My relationship with Miami can be broken down, to make this inappropriately Biblical, into two testaments.

First, there is the Old Testament, which takes place between 2004 – 2009. This is the era when my girlfriends and I would group ourselves into packs of five, rent one South Beach hotel room for all, create a shower schedule, and see which promoters could keep us sufficiently inebriated at Shore Club and Mint. From there on, every woman was free to create her own journey into sun, fun and promiscuity, to be instantly forgotten once our plane hit JFK turf. Here, I learned the key canons: Miami runs on sex and money; the rest is irrelevant. 

The New Testament commences sometime around 2010, when my parents decided to retire in eternal sunshine and moved to Miami’s Russian enclave of Sunny Isles. Here, I discovered the joys of shopping at Bal Harbor and tanning next to pregnant Russians and Latinas, strategically sent to Miami to await the arrival of their American offsprings.  A blissful existence, really, if you never leave the “Russian Riviera” and cap it at about three days. 

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Over the past four years, I have practically made a (pro bono) career of analyzing the French and their laissez-faire stance on everything, dating included. And so I thought it would only be fair to finally give la parole to one of their representatives – a Frenchman who has spent the past nine years acclimating himself to l’amour à l’Americain. Since he refused to pen down his observations (French people are SO stubborn), I had no choice but to stick a tape recorder under his nose and allowed myself some “creative liberties.”

The First Date  

The first thing you learn when you start dating in America is that it truly is a Land of Opportunity. No, not because you can make anything out of yourself, nor because hard work will take you far in life. Rather, because, no matter who you are or where you hail from, YOU WILL GO ON MULTIPLE FIRST DATES. You can have the vocabulary of Donald Trump or look like Steve Bannon and Quasimodo’s love child – it doesn’t matter. You are, above all, a DINNER PROVIDER, destined to routinely nourish the female population of this country with overpriced sushi. And so, nourish them you will.

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Hot dudes and humus. No, this is not the title of my impending memoir but a- this Instagram account and b- two things my girlfriends guaranteed I would be “literally, obsessed with” when I announced my plans to finally touch base with 50% of my heritage and pay a visit to Israel.

While I was certain that the chickpeas fiend in me would have a blast, I wasn’t as convinced about my demi-shiksa. As a New Yorker, I am used to Israelis coming with a certain stigma, notorious for shady business dealings in the same way that Russians are infamous for insurance scams. My friends assured me that this was simply a stereotype created by a small segmen,t and that I was really in for a personal Promised Land of hot hipsters with MIT minds.

They may have been slightly overselling, but they weren’t entirely wrong. In addition to its unparalleled food and beaches and a cultural heritage that interrupts your life for a quick reevaluation, Israel can certainly count beautiful men (and women!) as its national treasure, guaranteed to lure young Birthright dwellers for years to come.

Having spent a full week studying both the culture and its modern-day male representatives, I have decided to deliver my key learning on Israeli guys via my own play on the Ten Commandments. Please imagine me relaying them from Mount Sinai.

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Spending two months in Russia as a 30-year-old single woman is similar to what I envision military training being like. You come in terrified and weak; you leave tough and tempered and strengthened by the realization that nothing, ever, is going to seem difficult again. Having recently lived through said experience, I now present you a synthesis of key trends, reported directly from the line of duty.

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This valuable insider’s guide is brought to you by our latest international contributor. Marina Amaro, 26, has the sun in the perfectionist Virgo and the moon in the imaginative Pisces. (Yes, it’s that confusing.) She loves fashion, great books by female authors, and a stellar fitness routine. You can explore more of her via her Instagram  (can you imagine what that Virgo-Pisces mix does for her aesthetics?)

Some time ago, a Brazilian friend living in Melbourne brought her Australian boyfriend back home to show him the motherland. After a month of exploring the best parts of the country, they returned to our city of Porto Alegre and I got a chance to meet him. I was immediately struck by his interest in specific aspects of my life; a stark juxtaposition to the natural conversation flow customary of our culture, where you to learn random details of one’s astrological chart while remaining clueless about their last name and occupation.

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