Expatriate Games

Curry, for instance, has found it difficult to relate to girlfriends in a city that singlemindedly worships a tall, thin ideal of beauty. "It's hard to meet local women who share your interest in things that aren't fashion- or bulimia-related," she said.

There are other frustrations, like unorthodox business practices. Robert Shive, 60, who left a career as a money manager in Philadelphia in 2004, helps English-speaking foreigners buy real estate. They need help, he said, because real estate transactions in B.A. require the buyer to appear at the closing with the full purchase price in U.S. cash. It is not easy, he said, to get fifty or a hundred thousand dollars in $100 bills to a conference table in a foreign country.

Still, "apartment sales to foreigners are way up," he said. Most of his buyers are baby boomer retirees looking to spend the American winter here, and some are younger expats like Chummers, he said.

Expat Social Scene

On a recent Friday, the Young Expatriates Society of Buenos Aires held its monthly gathering at an art gallery in Palermo Viejo. The society, which was founded in 2004, has about 3,000 members, roughly 2,000 of them Americans. The Estudio Rich gallery was filled with young and youngish foreigners enjoying a smooth, deep-tasting Argentine tempranillo wine.

"My life here is completely different than in the U.S.," said former Washingtonian Antoinette Ford, who declined to reveal her age. "I take art classes, ride horses." She said she had left a 100-hour-a-week job as an architect to move here two years ago. Now she rents out her house in Washington and works as a freelance writer. But while she hopes to stay here permanently and support herself with her writing, she has had to face the reality that even B.A.'s low prices can be too steep for a budding freelancer: She recently interviewed for a job at an architecture firm to fill out her income.

Also at the gallery was Grant Dull, 29, a San Antonio native who had become entranced by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges in college and moved to B.A. for a few months after graduation. Later, after a few years outside Argentina, he came back and, with a friend, launched Whats Up Buenos Aires ( http://www.whatsupba.com/ ) in 2004. The Web site, with 15,000 to 20,000 visitors a month, lists nightly events and has a rotating cast of a dozen expat contributors writing about life and culture in B.A. Dull also works with two local bands, showing videos during performances.

In the United States, his last job was in a turn-out-the-vote campaign. In B.A., he said, life is more fulfilling. "I've been able to become active in the cultural scene on an artistic level."

Some Argentines resent the influx of the sort of foreigners who care only about the inexpensiveness of the country and not its culture.

"They are living here because it's cheap," said Andrea Roiter, an accountant who was at the gallery event trying to recruit foreigners to join a weekly English-language conversation group with Argentines. "They are not making business investments that can help the economy grow." The devaluation of the peso caused many middle-class Argentines to struggle, with imports such as computers and cars becoming three times more expensive.

But recent signs show the economy picking up speed. In 2005, it grew at 9.1 percent, the government reported, beating projections to reach the highest rate of growth in 13 years. Most economists believe that the government will continue to intervene to keep the exchange rate at 3 to 1 with the dollar. However, recent rises in the prices of beef and other commodities mean that inflation could be taking hold. An unwavering exchange rate combined with a peso that buys less would make the country less of a bargain for expats.

But for now, the expats are rolling in. ByT Argentina, a real estate agency specializing in renting B.A. apartments to foreigners over the Internet, offered 200 apartments in 2001, according to co-owner Mariana Travacio. This month the company, which now has dozens of competitors, lists 900 apartments, and almost all of them are occupied -- many for months, Travacio said.

Latin Love

"I had two visitors in my first three years here. Now I have two a week," said Marina Palmer, 36, the unofficial godmother of the B.A. expat scene, thanks to her 2005 memoir, "Kiss & Tango: Looking for Love in Buenos Aires." The book chronicles how Palmer, a former advertising executive at Young & Rubicam, left her soul-sapping career in New York in 1999 to pursue a career as a tango dancer -- and engage in steamy romances.