Querida Buenos Aires

Tonight Angeles asked me if i wanted to go home. And i actually surprised myself by repsonding quickly no.

If circumstances were different, if i had more money, more time, less responsibilities and less plans, I would stay in Buenos Aires.

As i tried very inelegantly to explain in my still awful Spanish, Buenos Aires has grown on me. It now has a permanent place of endearment in my heart.

I feel like i have been through a traumatic experience with the city and it has brought us closer, it has created a bond that i will hold with me forever. Buenos Aires will always be a home to me.

That said, I had a dream last night i was walking through the aisles of Copps grocery store picking out things to make Christmas cookies. I am so excited to come home and see friends and family who faces are fuzzy in my memory but whose presences have been with me the entire last 4 months.

But i will be sad to leave the family i have made here. My friends and my argentine family now have their faces, the sound of their voices and their gestures permanently in my heart.

And the memories. The memories are etched into my mind like the silver workers chiseling designs into the sides of mate cups.

Today was another memory chiseled into my mind.

Today we went to the feria de mataderos and wandered through the chorizo-smelling smoke of the parilla, watched the folk dancers smile and snap and browsed the endless artisan stands. And when gustavo rolled his eyes when angeles stopped again at yet another stand and then whispered an inside joke about wives and their waiting husbands, i felt like part of the family. When Maite leaned her tired head against my hip when waiting for her parents to barter, i felt like family. When Inga honestly told me at the end of the day that he was tired of talking to me, i really felt like family.

So this is traveling: making new homes and new families knowing in the end you will only have the new memories. New families to share with old families. New experiences to mix with an old life. A new home to leave for an old. And new memories to add to the old, to help create this colorful scrapbook of experiences that is becoming my life.