June 10, 2008
Driving Star -- Project Allende 1
I just got back from a night of music in the Bauern hotel, a worker-run cooperative and a nineteen story high hotel three blocks from my new place. There were Cubans, Venezuelans and some Argentines and 3 gringos, myself included.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 04:56 AM | Comments (3)
May 18, 2008
Principín Proprietario
A short note to you all that I have done something rather extraordinary (for me, anyway). I bought an apartment and I live here now. It has been a mind-bending experience, the complexity of which you would not believe. I enclose a few photos and a some writing that I have been doing to come to terms with the purchase.
I now have a lot more space, (2000 Ft. Sq. / 190 Mt. Sq.) so I enclose my new address and phone number for prospective visitors...
Tony
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 06:17 PM | Comments (14)
December 04, 2007
Inside hospital Borda
It was a sunny Saturday in the walled compound of a turn of the twentieth-century unusual gated-community, the puzzle factory: hospital Borda. The buildings all look rather similar and so I stuck close to Paul as we went in. The streets in Borda are named after doctors (which seemed logical) but no one was handing out maps. There are no cars, hence no traffic, so the leafy avenues form wide green walkways, very peak oil! We shuffle by the first few buildings and the whole place seemed much less frenetic than life outside, eerily quiet.
There seemed to be some sounds ahead so we ambled along toward it.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 03:46 AM | Comments (3)
November 30, 2007
A day with the Crazies
Saturday I had the pleasure of being invited to partake in an extraordinary visit. I took some maté and bought cigarettes for the first time in four years. The maté was to help me get over the ill effects of cachaça and beer from the previous night; the cigarettes were not to be smoked but to be shared.
This is the story of how a paranoid Irishman enters the world of some of the whackiest stars of Argentine media. Hi, ho and off we go to Hospital Borda, better known by its radio station La Colifata, A Buenos Aires insane asylum.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 02:15 PM | Comments (1)
November 12, 2007
Yum yum, pig's bum, cabbage and potatoes!
I've been in Buenos Aires now more than a few seasons. I've been in Latin America a few years.
Every once in a while I ask myself why? The locals always ask too. "So where are you from?", Answer: "Astoundingly rich, cold, island no-one has ever been to, but everyone thinks must be beautiful." Follow on question, "What are you doing here?" Answer: obscure political Masters on South American integration project that few people understand (even here). Their identity cards say MERCOSUR but ask them to name the four member countries. Short conversation.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 02:13 AM | Comments (7)
September 12, 2007
Bargain hunting for a house :)
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 05:40 PM | Comments (13)
July 05, 2007
Asunción Photo Album
Posted by Tony Phillips at 06:22 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
TP at the Yacht-y Club
Asunción Paraguay: 29th. June 2007 The form asked whether we would be arriving by commercial jet or private plane. In our case transport was provided by the Brazilian discount airline GOL. Two hours behind schedule, at 6:00PM on the 28th of June, we landed with a bump on a mid-winter’s night in Asunción.
We were in Paraguay; the umbiliculum of South America …
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 01:27 PM | Comments (3)
April 28, 2007
Autumn Changes in Buenos Aires
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 02:12 AM | Comments (3)
February 06, 2007
Back to Argentina
I’m really pushing the hand-baggage rules here at terminal one, Guarulhos, São Paulo’s International Airport. My checked bag, however, was a professional 1.5 Kilos over the 23 Kilo weight limit. Better to suffer as the overloaded/overdressed Irishman in the sweltering Brazilian heat than pay the R$4/Kg. for second-hand books and leather jacket.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 06:26 PM | Comments (8)
December 27, 2006
A day with Homeland Security
The day began as most days do, yesterday in Buenos Aires. But today was to be different, quite different!
At 10:40PM my plane took off for Washington Dulles. I had asked the flight attendant if the liquids ban was still in force. I was desperately trying to finish the bottle of fresh orange juice I had forgotten in my freezer, sucking the concentrate from the ice.
They call my flight.
More OJ! Need the vitamin C, I might get a cold.
They call boarding.
Damn this OJ tastes good.
They call section 2.
I ask a flight attendant if frozen OJ counts as a liquid?
She thought maybe I had found a loophole.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 03:24 AM | Comments (5)
December 14, 2006
South American Hell
Summer in Buenos is too hot to sleep.
Even if you do manage to collapse exhausted in a pool of sweat, the AC on, you will doubtless be very rudely awoken, the house shaken to its foundations by a violent clap of thunder that sounds more like a Baghdad car bomb.
In Ireland, as children, we used to count potatoes to work out how far away the storm was. Flash! One potato, two potato, three potato, four. Thunder! Four miles! These storms are right there; hardly a potato chip could squeeze between the lightening flash and the belly wrenching thunder as you wake in panic like an Arab kid in Abu Ghraib.
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Posted by Tony Phillips at 11:29 AM | Comments (9)