Saturday, March 29, 2008

Tidbits from Buenos Aires

  • Walked from my hostel over to the school housing this morning around 11:00 to say goodbye to Carolina, one of the brazileñas. The school housing is an old building with five floors, four of which have rooms. It's one block from where I'm staying and a few blocks from school.
  • After that, I walked to the bus terminal and bought a ticket to Santiago, Chile, for tomorrow at 6:00 P.M. I splurged for the luxury accommodations in which the seat folds down into a bed. I won't be paying for a hostel or hotel, so it's still a good deal, at 260 pesos, or less than $90 USD.
  • Then I grabbed some lunch at the local version of Denny's—it was full of locals and the food was on par with Denny's. The price was tolerable (just). I was starving, so I won't lose any sleep over it. Unfortunately, I was in a Coke-free zone. I don't like Pepsi, so I just had a Mirinda, an orange pop.
  • Having gotten some fuel in my system, I walked over to a place that Lucía, one of my teachers, had recommended, Puerto Madero. It's basically a giant shopping area with lots of restaurants, all of which surrounds a waterway and marinas. It's a really nice area.
  • Next, I began walking towards a section of Avenue Corrientes, another spot Lucía had recommended I visit. Being really tired, I hopped a subte a couple stops to get me to Corrientes y 9 de Julio, home of the Obelisco, a tall Washington-Monument-like mound of blocks, pretty much right in the middle of the enormous main drag in downtown (sorry, Cheryl) Buenos Aires. Desperate for a Coke or some ice cream, I bopped right on into McDonald's to get a McFlurry. Lo and behold, Thais and Marina had just gotten back from taking Carolina to the airport and were about to order lunch in this very McDonald's, so we hung out for a few minutes and ate. Then they went back to the school housing to sleep and I headed West on Av. Corrientes.
  • One goal I had was to mail the stack of DVDs I've been burning of my images, but I didn't have the energy to find a FedEx. I should've looked them up on the Internet. I also should've done it a couple days ago. I'll try to mail them from Santiago. This section of Corrientes—just west of 9 de Julio—is pretty cool. There are lots of bookstores, music stores, theaters, etc. Makes me wish I were going to be here longer.
  • That's today—now for other stuff.
  • A couple observations of style here in Buenos Aires: I've seen at least a couple guys wearing their sweaters on their backs with the sleeves tied around their neck. Remember the '80s? I also see people with their headphone wires running down their shirt and into their pocket. That seams a little excessive, unless it's just to keep the wires from snagging on stuff or people. I'm guessing it's more to look cool.
  • There are approximately three black people who live in Buenos Aires.
  • Just about any person from the U.S. could walk down the street here and no one would know you were a foreigner.
  • I continue to be impressed with the fact that all the people I meet from Norway and Sweden are fluent in English—very impressive. Interestingly, the "conservatives" in those countries are still more liberal than the liberals in the U.S. We're still okay.
  • A bunch of the students have been sick with colds—I've had one, too. Congestion and coughing. A few students got food poisoning from somewhere.
  • The room next to mine in the hostel is cursed. Since I've been staying here, there have been three different groups of people who have stayed there. Without exception, they are not capable of talking to each other without yelling. For some reason, it usually happens at about 3:00 in the morning.

4 comments:

Cheryl Mingo said...

So, you burned all your pics to DVDs...did you get those stolen too? They weren't on your list of "lightening the load".

Anonymous said...

Jay,

Does your bus from Buenos Aires to Santiago stop in route or is it a direct bus? Since I will be ending up in Santiago and have 10 days to kill after my friends leaving I was thinking of doing the reverse. From the looks a lot of buses stop in Mendoza along the way. Any ideas?

Keep me posted with more tips, and again thanks for the tips via email a few weeks back.

Justin

Jay Philip Williams said...

Cheryl,

I have 19 dual-layer DVDs with photos on them...that's over 100 gigabytes. Those were in my main backpack, so I still have them.

Unfortunately, I already tried reading one of them and my laptop wouldn't read it. So, I'm afraid I'm going to lose at least some photos, in addition to the ones (three or four hundred) that were in the camera.

Jay

Jay Philip Williams said...

Justin,

I didn't make the trip and don't have the ticket (it was in my camera bag, of course), so I'm not absolutely positive, but I'm pretty sure it was straight through. It was 260 pesos--less than $90.

Jay