Hi Everyone!
Anyway we have internet now. Woohoooo! :))
So, let's see what's been happening with us for those couple of days we were offlline.
In my last post I said we were off to look for a flat right? ...Wrong. We didn't see any flats, but we read a lot about them haha... Basically getting a flat here is not so easy and this is to a couple of reasons.
First of all the property law here is full of holes so the people need to take some precautions in order not to get conned. Almost every landlord renting a flat asks for a guarantee, which means that we must find a person who will guarantee for us that we will pay and if we don't that person will pay for us. The guarantee has to be an Argentinian and has to have a job, so we have a small problem here as no one will guarantee for us, since no one knows us that well. It is still possible to rent a flat without the guarantee but in such case te landlors will ask for rent many months in advance which - of course - we are not able to provide. What we are left with is looking for a flat through Ale's family and friends. In fact we are going to see a flat today around 3 o'clock (now.. really we are!). There is this lawyer of Ale's mother who is looking to rent a flat and he's willing to rent it to us. He actually has two flats in the center - one of 3 rooms for around a 1000 pesos and one of 1 room for not much cheaper so we still don't know what it's gonna be. We'll find out today.
Last week on Thursday we went out with some friends of Ale to a "punchi"... Punchi is a disco. It was a huge club in the middle of nowhere (at least for us) with all sorts of music, starting with some quasi reggae one-man-live-act and ending with tekkno and all. There were a couple of reasons we didn't like it that much: first of all there is too much people and one can hardly enjoy any dancing while others are dancing on one's feet; secondly the prices are very high (one small beer is 8 peso, while in a supermarket you pay 2 peso for a 1 liter) and last but not least it's hard to focus on the music when you have a gogo dancer's ass stuck right into your nose... Well, perhaps for some it is enjoyable, but I had to avoid looking in those directions as Niki was there with me :P. Either way we escaped pretty early which in the end was good, because we were not "dead" the next day and we went into the town on our own to explore a bit.
We went to a district called Palermo which is quite nice as there is lots of life there and it's very close to the center. Niki wanted to visit Telemedia to see if she can get a job over there. We managed to find the place, which was kind of a personal success for us - there is no sign indicating that we're at the right place. You just ring and then have to answer all sorts of stupid questions before you are allowed to get inside. Niki talked to someone and he told her that he'd get in touch next week as they always look for editors, so at the moment it looks good. I, personally, haven't started to look for jobs yet, but I have a couple of people looking them up for me
hehehe.
On saturday we went out again, but only in the neighbourhood. We just wanted to go for a quick beer, but since people here go out earliest at midnight it turned into an all-nighter. And we visited only two bars... Anyhow again we met some new people which produced a couple of interesting perspectives for me. Fernando (the one who explained me some of the political situation) and his pal Ernesto invited me to play football with them and their friends next week on Monday and made it specifically clear that no females are allowed on the field and that I would probably get home after 3 days, so I am looking forward to this. By the way, I already chose my colors (meaning football) and my team is RIVER, who subsequently reacted to my decision by loosing to Tigre (1-4) on Sunday, even though Fernando assured me that RIVER would win. Oh well... I hope they get their shit together!
I also met a guy called Santiago who is in need of a bass player for his reggae band, so it looks like I'd be back in the business soon. The only problem is that my bass is in Budapest...
Also on saturday, but before the evening banzai, Ale took us to La Boca (La Boca football team is the main rival of River, by the way). It's the old portside district of Buenos Aires, and one of the main turistic attractions with it's three streets where you can feel safe. The rest, especially during the night, is extremely dangerous so it's not advised to hang around there after dusk. Still, during the day there were lot's of people dancing tango in the streets and the houses are painted in bright colours, creating overall a pretty cool atmosphere.
We haven't posted any news for a couple of days because the access to internet is really a pain in the ass. However, yesterday two "half brains" came to hook up internet at Ale's house, so now we'll be available more often. I write "half brains" because the two individuals who - in theory - should be network technicians have virtually no knowledge whatsoever so in the end me and Niki had to explain them why this whole business is not working ("do you know what is a fixed IP?" , "Si, si" - and he's going on looking helplessly on the screen... pff...). Either way now I know hy they walk around in pairs... :D.
Anyway we have internet now. Woohoooo! :))
So, let's see what's been happening with us for those couple of days we were offlline.
In my last post I said we were off to look for a flat right? ...Wrong. We didn't see any flats, but we read a lot about them haha... Basically getting a flat here is not so easy and this is to a couple of reasons.
First of all the property law here is full of holes so the people need to take some precautions in order not to get conned. Almost every landlord renting a flat asks for a guarantee, which means that we must find a person who will guarantee for us that we will pay and if we don't that person will pay for us. The guarantee has to be an Argentinian and has to have a job, so we have a small problem here as no one will guarantee for us, since no one knows us that well. It is still possible to rent a flat without the guarantee but in such case te landlors will ask for rent many months in advance which - of course - we are not able to provide. What we are left with is looking for a flat through Ale's family and friends. In fact we are going to see a flat today around 3 o'clock (now.. really we are!). There is this lawyer of Ale's mother who is looking to rent a flat and he's willing to rent it to us. He actually has two flats in the center - one of 3 rooms for around a 1000 pesos and one of 1 room for not much cheaper so we still don't know what it's gonna be. We'll find out today.
Last week on Thursday we went out with some friends of Ale to a "punchi"... Punchi is a disco. It was a huge club in the middle of nowhere (at least for us) with all sorts of music, starting with some quasi reggae one-man-live-act and ending with tekkno and all. There were a couple of reasons we didn't like it that much: first of all there is too much people and one can hardly enjoy any dancing while others are dancing on one's feet; secondly the prices are very high (one small beer is 8 peso, while in a supermarket you pay 2 peso for a 1 liter) and last but not least it's hard to focus on the music when you have a gogo dancer's ass stuck right into your nose... Well, perhaps for some it is enjoyable, but I had to avoid looking in those directions as Niki was there with me :P. Either way we escaped pretty early which in the end was good, because we were not "dead" the next day and we went into the town on our own to explore a bit.
We went to a district called Palermo which is quite nice as there is lots of life there and it's very close to the center. Niki wanted to visit Telemedia to see if she can get a job over there. We managed to find the place, which was kind of a personal success for us - there is no sign indicating that we're at the right place. You just ring and then have to answer all sorts of stupid questions before you are allowed to get inside. Niki talked to someone and he told her that he'd get in touch next week as they always look for editors, so at the moment it looks good. I, personally, haven't started to look for jobs yet, but I have a couple of people looking them up for me
hehehe.
On saturday we went out again, but only in the neighbourhood. We just wanted to go for a quick beer, but since people here go out earliest at midnight it turned into an all-nighter. And we visited only two bars... Anyhow again we met some new people which produced a couple of interesting perspectives for me. Fernando (the one who explained me some of the political situation) and his pal Ernesto invited me to play football with them and their friends next week on Monday and made it specifically clear that no females are allowed on the field and that I would probably get home after 3 days, so I am looking forward to this. By the way, I already chose my colors (meaning football) and my team is RIVER, who subsequently reacted to my decision by loosing to Tigre (1-4) on Sunday, even though Fernando assured me that RIVER would win. Oh well... I hope they get their shit together!
I also met a guy called Santiago who is in need of a bass player for his reggae band, so it looks like I'd be back in the business soon. The only problem is that my bass is in Budapest...
Also on saturday, but before the evening banzai, Ale took us to La Boca (La Boca football team is the main rival of River, by the way). It's the old portside district of Buenos Aires, and one of the main turistic attractions with it's three streets where you can feel safe. The rest, especially during the night, is extremely dangerous so it's not advised to hang around there after dusk. Still, during the day there were lot's of people dancing tango in the streets and the houses are painted in bright colours, creating overall a pretty cool atmosphere.
After that we went over to San Telmo, which is close to La Boca. It's also a very nice district. We would actually like to live there but there are hardly any flats to rent there, and if there are any they are very expensive. San Telmo is an artist neighbourhood with narrow streets, small houses in colonial style and cool bars that are kept in their old form.
From San Telmo we moved to a nearby park to drink some mate.
When you come to Argentina, you'll notice people with these "bulbs" and thermoses, where they keep hot water. Lots of Argentinians drink mate all day and that's why they carry all this equipment with them all the time. How to prepare mate: put the mate herbs in the "bulb", but ther has to be lots of them like on the picture - the "bulb" actually contains more mate than water. Then slowly add hot water (not boiled). If you prefer to have mate a bit sweet, add some sugar but remember to do it before adding water. The first sips will be dusty - some people even spit it out, but later it will get better. Remember not to move the pipe (called "bombilla") around as it will get stuck. That's it!
On our way back we again had the problem of running out of change. That mean's that even if we have money (but no coins) we cannot get home by bus. It took us about an hour to change two pesos into two coins... Here's the fuller background on why this is happening:
There are simply not enough coins in Argentina. Most of the shops and Kiosks have a notice saying "no change". This may look funny but it isn't funny at all, when you cannot get home, you cannot take a bus, not because you don't have money, but because you cannot buy the stupid ticket because of the stupid coins. Newspapers already say that there is a black market in coin trade, meaning that some people sell coins on interest (100 pesos = 97 pesos in coins). So everyone is saving change like mad, on the contrary to Europe where everyone is trying to get rid of it. According to the government the situation will improve in the first months of next year when more coins will be released. One question remains: what the hell are we supposed to do until then??
All right, gotta go!
Cheers to y'all!
From San Telmo we moved to a nearby park to drink some mate.
When you come to Argentina, you'll notice people with these "bulbs" and thermoses, where they keep hot water. Lots of Argentinians drink mate all day and that's why they carry all this equipment with them all the time. How to prepare mate: put the mate herbs in the "bulb", but ther has to be lots of them like on the picture - the "bulb" actually contains more mate than water. Then slowly add hot water (not boiled). If you prefer to have mate a bit sweet, add some sugar but remember to do it before adding water. The first sips will be dusty - some people even spit it out, but later it will get better. Remember not to move the pipe (called "bombilla") around as it will get stuck. That's it!
On our way back we again had the problem of running out of change. That mean's that even if we have money (but no coins) we cannot get home by bus. It took us about an hour to change two pesos into two coins... Here's the fuller background on why this is happening:
There are simply not enough coins in Argentina. Most of the shops and Kiosks have a notice saying "no change". This may look funny but it isn't funny at all, when you cannot get home, you cannot take a bus, not because you don't have money, but because you cannot buy the stupid ticket because of the stupid coins. Newspapers already say that there is a black market in coin trade, meaning that some people sell coins on interest (100 pesos = 97 pesos in coins). So everyone is saving change like mad, on the contrary to Europe where everyone is trying to get rid of it. According to the government the situation will improve in the first months of next year when more coins will be released. One question remains: what the hell are we supposed to do until then??
All right, gotta go!
Cheers to y'all!
3 comments:
yo mates !
marcin & nikki, thanks for make me travel while i'm at work.
i suppport you in your latin america tour!
and please notice that this year my brother and his wife move to bogota, so please feel free to visit them!, or to invite them...
yeah sorry for still haven't been coming to Hanna hanna...
hey
so i just learned from niki that 1 euro makes 4 pesos - useful information for reading the blog :P still, 8 pesos for a beer doesn't sound very bad.
Also, Marcin, you managed to talk about the only two teams in Argentina i already know (River Plate and Boca Juniors). What about getting into details? And why did you choose such a boring football team even people in Hungary know? :)
take care & have fun!
hey balazs!
I don't want to support total loosers and in Argentina only to teams really count: Boca and River. They also provide unforgettable derby of Buenos Aires (which actually is advised to check out live to anyone coming to Buenos Aires). It will be in 3 weeks and I am planning to see it.
Anyway Independientes is a good team as well (they are actually quite high in the ranking now) so I have a kind of soft spot for them as well.
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