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http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/28-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-i-started-traveling/

This website shows you how to be an entrepreneur, travel the world and avoid the typical cubical life style.

So what do you do?

My two jobs with Madi

Some wonderful Clients! 

     I've been in Buenos Aires for nearly 6 months and people have recently been asking me what exactly "I do". Well, I don't have a typical 9-5 job. I am lucky enough that I get to work several jobs. My schedule is always changing, every week is different. Some days I work all of my jobs while some days I work from home. Here is a little preview of my life.  I teach English at least 6 hours a week one on one to students. I work in a clothing store at least one day a week all while working for BA Cultural Concierge and Send Love BA (more on that later) and volunteering in marketing for Teatro Ciego. I get to meet a ton of people everyday and am able to see so many sides of Buenos Aires like learning how to sell clothing in Spanish or exploring different restaurants in the name of "work research".

    I am working for an American entrepreneur named Madi Lang who has been living in Buenos Aires for nearly 3 years. BACC is her brain child, she spotted a need for a customized concierge service where attention is 100% devoted to the client and she turned this opportunity into a business. Through hard work, word of mouth marketing and terrific online reviews her business has taken off. 

    For BA Cultural Concierge I get to plan vacations and then help others live them. I have been so blessed to find a job I love in Buenos Aires. I enjoy the time I spend teaching and working in the clothing store but my most fulfilling job is working for Madi with BA Cultural Concierge and Send Love BA. I find working beside a young entrepreneur inspiring and rewarding, I get to see my efforts and energy make an impact in her company and I get to face new and exciting challenges everyday. 

    I met Madi back in November at a dinner with my friend and roommate Caroline. They had attended the same university and were in the same sorority but 3 years apart. At dinner Madi told me a brief description about what she does and projects she was working. From the get go, we hit it off and I offered, without hesitation, to be her intern and help her in anyway possible as long as I could learn from her. 

    Last month I got to plan my first itinerary for a low mobility man in his 80's and his younger son. Not only did I plan their trip but had the great luck to accompany them on nearly everything they did. We went to estancias (ranches), brunched at the Four Seasons and Alvear Hotel, saw tango shows and went on a tour of the city. Sometimes it takes seeing Buenos Aires through the eyes of a visitor to truly appreciate the spirit of this incredible city. 

    Send Love BA is Madi's newest company. It's a carepackage delivery company that delivers customized carepackages to expats and study abroad students living in Buenos Aires. The company circumvents the horrendous Argentine postal system to deliver a product that can't be sent from home but contains all the comfort foods from home. After being away from peanut butter, marshmallows, home made chocolate chip cookies for a long period of time expats tend to crave foods we often take for granted. I work at developing marketing to grow the business as well as work as a delivery girl. The best is seeing the excitement on peoples faces when I hand deliver fresh baked cookies, bagels, peanut butter and balloons, it makes all the detailed planning worthwhile. My favorite delivery was seeing a grown man overcome with joy and happiness after I delivered two jars of Skippy's peanut butter and fresh made bagels. The hardest part is self control on the way to delivery. You always hope that special person you are delivering a chocolate cake to someone that likes to share. 

Iguazu Falls

Barry patiently waiting his turn in line

Mom waiting in line to find out about our luggage 

Our view from the hotel. The sunset over the falls. 

La Garganta del diablo 

The Majestic Falls 

 I just came to the  end of a great two week vacation with my Mom and Step-dad Barry. We traveled to Carmelo, Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, and Rio de Janeiro. In the duration of their two week stay everything went pretty smoothly except some unfortunate bumps in the road like $120 pesos worth of fake pesos and lost luggage. I'll start from the beginning. 

    We arrive without delay to Iguazu's tiny airport after leaving Buenos Aires behind in the rain. The three of us wait patiently for our suitcases on the slow moving carousel jam packed with people boxing out others to get their bags. Nearly twenty minutes go by and there is no sign of our bags and the carousel has come to a complete standstill. We walk over to a group of people gathered around a worried looking airline representative. He makes an announcement in Spanish, "If you don't have your bags, I am afraid they are still in Buenos Aires." Ughh. There is only one flight a day that comes to Iguazu and we were on it, apparently our bags weren't. This is the point where I check in with the parents, apologetically almost I explain how Argentina is "special" and kind of beats to it's own drum, things like this happen all the time. Barry, my step dad, starts huffing "I bet you the bag workers didn't want to load the bags because it was raining so hard. They didn't want to get wet." He had a point. It was raining, storming actually. Thunder, lightening the whole kit and kaboodle but our plane took off, I'm not so sure it have would in the States. At this point my family is spread out between three lines, uncertain which one will be first to get to the front. Eventually after 45 minutes in line and 3 people working where there is counter space for 6 we make it to the front. We ask the airline rep in Spanish, "when will our luggage arrive?" In calm, crisp English he tells us "4 AM." I look around and check my parents faces for reactions, they still look pretty collected. In Spanish I try to get more information, "4 AM? You don't have any other flights?" Again the game continues and in English replies, "the plane with your luggage is flying into Posadas a 5 hour drive from here. It will get here around 4 AM." Ok. "Do we get compensation?" He finally begins to look flustered, "100 pesos a person but you need to pick it up in Buenos Aires." Seriously??? Who are these people? Now Barry, the expert traveler and ex-actor steps up to the plate. "I have pills in my bag. Pills that if I don't take I might die, and you don't want that to happen now, do you?" He holds eye contact. A small trickle falls down the rep's forehead. "Um, no sir we don't." "No you don't want that blood of my untimely death on your hands." I give Barry a look, enough the rep looks like he might go into cardiac arrest. "So what are you going to do about it my good man?" Barry asks again. The rep pauses for a second and scribbles something on our lost luggage form "Medical Emergency" it read, "Priority" and shows it to us. "Your luggage will be the first to arrive." With that good news and the fate of our luggage out of our hands we head to the Sheraton inside the Iguazu National Park overlooking the waterfalls. We sit outside enjoy a strong cocktail and gawk at the beauty of the sunset casting it's lights on the falls. At 4:05 AM the door bell rings, it is our luggage. 100% soaked and smelling like a pack of wet dogs. 

    Despite our moldy clothes, we had a wonderful time at Iguazu falls. The falls themselves were immense and powerful. La garganta del diablo (the devil's throat), a lookout point at the top of the fall shows their strength. We even went on a jungle adventure boat that cruises right beneath the beating of the falls. I don't know what is more intense, the sound of the pounding water or the feel of it on your skin. We have had a photograph of Iguazu hanging in our living room for years so seeing it in person was magical, it gave so much more meaning to the falls that we knew existed somewhere in Argentina, it gave the picture a story and memories. 

Losing Sight

  When I first arrived in Buenos Aires I was invited to a performance called A Ciegas con Luz  at "Teatro ciego" which means "The Blind theater". It is a dinner and performance that is done in complete and total darkness. Entering the room, you follow a waiter by putting your hands on his shoulders as three people trail behind (kind of like doing the locomotive at weddings). You are seated at a table of four in a pitch black room. The waiter, who is blind, instructs you where you can find your wine glass, dessert, and dinner in front of you. Eating in the dark was a really unique experience, especially not knowing what you were eating. While eating the food our very skilled waiter served refreshments both red and white wine options. Then there was a lovely woman singer named Luz who sang songs from all over the world as a blind pianist accompanied her. At the end of the performance she lit a candle and the room was illuminated in an eerie way, the room illuminated felt very different from how I had imagined it in the darkness. 

    Last week I took my parents to Teatro Ciego, worried that they would be overwhelmed or uncomfortable in the complete darkness. But alas they surprised me and adjusted to the drastic lack of sight quite quickly. We went to the same show  A Ciegos con Luz which has been modified since the last time I was there. There were many added smells like rain, coffee, grass as well as sensations like being misted by rain water and sound affects to help imagine the performance in your mind. You had to use your imagination, but all my other senses were heightened in a way I wasn't used to and the full body experience was delightful. The menu had also recently changed, again serving finger-licking good finger foods as well as an edible bread basket. On top of everything, the manager, Martin, and his girlfriend and star of the show, Luz, couldn't be kinder people who speak very good English and are very accommodating to English tourists. I highly recommend anyone who visits Buenos Aires to take the time to visit Teatro Ciego, the only theater in the world of its kind. teatrociego.org

I'm on a boat

My roommates and I were invited to a birthday party on a boat, a booze cruise if you will. Well my mind had conjured up different images of where we were going, a large boat perhaps, maybe some outdoor space to get some nice fresh air? Well the boat was like a ferry boat with the inside chairs taken out and replaced with strobe lights and disco balls straight from a cheesy night club. At 1:30am we got to the dock to get on the ferry, er, boat and headed up the river. Entering the boat we were all initially panicked about being trapped below deck till 5 in the morning because they wouldn't let us on the top deck while moving. We also asked our friend if it was an open bar because we paid a hefty 50 pesos to get on. "Of course it's an open bar. Why wouldn't it be?" He told us before we agreed to this party. When we asked him again as the boat starting sailing out to sea he said that the bar was open over there and pointed in the direction of the bar. He was confused why a bar wouldn't be open at a party. Thus another cultural misunderstanding. We ended up enjoying ourselves and the game of trying to stand up as the boat rocked turbulently beneath us. But I think we were all pleased when the boat docked and we could head home. 

Polo

Polo is the most posh sport around. Not only are the players deceivingly good looking they look like they walked straight out of a Ralph Lauren catalog, with shaggy naturally highlighted hair and bronzed skin and often times bright blue eyes polo matches are also fun to watch. I like admiring the strong horses and the swiftness and control in which the players handle them. But more than anything I like going to watch the people. The extremely elegant, put together people that I only thought existed in the movies.

These are the people that television shows about high society people are based off of. A friend of mine was telling me that each polo player owns at least 25 horses and that each horse costs roughly half a million dollars, sans sponsorship. So basically polo is a sport that the elite can play because they love it and are willing to fork out the dough to compete FOR FUN.

A Big Fat Argentine Wedding

The last wedding I went to was nearly 10 years ago when my mom and step-dad walked down the “aisle” in our back yard. Luckily in my awkward glory there was no dancing or young people mingling for that matter, just a simple, lovely dinner in my living room. Everyone has been telling me about how fun weddings are but I am still at that age where my friends haven’t yet decided to take the leap into wedded matrimony. Well this past weekend I went to my first “grown up” Argentine wedding. Actually, I didn’t go to the wedding or the dinner, in fact I didn’t even show up until 2AM for the “celebration”. You see in an Argentine wedding there are many parts. First there is the civil ceremony where the couple gets married in the court and there is a small ceremony attended by friends and family followed by a fiesta, of course. Then the following weekend or a few weeks later is the big deal wedding. The wedding starts in the church at 8 pm followed by a dinner which starts at around 11ish and then the festivities that last until daylight. Here they don’t have bridesmaids and groomsmen nor do they spend thousands on an engagement ring (very high chance it would be cut off your finger by a thief).

My Argentine friend invited me to his good friends’ wedding (the third part). I showed up at 2am, just as dinner was being finished. I guess what happens is that different friends are invited to different parts due to cost so at around 2am tons of young people came rolling into the banquet hall. Initially it was very reminiscent of a middle school dance, boys were on one side and girls on the other. I spent a good part of the night dancing with my friend’s girlfriends as the guys put the married couple on their shoulders and tossed them like bean bags into the air. At around 3:30am the music quieted down and the lights came on so the newlyweds could cut their cake. Then we all moved into another room outside lined with tables filled with every variety of cake and dessert imaginable, I call it heaven. Nearly everything had some form of dulce de leche…yumm. Then the music resumed and the party continued only to be interrupted again at around 4am to hand out colorful hats, Jack Sparrow hats (hair and all) along with other pirate garb, glow in the dark bracelets, and goofy costumes similar to those provided at Bar Mitzvahs. My favorite memory of the night was seeing the bride’s parents sitting atop someone’s shoulders with the father wearing a white beard and a king's crown and her mother decked out with huge carnival beads. I could never ever ever imagine my parents staying up and partying that late. So alas, at 6:30 am we bid everyone goodbye and I mean everyone. We went around to practically every person at the party and kissed them goodbye…such good manners. And that was my first real wedding, kinda.