Monday, June 18, 2018

Expat Report: Six Years Later - Changes Are Coming

Six years…
Has it been easy? No. But we've made it work.
This year, Zach started teaching English, and that's been a huge financial relief for us. Also, it's kind of like his happy ending. You see, when I first met Zach in college in 2001, he was studying to become a teacher. I think we kind of derailed each other's original career goals because we decided to spend our time traveling to different places. But now, sixteen years later, he's teaching.

Meanwhile, I've been staying busy with my freelance writing job, while working on not one, but three novels simultaneously. I finished the first one back in February and published it. The novel "Hunter's Vendetta: Oblivion" is the final book in a four-part series. If anyone's interested in getting a free digital copy of the first novel, "Hunter's Vendetta: Silent Kill," leave me your e-mail in the comment section. I've also been helping Zach work on his next novel, which he'll have published in October. Oh, and I was interviewed by Medium about my novels, which was actually quite flattering.

The Economy
All in all, we've been doing well, even though the Argentine economy has suffered a serious setback in the last month. As of 6/18/2018, it would cost 27.63 Argentine pesos to get to 1 USD, whereas one Argentine peso is worth 0.03 US cents.
I'll definitely be writing my annual pricing comparison post, but suffice it to say, the cost of living has been a bit of a challenge.  Even Forbes weighed in on the situation not too long ago. We did considered moving back to New York last month, but we both concluded that we'd be too much of a burden on our loved one if repatriated to the States, so for now, we're good where we are.

Food... Food... And More Food
As you all might have guessed from the number of posts I've written about restaurants, food is one of our favorite things. Fortunately, we don't have to go to Buenos Aires to get Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. With the addition of American Chicken and Chilling Brothers, we can get our fix of fried chicken right here in Cordoba. 

There's also a new bagel shop, which I haven't tried, but I've been told offers potential. So, I'll definitely be giving that a shot at some point and posting on whether it's a hit or miss. In the meantime, Zach has figured out how to make bagels at home. 
Alright, so the shape is a little fudged up, but once we toast the bagel and add some cream cheese to it, it tastes better than the store bought bagels, plus, it's made with the best ingredient in the world... love.

Oh, and we also found grape jelly! Okay, so it's not exactly like the grape jelly from home. When we first opened it, we could tell that the texture was different. 
It also tasted more like prunes than grapes. But after we chilled it, and later spread it on some bread with some peanut butter, it tasted just like PB&J. Zach also made cinnamon rolls. I'm so glad I married a chef.
So What's Next
As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to post a pricing comparison entry soon, but first I'm going to post an interview with Nico, a young man from Buenos Aires, who was kind enough to share his pro-choice views on the recent battle to legalize abortion in Argentina, and unlike my other posts, this one will be in English and in Spanish.

So stay tuned and keep on follow your hearts towards your next great adventure!

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