Retirement

My stepsister told me how insane her life has become since she had her first child 18 days ago. I listened and tried to empathize with her sleepless nights and all the other work that comes with taking care of another human life.

Then I told her that I am exactly 180 degrees from her situation, I have zero responsibilities and it's going to stay that way for the next three months.

In one of my favorite books "The Early Bird," the author, Rodney Rothman writes his memoirs after he retired at the age of 28. I beat Rothman by 7 years.

I usually roll out of bed at 10:30, cook myself some eggs and then scroll through the front page of the five newspapers I try to keep up with. After wasting another hour or so in the sports blogosphere I remind myself I'm in Buenos Aires and I should get out and explore.

For the past week and what will probably be the next month, I wonder aimlessly through Buenos Aires looking to encounter anything I deem interesting. Every day I pick a point on the map that I have not been to, take a bus or subte there and walk around for hours.

I don't mind the walking so much because I feel it keeps me young, but after a few hours I get tired, so normally I'll find a nice park and sit on a bench to collect any thoughts that had gone uncollected during the first half of my day. I also go out of my way to meet local shop owners or artists and talk with them.

You may thinking, "Wow, that sounds rough, how did you jump into that lifestyle so quickly and effortlessly?"

To tell you the truth, I've been formally training for this for the past three years. Although I often don't give my journalism major and Spanish minor much credit, three years of specialized schooling has prepared me for is talking to random people in Spanish.

I'd tell any freshman considering journalism/Spanish studies that his options are either earning 35 grand a year and hating your life working for a newspaper or putting off any semblance of reality for as long as possible and living in South America.

I'm also in the process of trying to think of something incredibly amazing to do with my 40 days I have left in Buenos Aires until I begin traveling South America. I have a few ideas so far, but if you can think of an epic side project, please let me know.

I really have no excuse not to blog more, but here's the highlights of my last few days, which are all beginning to run together.

One day's highlights:

I walked around the Palermo/Belgrano border and saw some really dope graffiti.




Then I stumbled upon this goose, I'm not sure what kind of bird it actually is, we haven't gotten to that section in Birds yet. Even though I'm dropping out, I'm still going to Birds.


Then I got tired so I took a break in the Japanese Garden, which was quite relaxing.

One of the 8 million great things about "The Carter III" is that now whenever I see a Koi Fish, I instantly think of Juelz Santana.


I spent 10 minutes watching this mother and daughter share icecream in the garden. Should I ever have a wife and/or daughter I can only hope that they have a moment like this. And I also hope that they are being photographed and blogged about by some kid from a foreign country.