Travelling Without Moving

Hi All!

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..

music:

Natty Combo
Karamelo Santo
Orquestra Jungla
Running Potatoes

films:

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)

Ok, that's it for today!

Hugs and kisses from the gauchos!