Greetings everyone,
Our local English language newspaper the Buenos Aires Herald reprinted a lengthy article from the New York Times about Americans living in Buenos Aires. Apparently BA is all the rage now.
The observations of the women that they interviewed are somewhat humorous. For example, one American chick states that she "has found it difficult to relate to girlfriends in a city that singlemindedly worships a tall, thin ideal of beauty". Ha, ha! It must be a tough adjustment living in a society where women are still interested in attracting men.
www.argentinaprivate.com/forum/images/pdf/BuenosAiresHeraldArticle-ExpatsinBA.pdf
She continues, "it's hard to meet local women who share your interest in things that aren't fashion or bulimia-related".
This is such bullshit. Before even mentioning appearance, Argentine women are generally much better educated (or at least better read and informed) and refined with more diverse interests than American women. Then again, who isn't? I've had more enlightening political/cultural conversations with whoares at Envidia and girlfriends from the 'hood (Avalleneda, San Martin) than you could have with many "upper-class" US warhogs. Yes, Argentine women are also interested in fashion and looking like what might pass for a female. I do not like my women too thin and have been lambasted on this board several times for it, yet I find an endless supply of sexy babes running around this town every day. Being under 200 pounds does not mean you're bulimic, though the belief seems possible based on the US hoggers I see wading thru Recoleta on occasion. Not all American women are beasts, but a significant % are. Over half based on my sightings in BA.
BTW, I am not at all worried about BA becoming overrun by expats. Too far, too scary for most. One perspective I share with the interviewed expats is wondering when these Portenos ever sleep, or at least the ones that have to be at the office at 9am.
Do I detect just a whiff of misogyny in those last two posts?
Sincerely.
Gloria Steinem
Dear Gloria,
I wish I could sincerely and succinctly express my feelings for the vast majority of American "woMEN" to you. Unfortunately, the term misogyny does not even touch the tip of the Steinberg, I mean ICEberg.
Yours,
M
Came across to this interesting article about retiring in BAs.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/RetireInStyle/RetiretoBuenosAires.aspx?page=1
El Greco
More Argie / BA news from the USA:
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/travel/11next.html
I've live in BA off and on for a couple of months - but the one thing that has always troubled me - when do these people eat - and when do these people sleep?
Don't get me wrong - BA is one of the Great Cities of the world!
Are people now starting to pickup their dog crap in BA - it's been awhile since I've been to BA and I heard there was a new law about this.
Anyway - get to BA and enjoy a time of history that may not repeat!
Some people are doing the right thing re dogshit and others not. I was walking along Arenales yesterday when a young porteno guy stepped in some dogshit right in front of me and a young girl walking next to me. He muttered something and got a laugh out of the chica. So, yeah, still ALOT of dogshit on the streets and sidewalks. Plus, given the disrepair of many of the sidewalks it pays to keep an eye downward.
Charlie Horse
08-19-06, 14:02
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - There's more to Argentina these days than tango, tourism and tasty beef.
Lured here as tourists, adventuresome foreigners are increasingly deciding to stay - launching businesses that offer English tea, pad Thai, even California-style burritos topped with guacamole and spicy salsa.
Despite a crippling 2002 devaluation in which the peso lost two-thirds of its value practically overnight, eviscerating workers' savings and sending unemployment and poverty soaring, Argentines never lost their predilection for living well.
And with start-up costs and wages still low, entrepreneurs say their savings in dollars, euros and pounds go a lot further here, letting them Chase entrepreneurial dreams while reveling in the nation's cosmopolitan blend of Latin America and Europe.
"Argentina is very developed compared with other countries in the region," said Jordan Metzner, 22, the cofounder of the California Burrito Co. In downtown Buenos Aires.
When Metzner and Sam Nadler, 23, got their bachelor's degrees from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business last year, they did not want to follow their classmates straight into banking or law.
"We were highly opposed to working 9-to-5 jobs and wearing suits," said Metzner, decked out in a beanie and Bob Marley T-shirt at his burrito shop.
So they traveled as tourists to the Argentine capital, having heard that its steak dinners and dance clubs could be had on the cheap in what used to be one of the world's priciest cities.
In November, they teamed up with Chris Burns, 36, a San Francisco native and former banker who had been blogging about life in Argentina. Within a month, they began renting 1,700 square feet of run-down retail space in the heart of the business district.
"The bathrooms were just holes in the ground. We had to tear the place up from top to bottom," Metzner said. But at just $1,200 a month, the price was right. "You could never get a place like this in a major U.S. city."
He said it took just three months and less than $100,000 - all of it withdrawn in daily runs to the ATM - to transform the "dump" into a hip joint that today is packed with Argentines, burrito-craving tourists, and foreign students.
Michael Evans and David Garrett found their entrepreneurial inspiration in 2004, when they visited the Andean wine-making province of Mendoza. They never left.
Neither spoke Spanish or had job contacts, but that changed after they met Pablo Gimenez, an English-speaking Argentine lawyer whose family was in the wine business.
A year and a half later, they run the Vines of Mendoza, where wine lovers can come to taste aromatic varietals and even arrange to buy and produce wine on their own privately owned estates.
Evans said their business is taking off, in part thanks to the devalued peso, which the administration of President Nestor Kirchner has kept steady and cheap at 3-1 to the dollar.
"We pay our people some of the highest wages in Mendoza," he said. "But a staffer in a Napa Valley [California] tasting room might make $3,000 or $4,000 a month, whereas here he might make $400 a month."
Evans' wine exports, meanwhile, are priced in dollars.
"By the end of this year we'll have generated about $2 million in revenue and $2.2 million in equity," he said. "You couldn't do that anywhere else."
Expat entrepreneurs also say doing business in Argentina is refreshingly aboveboard, compared with much of the rest of Latin America, which Transparency International, a private anticorruption watchdog group, calls "a region that is adrift in a sea of corruption." A recent survey by the group showed that only 6 percent of Argentines reported paying a bribe within the last year, compared with 31 percent of Mexicans and 43 percent of Paraguayans surveyed.
"Nobody has ever come around and asked for a bribe," said British-born Lisa Stevenson, who opened an English-style teahouse, La Rosa Inglesa, in March 2005.
But Briton Jaime Taylor, who opened the straight-friendly gay bar Flux in the capital along with Russian traveler Ilia Konon, cautioned that the country presents headaches along with the opportunities.
For one thing, lower Argentine salaries mean fewer people here can afford to dine and drink out, which can make it hard to run a profitable bar.
Then there are the complex tax and labor regulations, not to mention finicky landlords who often want local property as collateral.
Taylor said he lucked out in landing a 2,200-square-foot basement space for the "ridiculously cheap" price of $700 a month - but he has to renegotiate every six months.
And while Buenos Aires still ranks among the world's cheapest big cities, prices are rising as Argentina steadily recovers.
"Long-term plans in Argentina tend to be six months to one year," said Kevin Rodriguez, a New Jersey native and veteran of the entrepreneurial bunch that runs the popular Empire Thai restaurant. "I can't make a 10-year business plan if I don't know what's going to happen in two years. Right now inflation is on top of me. My food prices are going up, and I have to keep increasing my employees' salaries, so I pass this off to my menu."
Argentina's double-digit inflation is "a killer," agreed Stevenson, of La Rosa Inglesa. Also troublesome are the government's shifting economic policies.
Still, the country is "ripe for new ideas" from foreigners who are willing to earn pesos and eager to live here, said Stevenson, a former human-resources executive in Jakarta who met her Argentine husband in Australia.
tried to post the link, but I can't, so an interesting read. From AP via the Philadelphia Inquirer
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