Hello Guys, This is Niki now! I thought I put some photos here from the past one month :) This is here the view from our window:
And this is our street:
Lots of trees I like it a lot!
And here you have Plaza Serrano,which is a nice square full with bars and restaurant, but the intresting thing is that on the weekends from 3 pm to 8 pm it becomes a big market of indepentent designers, and almos all the bars become clothes shops. Take a look at it!
And the proof that Christan and Peter was here with us :) (And also Akos but I dont have photo of him)
And this is me and Ale making stupid photos before going out on one Friday (we are a bit drunk) :)
So thats it for today, I hope you'll enjoy the photos, lots of kisses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally I have my day off! It felt like ages since last time.. Especially since my wonderful employer came up with yet another set of idiotic rules as to how we're supposed to do our job. You know, it's already busting my balls enough that I have to send +500 "really creative messages" (read: lies) a day, and I really don't miss anyone making it harder for me. Just when I managed to make the workflow a bit more Marcin-friendly by creating a "fire and forget" list of the "most frequent moronic questions you ever imagined", triggered by the magic commands CTRL+C / CTRL+V (someone should fund a monument to the guy who invented it, provided that it's not Bill Gates, cuz nothing can save this guy in my eyes), now it appears that we are strictly forbidden to use copy/paste. That means that I have to type messages like "Hello there, I am Pisti, your personal psychic master and I will use the best of my powers to help you understand your life better! Text me your name and date of birth, so that I can connect to your aura." And I have to do it hundreds and hundreds times a day. Believe me. It's bloody frustrating.
Anyhow, hopefully I won't have to do it for much longer. In fact, by the time you've read this I will have returned from a job interview later today. Fingers crossed!
Two days ago it was the first time when I had a third degree encounter with the kafkesque absurd, that strikes randomly in many countries of South Amercia.. Apparently there was a serious clash of taxi and truck drivers with police. The drivers were protesting against the new bill, restricting conditions of obtaining a commercial driving licence. The protest erupted into violence and 22 were injured (don't worry only 5 protesters, the rest - policemen). If you feel like it, watch the video about the protest (spanish only):
Here you can read more about the background of the protest.
The consequences of the protest were the very reason why I call this situation an absurd, and - more importantly - a good lesson for the government of Capital Federal, as to why it is not advised to mess with the people, and better think twice before taking such step. In response to police violence, the taxi drivers announced a 24 hour strike. Soon the truck drivers joined, followed by bus drivers, and Subte and regional railways workers. That meant that the following day it would be virtually impossible to get anywhere unless you have a car / bike / rollerblades / skateboard. By midnight the strike was suspended, but before that my supervisors found themselves in a quite difficult situation, as the @#$%^& service must go on 24h, 365 days a year. So they started organizing us in groups, predefined by our locations and who has a car. Everyone in the office was running around in a frenzy, shouting explicit statements about the country they live in, and - occasionally - asking me whether we have such things where I come from. Well, I certailny cannot recall a situation when either Warsaw or Budapest was completely paralyzed, I kept saying. Here, on the other hand, it happens once a year on avarage, I heard in reply.
I was meaning to tell you more about the transportation system of Buenos Aires anyway, because it's quite fun. My personal favourite are buses, called "colectivos" here, or "bondis" if you prefer to use slang. I must say that the bus network here by far surpasses anything I have ever seen anywhere else, and this is to the simple reason that each line is operated and owned by a separate company. Due to that simple solution we have buses running 24/7, and there are many more of them than in any other city I lived in (although, sadly, this contributes to the heavy pollution of Buenos Aires). There is never a situation when you have to wait too long for a bus, actually sometimes you choose to stay 30 sec. more and get on the next bus, just to enjoy the comfort of having a sitting place. For most destinations within the city limits you pay 0.80 peso, with short distance trips costing 0.75 and the outskirts ventures 1.20, which is also the cheapest I have ever seen. Each line has different livery, and the colors are bright and vivid (you get to see rasta buses, like the 59 line we used to take when we lived in Olivos). The other curious thing is that you enter only through the front door (like in Spain for example), and the order of entering is determined by the time you arrived to the bus stop, meaning that passengers form a line to enter a bus. I was literarily shocked by this! On one hand living in Buenos Aires is a chaotic ride at 160 km/h, and on the other, you quietly form a line on a bus stop. Can you imagine it happening in Budapest? I actually can. And the transport system would benefit from it. Also, typically, the front row seats are reserved for those who are willing to entertain the bus drivers on the course of their ride. You must pay attention only when getting off - door opens at the avarage speed of 40km/h, thus giving you the proper momentum to continue your trip on foot. So, yeah, I love buses here! The only moment I hate them is when they stop next to our house, as the windows in the flat start to shake.. But I'll probably get used to it after a while, I don't have to much choice either way, do I?
Next on the line is Subte - Buenos Aires' subway (metro? foldalatti? tube?) system. All the lines are situated not so deep and that makes it similar to the Budapest foldalatti. The first line began operating in 1930', and I recon the cars we see nowadays sometimes still remember those days. Subte system is enthusiastically criticized by every living soul here, mostly due to the fact that the trains and cars are so old. There are six lines: A, B, C, D, E, F, and the recently opened H line, but I don't count it in as there are some problems with it. Either way I only had the pleasure of riding the D and B lines, I think I also tried out the C line once, but the rest take us to areas of Buenos Aires, where one has to "walk the walk, and talk the talk", so we pass on this for the time being. Good thing about Subte is that it is also cheap (0.70 peso to enter and you can ride as much as you want, as many lines as you want, provided that you don't exit, 'cause then you have to pay again), and it's easy to get it and get out, which is important to anyone, who thinks that humans were not designed to live underground (like me). And the best thing about Subte is that very often you get to see some shows on it, like short theatre pieces, music, comedy, acrobatics and magic. People receive this entertainment very warmly, cheer and clap, so very often, ride on subte can be quite an experience.
I received an amazing video from my brother, called "Poles in UK". I laughed my socks off! Check it out:
Now I also decided that every week, I will share with you some cool stuff I found on the net, whether it is about South America or not, just so that you know what caught my eye lately. I encourage you all to do the same, simply because the idea of sharing is meant to work both ways, duh..
Lives Of Others Reign Over Me (finally a good movie with Adam Sandler) American Gangster (don't take it too seriously though, that guy was not as cool as in the movie) 1408 Sicko (although I find some parts a bit too far stretched) El Polaquito (very good but extremely sad argentinian movie)
It's been a rough couple of days, because since we moved to the center of the city, there are more and more temptations with every bend. Plus Christian and Peter are here, and last night Akos flew in. To all those who have no idea who they are - they are former supervisors / colleagues of Niki from TeleMedia Hungary. They will be here for a couple of weeks, so we go out together every now and then (everyday) to eat something and discover argentinian wines.
Akos had been living in Argentina for some time before, so he basically knows every ins and outs here. No doubts it's useful to have him around. Plus he's an incredible party animal, just after landing in Budapest he droppen his stuff and came to meet us to go wild in the town. We went to a neighbourhood called Las Canitas, an area of couple of blocks loaded with clubs, pubs, restaurants and all sorts of other places that have devastating effects on our wallets. We ate a good meal, and drank some fine Malbec and Syrah wine, although due to the events that followed, I somehow cannot recall their names. Then we went for a drink to a nearby club and after that the party moved to a club called "Sunset", which is in Olivos. I have never visited the likes of "Home Club" in Budapest, but I figure it must be somthing of that sort, i.e. foam party with naked chicks bouncing up and down and in and out. Not my sort of party, that's for sure, so I left around 5 am. On November 17th there will be an open air Goa Gil banzai, so I think I'll go check that one out to listen to some decent music and shake my gluteal muscles. Curiously enough, it's also going to be in Olivos.
Niki stayed in the club with the guys, and gave no sign of life until 5 pm the following day, so I was upset like hell. She could have called... Anyway she's in one piece so that's a positive ending to the story.
Oh, I got my salary! I got it all in cash, so regardless of the fact that it's bad even for a joke (viccnek is rossz hehehe), I had to have eyes round my head on the way home. Next week a good part of these funds will suply the school where I intend to study.
