Yesterday, I did something truly groundbreaking, something that I never imagined myself doing. I got my hair cut into a mullet. Not to be funny, not to joke around, but to mesh with the local fashion.

Yes, that ´s right folks, while the mullet has been marginalized in the U.S., it has never seen better days here in Argentina. Some people prefer not to rock it, but it is generally not viewed as unattractive or unsightly. To the contrary, a fresh-cut mullet will be met with praise and smiles.

I am currently living in Mendoza, where the mullet is not terribly common. However, a quick trip to Buenos Aires will reveal the mullet ´s widespread popularity. Porteños, residents of Buenos Aires, have an acute taste for cosmopolitan fashion. The mullet is not antithetical to this. People sport the latest designer fashions plus a mullet. Every so often you might spot someone in a business suit, confidently rocking the mullet.

My mullet is quite small, I had what I had and made the best of it. I have what we Americans would consider to be a bona fide mullet, however, for many Argentines it is nothing more than a normal haircut (some people did not even notice that I got a haircut). They would say that I do not have quite enough “party in the back” to meet mullet specifications.

I have adopted a variety of Argentine cultural elements as my own, and yesterday attained the Triple Crown. I drink mate every day (300,000 metric tons produced annually in Argentina). I am a fanatic of Fernet, a bitter liquor that has it ´s origins as a lower-intestinal medicine (25 million liters produced annually). Yesterday, the woman sitting next to me in the hair salon said, “now you look like an Argentine.”