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One of the nice things about staying at Georgio’s House in the Caballito barrio in Buenos Aires, is the interesting clientele.  The school has an interesting group, too, but I don’t have as much interaction with them as I do with the folks who pass through our B&B.  We’ve had several folks from Australia and New Zealand, one from Holland, several from various parts of Canada, Ireland and Chicago.  We’ve connected with most of them.  Some stay a week, most only a few days, but they all have stories to tell. 

   At school, the typical story is that they’re spending a few weeks in BA studying and are then moving on to Chile or Peru or other parts of Argentina to study some more.  Quite an opportunity for your early twenties.  And since many of the students are from Europe, where going to another country would be like going to Charleston for us, they’ve already seen a good portion of the world. 

   Most of the folks we’ve met from Australia and New Zealand have seen a great deal of Asia, which makes sense since it’s the closest area to them, and has been fairly inexpensive until the recent past.  The Aussie dollar, from what we understand, has taken a beating lately, so that may crimp their traveling.  Most that we’ve met have been to the US. 

   The most interesting story seems to have arrived just yesterday.  Her name is Kathy (or Cathy), she appears to be in her late twenties, is traveling alone (for fun) and is from Chicago.  When she was entering her junior year of college, she told her parents that she was going to Africa.  They laughed.  She had never even been to Canada (from Chicago!).  So she went to Africa for a semester of her junior year.  And that was it.  She was hooked on travel.  After graduating, she told her parents that she had gotten a job in Japan.  This time they didn’t laugh.  She didn’t speak a word of Japanese (she does now).  She was there for two years.

     She’s taken Spanish since high school and is conversational.  (Sherry said, “I understood every word she said”.   Heck, I even understood a lot of it).  And she’s been traveling in between.  (She’s 29, how much in between can there be?)  I admire people like her.  She puts herself out there.  I’m sure her parents worry.   Even though Matt met friends in India, he was alone for the first couple of days.  We worried.  I guess that’s what parents do. 

     Ah, time and money.  I get the urge to travel about once a quarter.  Three months at home and I’m ready to go somewhere.  Anywhere.  Given the time and money, that’s about what we would do — 4 trips a year.  Two weeks each, more or less.  It would be nice to have a second home somewhere warm in the winter (though we haven’t found where that would be yet).  But if it were a choice between a winter home and 4 trips a year, I’d choose the trips.  I think Sherry would, too.

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