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Monday, March 27, 2017

My Cities......My Lovers: Dating Buenos Aires and Discovering True Love in Montreal


Japanese themed Le Falco cafe


There has been an interesting thought swirling around my head recently. I've never been in a long term relationship with a human, but i have been in a relationship with a city. And I've been thinking that if cities were lovers, how would i describe our affair?

In the case of Buenos Aires, i didn't choose the city, it chose me. I had only planned for a "one night stand" of 6 mths but the city seduced me into a 3 and half yr affair that was characterized by love-making and tears. It was the kind of romance where when you had a "high" it was truly high and you felt this magic and chemistry that leaves you convinced this is something you'll never have anywhere else.

 But the lows were equal to being in Dantes 7th circle of hell. Yesterday may have been a magical nights of tango but what the next day held was your cellphone getting stolen, a transportation strike, inflation so that your budget is screwed cuz everything is 5 pesos more than yesterday as well as some cronies trying to rip you off because you are a foreigner.









But every single time i thought about breaking up with Buenos Aires, the city would burst forth to life in song, dance, passion and parades. Much like a lover who comes thru the door with your favorite things after a toxic fight. The city knew that our relationship was on borrowed time and wanted to keep me in a tango dance for just a little bit longer.

Relationships in ones 20s is all about CHEMISTRY. However come your mid 30s the dating game changes drastically.  In ones mid thirties you begin to realize that you don't have to be a slave to just "chemistry" in a relationship, but you know who you are and what you want and what works for you and what doesn't. So you get a say in dictating the terms of what would be a fit for you. 

Now i see what i couldn't have seen so many yrs ago, that as passionate, fiery, mystical and magical Buenos Aires was, it was a lover complete incapable of a healthy functional long term relationship. Earlier i wrote a heartfelt post about my break-up with Buenos Aires. Here is the link to it below:




Montreal however is neither a fresh fiery romance nor a boring loveless marriage. Instead it lends itself to being an amazing partner by everyday magic as opposed to high "highs" and low "lows" that summed up my complicated dating relationship with Buenos Aires. Our break up was the worst thing and the best thing that could have happened to me. 

If i could go back in time and appear to my heart-broken younger self sitting on a bus to Chile about to leave Buenos Aires, i would have told her "4 yrs from now Montreal is gonna call your name and when it does, it will be the beginning of your discovery to the meaning of true love ....."


Buenos Aires may have been the birthplace of tango but Montreal gets to have the last dance :)




























Amorous Alpacas

Amorous Alpacas