Late in the afternoon, I make my way to Tour Aventura for my guide initiation. I’d submitted an application and a photo online and have been accepted on a trial basis. I’ll be paid a percentage of the bookings for each group.

The offices are a clean, blank little set of rooms in the Microcentro, one stop on the Subte from where my Spanish classes are. I go to the desk and ask for my contact. The person at the desk escorts me back to a small office in the back, where a slender black-haired woman around my age is sitting.

“Welcome,” she says in English, “please sit.”

I reach across the desk to shake her hand. “Mucho gusto, soy Liz.”

“Bueno, Alejandra. I’m happy to see you weren’t lying about speaking some Spanish,” she continues in Spanish.

“Does that happen?”

She rolls her eyes. “We get a little bit of everything. Your accent,” she says, looking a bit dismayed, “it needs work. It’s very heavy. I’m used to it, but others will have trouble.”

“I’m taking classes.”

She waves her hand. “It will improve, your ear. Just being here. If you’re staying. And you’re blond,” she says approvingly. She says nothing about the fact that I’m heavier than in the photo I sent her. I didn’t mean to be dishonest, I simply don’t have any recent photos. “Very American look, that’s good. Some people specifically ask for an American to show them the city.”

“They come to Buenos Aires and they want an American guide?”

She shrugged. “Just don’t tell them you just got here, tell them you’re an expat. We can start you in the first week of the New Year. You can be ready?” She hands me a thick notebook with information on the key points and a map with the route marked.

“I think so,” I say, feeling fraudulent.

“It’s really not so complicated. Here is the list,” she says, flattening the map. “Plaza de Mayo, Caminito in La Boca, San Telmo, Recoleta Cemetery. It’s three hours, mostly on foot with one short Subte ride. Yes?”

I nod at her.

Looking over my bank accounts, I realize I can afford to stay quite a while. It helps that the dollar is so strong against the peso, and though I rarely made good money while I was skiing, my living expenses were so minimal that I saved nearly all of it. Still, this condo is too pricey. At the language institute, I find a notice for an apartment opening in San Telmo: Casa de Volver. What an odd name for a building, I think, as my mind scrambles for the translation but knows something is likely lost: the house of returns?