in 15 minutes. I also like that I caught the delivery guy practicing his dance moves outside my building. Today has been pretty active, but not in a stressful way. I slept for 9 hours, which is always glorious. I woke up, did 40 minutes of yoga then went for a 90 minute run. After showering and eating lunch I packed some lemonade and fruit and ventured back out with Padfoot. This might have been the most stressful part of my day thus far, as Padfoot has completely snapped since his arrival. He is no longer the trembling, nervous little puppy that hides from passing dogs. He is now in complete survival, aggressive mode. Any dog of any size is viewed as a deathly threat and must be barked and growled at incessantly. I can just imagine him thinking, surely the choking sensation of the collar means nothing, my master most certainly would want me to make a fool out of myself and embarrass her in the streets!
I managed to drag him to a bench a little off the main trail and he stayed calm for about 30 minutes, allowing me to get some reading done. Once he started barking at leaves blowing in the wind, I decided if was time to go home.


I had to trick him into looking at me to snap this photo. Don't let that face fool you, he is no innocent puppy. He is a barking, growling, self-choking mess.

I am now exhausted, so I will have a little coffee and snack break before going back to the grocery store so I can cook the dinner I had intended to cook yesterday. I'm also meeting up with Jorge and his dad tonight to go to a German Pub for a variety of beers and cheeses. Jorge's dad just popped in from Colombia today for a surprise visit so now I get to meet him. Should be fun!

Relaxing Weekend

Last week was pretty normal, added some new students but lost a few. My issues with American Forum --the institute I tried to quit but was not able to-- are getting annoying. One of my 2 students decided he was too busy to learn English and quit. I was fine with this because I don't like him and immediately replaced him with another student from Profesores Nativos. (by the way you can now see my video for that agency here . She compressed it so my eyes are crazy and it looks like the words don't match up to my mouth.) AF is trying to force me to take a new student in the same timeslot and I'm pretty much avoiding it. All they can do is tell me I can't work there anymore, which is exactly what I wanted anyway.

On Saturday Rosie, Jorge, Jenny and I went to this weird place called Tierra Santa (Saint Land). It's a park about Jesus, but it's more like a creepy, poorly made living museum. We assumed most people went to this place as a joke, but we found we were the only ones not amazed and humbled by the giant Jesus who rises out of a cave every 30 minutes. We had lunch at these pseudo Arabian cafe within the park. Interesting. I really enjoyed the cab ride there, our cab driver heard us speak English and immediately assumed playing Elvis would make us very happy. we sang along to Hound dog, so I guess he was right.

Jenny and I have actually kept up with our squash! We now have Squash Wednesdays, we meet for squash, have lunch then head into the suburbs together for work. We had to reschedule for today (Saturday) this week, but we extended our reservation to an hour and a half. I'm pumped.

I've been super busy again, tutoring, babysitting and making up hours for the family. Jenny and I have planned a chill weekend for her birthday weekend (she turns 24 on Monday). Last night we went to this cool Moonlight Yoga event. It goes from 9:30-1:30am, it's a really long yoga class then a vegetarian dinner. We didn't know the class was not for beginners so we felt a little stupid next to the people who had been doing yoga for 10 years. The instructor was super nice but being singled out after the class with tips was a little embarrassing. The dinner, admittedly, went better for Jenny than me. We split up and chose different tables. My table was terrible, they were not friendly at all. The only guy that talked was actually from St. Louis, too. However, he was really annoying and lame. Jenny's table was lively and fun. I think we'll try again though.

I've been trying to get into the local scene here. I make an effort to talk to musicians and search out cool clubs. Jenny and I met a couple of cool guys at a coffee shop and went to a club they were playing at. It was expensive but the music was really fun, I'd like to go again sometime. I also got some cool suggestions from my students. I really miss open mic nights.

Lucy, the 15 year old from the US went home. I bought her an Argentine scarf so she can feel Argentine forever. I also convinced Gracia to let me take Lucy and Jose to China Town and then Ana and Lucy to this special homemade paper store in the city. It was a lot of travel time but I had a good time. Unfortunately, while I was with Ana and Lucy, an old lady nearly got run over by bus. This tiny old lady was getting off the bus and the bus driver closed the door and started driving while her arm was still inside. Everyone screamed and he stopped but she had fallen over. The bus driver had to get off and another man helped the lady up. We all had to get off and get on another bus. Crazy!

The other day I got an an argument with my landlord about there being no water in my apartment (really unpleasant) and then had a slight issue with a friend here. I was really agitated and wanted to go for a run but didn't have the time. I got overly pensive on my long bus ride to work and missed friends from back home. I'm doing good now though, excited for the rest of the chill weekend. I'd like to be as relaxed and Ana and Lucy were on the bus ride home: