While not as long as last year's nine-week stay in Mexico City, I'm off to Buenos Aires for five weeks beginning just before my birthday. I'm thinking if I head to the southern hemisphere before the big day, time will go backwards and I can ward off 30 for a little longer. Yes?

If not, I can enjoy finally being able to check Argentina off the list. No plans to explore much of the interior (it's way too far to Patagonia) but I am going to take the high-speed ferry across the ocean-like Río de la Plata to Montevideo when J comes to visit. Who knew Uruguay had so much going on?

I'll be working remotely for most of my stay, from a studio apartment in Recoleta/Barrio Norte. It's walking distance to Subte, the famous cemetery, Parque Las Heras and, of course, the kinds of empanada, pizza and gelato places I'll be dreaming about from now until April. Anda anda anda.

As San Francisco transitions from its strangely cold summer to its much hotter fall, I'm bracing myself for the mini-heat waves that strike. My evil Yahoo weather widget predicted temperatures in the low 90s for both yesterday and today in the city. I planned to stay home all day yesterday with the wooden slat blinds closed to ward off sunlight and heat. I felt like a real tool when I checked the temperature around lunchtime and saw that it was in the mid-60s. Weatherman fail. Today was still meant to be a hot one, however, so I planned to work a bit from a cafe across the street from the beach. I left my place by the bay and it was barely warm in direct sunlight. Needless to say, at the beach it's foggy and freezing.

In an area of the country where the weather (what weather?) is so predictable (from rain patterns to average temperatures), it's nice that weather forecasters can still get it so terribly wrong. And by nice I mean annoying.

For most of this year I've been working four days a week. Sounds like heaven, but the work is mostly on weekends and weeknights. I try to squeeze in fun stuff during the few off-work weekend hours. I also try to stay connected during my actual days off, on weekdays. Then there are the non-Digg projects I've been focusing on during free time (Spanish, writing, etc.). The result: I feel like I'm always working and never working. It's ... interesting.

I've been thinking about Mexico City a lot while working on a related writing project and I just remembered my final moments in the city. They speak volumes about el D.F.

I had a pleasant conversation with the taxi driver as he sped through the city center toward the airport. He repeatedly complimented me on my speaking skills and my neutral accent as I described the purpose of my nine-week trip and expressed slight worry over the work it would take to maintain what I'd gained once back in San Francisco. He was a nice guy who inflated my ego a bit.

Then we arrived at the airport and, despite someone at the guesthouse telling me how much the ride would cost, I asked him how much I owed him, you know, because that's what people do. Sure enough, he gave me an inflated figure. It turned out to be exactly what I had left in pesos. I wasn't too bothered. It was what I had planned to give him, only now he wouldn't be receiving a tip.

I was the one who got the tip: never trust cab drivers, especially the friendly ones (and especially the defeños). Cabrón.

Sometimes ...

2009-07-15 17.59.54
Originally uploaded by oopsy_daisy1

Coming into work on a day off can be a good thing. Yesterday we hosted a wicked trashy version of Wine Wednesday at the office, complete with 40s, wine in a box, Cheetos, KFC -- and randomly placed tires to add to the ambience on the top of the roof. Good times.

See if you can spot the creature

See if you can spot the creature
Originally uploaded by DulcePicoso

Beautiful weekend. Spent some time at Baker Beach. The fog was back with a vengeance last night, but that suits me. Sweatshirts in summer = win!

So, I got pretty lucky with the timing of my Mexico trip, no? I made it home the second week of April, before swine flu hysteria reached a fever pitch. I also avoided a pretty powerful earthquake. Add a crazy (tragic) fire and spikes in headline-grabbing violence and it looks like the country just fell apart without me.

Fortunately, my Spanish isn't falling apart without Mexico. But the danger is there. I was fortunate to be able to spend as much time as I did in the capital taking classes and practicing with capitaleños, but coming back to San Francisco was when the real work began. Like anyone returning home after an immersion experience, it's imperative to keep up the learning process. San Francisco is obviously a better place than many others to keep practicing Spanish, and I benefit from having a Spanish-speaking boyfriend, but there are a few things I'm trying to do that anyone can do.

I can't imagine a middle-sized city or bigger that doesn't have a few language schools. San Francisco has several and I'm spending my Wednesday nights at Casa Hispana chatting about current events with a teacher and a handful of other Hispanophiles. The focus of this particular class is on talking rather than actually learning grammar or correcting mistakes, but the class provides a weekly focus for me. While I sprinkle Spanish-language music, podcasts and TV programs into my general media consumption throughout the week, I'm extra motivated to devote time to this stuff on Wednesdays.

Additionally, I'm trying to read more. I just can't get myself to check the newspapers of the hispanoparlante world regularly, but immediately after coming back I devoured a few copies of a really great Mexican linguistic magazine I picked up in el DF (Algarabía). I also just read the translation of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which was great and relatively easy to get through since I had read the original work. I'm trying to follow this up by finishing a book I picked up in Madrid and couldn't, for whatever reason, get super far into last year.

So, I'm doing what I can, but I can't help but continue thinking that I'll never be satisfied until I reach the next level. And the reality is that reaching that level will require not just another prolonged trip to a Spaniah-speaking country, but a move with no specific return date in mind. With the big 3-0 on the not-too-distant horizon, those kinds of big steps become harder to take.