He's a Guay, I'm a Guay...Uruguay

Sunset over Colonia

After the boat trip across the Rio Plate, Anne, Mark and the HBomb disembarked in the town of Colonia in Uruguay.  Colonia is a sleepy little town featuring colonial ruins, a series of immobile old cars randomly placed on the streets, fantastic views and nice little restaurants.

For orientation purposes

As far as a colonial town, it has all the key ingredients: cobblestone streets built by the Portuguese, city walls and a drawbridge that were manned by the Spanish and the old church overlooking the town square.

Go ahead, make my day.

Cobblestone craftsmanship.

After the reviews were in, HBomb approved of the city walls and looked surprisingly comfortable preparing the man the cannons.  On the other hand, he did not approve of the cobblestone.  Those 16th century Portuguese didn't put together a very smooth road and HBomb did not appreciate having to walk over the odd stone here and there, especially with his rather abbreviated legs.

Anne shows off the Basilica

Daddy, I can see through the bridge.

Of particular interest, however, was the drawbridge.  HBomb liked being able to see between the slats of the bridge to the moat below (the moat in this case is actually more like a ditch, but just go with it).  The old church in the town square, la Basilica del Santisimo Sacramento, is the modern representation of one of the oldest churches in Uruguay, and the new world, for that matter.  It was originally founded in the 1600s, but the current building was built in the 1800s, with some of the older artifacts maintained.

I do not remember this bible story.  Yikes!

In addition to the ruins, the attraction of Colonia is the atmosphere.  It is a calm, quaint little city away from the noise and crowds of Buenos Aires.  In what appears to have been an organized effort, the city also has several old cars placed through out the town (usually in front of or near restaurants or tourist attractions).  This adds to the unique nature of the town.

HBomb, riding on Mark's shoulders, check out a couple of old cars, one of which actually had a tree growing through it.

Another old car marking a restaurant location over Mark's left shoulder.

The last aspect of Colonia that you really can't miss is the lighthouse.  The newest lighthouse is open for unguided tours for adults (sorry, HBomb) and provided a decent view of the city.

The not-too-tall tower in the distance is actually a restaurant from which the sunset photo at the top of this post was taken.

 So after a couple of days of sight-seeing and history-appreciating, it was time to relax.  The trio selected a restaurant called "El Drugstore" (roughly translated as "The Drugstore").  Like all businesses in Colonia, this place accepted dollars, ARG pesos, and URU pesos.  It probably would have taken Euros if we had asked.  They also had live music and a mascot who lives under the tables set up outside, a black dog named, appropriately enough, "Black."

In their neverending quest to find "local flavor," Mark and Anne noted that Uruguay did have a few local dishes, but they also noted these dishes were pretty similar to the local dishes in Argentina (steak with an egg and ham on top).  It was more difficult to find a drink that really said "Colonia."  But they did have Sangria, which is more associated with Spain and Portugal, but this was a colony of each of them for awhile, so .... close enough -> "local flavor."  Anne and Mark ordered a pitcher, which at first seemed like a lot, but after a little bit, really didn't.  All a matter of perspective I guess.

That looks like a lot of Sangria.

Nevermind, it's not that much....

I'm On a Boat!!!

Do not adjust your screen, that is the actual color of the "water" in the Rio Plate - it gets this color due to the water's high content of..."silt" - yeah, silt, it must just be silt.

This past weekend marked the cumpleanos of Anne as well as Father's Day, so HBomb, Anne and Mark decided to celebrate by taking a little trip out of town.  The destination was just across the Rio Plate, so this was HBomb's first opportunity to ride a ferry boat, which he did with gusto.

HBomb and Mommy show off his new tourist stamps.

And since the other side of the Rio Plate was a different country, this was also Hbomb's first chance to get a stamp in his tourist passport.  Although HBomb has been to three countries (that we know of) prior to setting foot on Uruguayan soil, it was his first tourist stamp (Born in US, visited Canada and lives in Argentina, but somehow this is his first tourist stamp).

There are ferry services running between Buenos Aires and a few cities in Uruguay several times a day.  The crossing took 3 hours on the way there and 1 hour on the way back, not due to currents or tides or winds, but to the speed of the boat.  Anne and Mark decided to take the long, leisurely ride on the way there and the quicker ride on the way back.

The 3 hour trip was not too bad - as they say, getting there is half the fun.  HBomb immersed himself in people watching and cracker eating and we were a good quarter of the way across the Rio Plate before he made any sign that indicated he knew we were (a) on a boat, or (b) moving.

The exact moment that HBomb figures out that this is a boat and it is moving.

At several points during the trip, however, it appeared that "getting there" was considerably more than half the fun.  These ferry boats were set up like cruise ships without the cabins.  They had multiple seating areas, snack bars and a video arcade....

Rumor has it that live bands and tango dancers perform in this space during high tourist season.

But the most popular attraction was the duty free shop on board.  Once we disembarked from port, the crowd swarmed the duty free shop.  After the initial rush, Anne and Mark checked it out.  The prices were not particularly good from an American perspective, but the attraction was that there were several brands available in the duty free shop that are unavailable or available only with a hefty mark up in Argentina.

Eagle eyed viewers might be able to spot a familiar face in this crowd...

But the duty free shop was not the only entertainment available to the passengers.  HBomb was drawn like a moth to a flame to the late 1980s-early 1990s era video arcade.  And when I say "late 1980s-early 1990s era" I do not mean that the games from the 1980s were available among the games of today - I mean this was straight up original versions of Ms. Pac-Man, Gallaga and "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" (yeah, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - when is the last time you saw one of those?)

HBomb smacked around on the buttons of these games, stood on what appeared to be a Batman pinball game released in conjunction with the Michael Keaton-Jack Nicholson-Kim Basinger film that brought back comic book movies, and finally saw what would serve as his babysitter for the better part of 2 nautical miles - some random car racing game.

I can't lie, HBomb's driving was... aggressive.  He had no regard for lane integrity or other drivers, he drove overly fast, even when it did not gain him an advantage and he cut people off like it was the goal of the game... but it's hard to blame him for any of this, he learned to drive by watching the drivers in Buenos Aires!!!!

Elections and Strikes

Unrelated gratuitous cuteness picture.

Last Tuesday marked the second transit strike since Anne, Mark and the HBomb arrived in Buenos Aires.  You may remember that the silver lining of the first transit strike was that Mark got to attend the South American premiere of Game of Thrones slightly before it premiered on HBO.  This tells us a couple of things - first, Mark measures time in terms of Game of Thrones related events - this will probably morph into a "True Detective"-based time system following the GoT season finale tonight, and second, that is a lot of transit strikes.  So why does Argentina have so many transit strikes?  Well, it's complex, but the simple story is inflation.  The most recent strike was called by the transit unions because the government proposed a raise of 25%.  For most of the world, that is a pretty good bump in pay.  But in Argentina, the rate of inflation is officially reported to be about 24%, but most independent economists put it closer to 35%.  So if you have the same salary two years in a row, you have less buying power in the second year.  And even if you have a 25% raise, you are less well off than you were the year before.

Henry believes in a predictable rate of inflation between 1-3% annually.

Anyway, there were negotiations but it didn't work out and now they had their second strike in 3 months.  And we're not talking a minor inconvenience.  We are talking all of the transit workers in the city.  That's bus drivers, port workers, airplane workers, and some taxi drivers.  On top of that, some of the striking workers took it to the next level and set up barricades to shut down traffic on some of the major thoroughfares in town.  Ouch.

This past Wednesday was another significant day in Argentina.  The political parties had to announce and register their alliances with the government.  Argentina is having presidential (and a bunch of other) elections this year.  Argentina has a whole host of parties ranging from the extreme left to the extreme right to the extreme middle - actually, I am not sure that last one is a thing.  Anyway, because the parties are legion, many have no reasonable expectation of winning seats or the presidency running alone, but have a shot if they band together.  In past elections these alliances have shifted based a multitude of factors, so now the country actually has a law saying that all political alliances for this election have to be declared and registered with the government.  By last Wednesday.

How many Argentine campaign workers does it take to make a political ad?  This many.

Being as how Mark, Anne and the HBomb are not voters in the Argentine elections, they do not have to decide which candidates to support.  However, that does not mean they are not surrounded by political messaging… and sometimes - candidates.  A few weeks back, HBomb was leading one of his famous tours of Buenos Aires when our intrepid trio encountered a photo shoot.  There were camera men, lighting guys, make up people, a director - the whole deal.  Anne, Mark and HBomb investigated further in hopes that it was a movie or TV show being shot.  Wouldn't that be cool?  To run into a movie on the streets in B.A.?  But, alas, no it was a political ad being shot.  The candidate is running for mayor of Buenos Aires.  He is currently the head of Aerolineas Argentinas, so … well, I am not really sure how to complete that (not really a clear causal relationship there).  But anywho…pretty cool.

I think the guy in the blue shirt is the candidate

Story Time

Guided Tour by the HBomb

On their last visit to the zoo, Anne and Mark showed HBomb a lot of animals.  Today, they went to a larger zoo outside of town and things were a little different.  This time, it was HBomb pointing out the details to Mark and Anne.

Hey! Pay attention....

It's right there!

HBomb's favorite animals were in the aquarium.  He pointed out sharks, fish and a couple of sting rays to make sure that Anne and Mark didn't miss them.

After that, he pointed out the cheetahs (the Spanish word for this is "chitah," so at least it's easy to remember).

Before they left, HBomb even pointed out to Anne where the best place to get your hands and feet wet before you head for the day would be.

But we don't want to mislead.  On his first day of tour guiding, there were some missteps.  For example, HBomb got a bit upset when he could not find a wallaby or kangaroo in the exhibit.  Better luck next time on that one, HBomb!

But all in all, it was a pretty successful trip.

Almost done, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel....

So, as a reward for a job well done, HBomb treated himself to a couple of minutes at his favorite part of the park.  Which animal was it, you may ask?  Well, actually, the thing HBomb found the most exciting was the timed water fountain (which we did not even know they had at the zoo).  Go figure.

Head to Head Rankings

Seeing the sights can be several different kinds of experience, depending on the sights.  Sometimes, you can see something completely different from any thing you've seen before.  Other times, you can see the same thing, done in a slightly different way.  Still other times, you see things that start to look familiar.  In this last case, you may have no option but to rank the current sight against those you have seen in the past.  We have previously noted Anne's palace rankings (recap: Versailles is #1).  Today's edition: the best and worst others of obelisks.


For those of you who do not know, obelisks date back to ancient Egypt (or something) and were used by ancient peoples as either do some type of religious ritual to honor their deities (if you believe mainstream archaeology) or to communicate with aliens (if you watch too much of the History 2 channel)

So anyway, what possible criteria could we come up with to rank obelisks.  Well, that's easy.  Obviously, the Washington Monument in DC is going to win, so we just select the criteria that it has and use that as the criteria against which to measure all others.  So let's say (1) location, (2) whether Mark has toured inside of it and (3) document alien visits (3) whether it is a monument to George Washington.

So, to no one's surprise, the Washington Monument (pictured at the top of this post) finishes #1, largely because it aces criteria 2 and 3, with the only thing working against it being location (Washington is a nice place to visit, but let's be honest, it was built on a swamp).  So, how about the best of the rest.

The Good:

It's hard to argue against an obelisk in Vatican City, which brings a high score on criteria #1, location.  Although it totally fails on criteria #3 - not named after George - it gets partial credit for the tours because you can tour St. Peter's and all of that.

Ok, the obelisk pictured immediately above is located in Buenos Aires.  Since Anne, Mark and the HBomb are currently lived in the same city, it gets points for location.  Furthermore, if you are standing at this obelisk and look around to the storefronts on either side, you can see the Teatro Colon, one of the best theatres for acoustics ever built.  So that's pretty good.

Now let's move on to ...

the "others".

I don't remember where the obelisk pictured immediately above it located, so it is impossible to evaluate it on criteria #1: location.  It's score will have to remain incomplete.

Ok, so this bad boy was located in Istanbul but is originally from Egypt.  The location is not bad, but the thing working against this obelisk is the ancient hieroglyphs.  As anyone who reads ancient hieroglyph will immediately recognize, this has a typo

 This one is in England.  Too rainy.

And last, but not least, this one from Prague.  It is interesting, good location, but it looks like the roofing blew off.  That will always count against you in an obelisk beauty pageant.

Acostumbrarse

Anne, Mark and the HBomb have been in Buenos Aires for a couple of months now, and they are starting to get used to the differences they have encountered.  Hbomb is still getting used to the differences in shoe sizes, but otherwise, he is fitting in nicely.

There are some things that Mark and Anne anticipated to be weird (e.g. toilets flushing the opposite direction?).  Those are easy to get used to.  Other things are like a throw back to the old days in the U.S.  For example, there is not a "no call" list here.  So Mark and Anne often get to respond to surveys and telemarketers - just like in the days of rotary phones and Family Ties.

One of the big differences that actually takes a little getting used to is the money in Argentina.  Argentina uses the peso.  The bills are pretty and come in difference colors.  There are at least three different 100 peso bills, Mark's favorite is the one with Eva Peron on one said and the Virgin Mary on the other (this kind of tells you how Argentina feels about Evita).  The 10 peso note has Gen. Belgrano on it, who is famous for creating the Argentine flag, among other things.

When Mark was an undergrad at Grinnell (about 200 years ago), one Argentine peso was worth exactly one dollar.  Argentina had a strategy of maintaining that 1 for 1 exchange rate with the dollar at that time.  The administrations in Argentina between then and now have abandoned this strategy and now, a peso is worth much less than a dollar.  Although the exchange rate changes daily and has other complications, to make the math easy, let's just say that one dollar is worth about 10 pesos.  The problem that Anne and Mark have encountered is that the 100 peso note is the largest bill in circulation in Argentina.  When they arrived, they did not have any banking privileges in Argentina, so everything had to be done in cash, and the biggest bill available was equivalent to a $10 bill.  That takes some getting used to.  Additionally, since people generally spend more than 100 pesos at a time for their purchases, many people carry only 100 peso notes.  As a result, most stores, taxis, coffee shops, etc run out of smaller bills for change.  Whenever Anne and Mark buy something with a 100 peso note, the cashier will ask if we have any "chicos" (little guys ~ smaller bills).  Smaller than a $10 bill?  No, not really.  And when the stores are desperate and run out of centavos (which are not worth much: if a peso is worth a dime, a centavo is worth 1/10th of a penny), they sometimes ask if we will accept candies in place of centavos for change.  Mark's answer?  I could get used to that.

But the real issue to which Anne, Mark and the HBomb need to adjust is the driving.  Mark has previously driven in foreign countries including Bulgaria, Italy and Morocco and had some challenging experiences doing so.  Argentina presents a whole different can of worms.  For example, this:

The part on the right is for the bike lane.  But why are the yellow and red lights on at the same time?  That's not some kind of malfunction or glitch, is it?  Nope.  It's more like drag racing.

When you're sitting at a red light, the yellow will come on to alert to waiting drivers that the green light is coming.  As if anyone did not know that the green was coming next.  Of course, this just means that everyone here punches the gas when the yellow light comes on and no one actually waits for the green.

So that's interesting, but not that hard to get used to.  Also, no right turn on red.  Weird, and slightly harder to get used to.  Also, apparently, if someone turns on their emergency flashers, head's up because they can pretty much do any crazy thing they want: stop in traffic, U-turn in front of on coming traffic, turn left in front of other lanes, it's all good.  

The two things that are they don't have here that I kind of miss, though, are lane integrity and the concept of right of way.  First, they do have lanes painted on the streets.  However, they are completely meaningless.  Drivers float in and out of them across the traffic with no signal and no notice.  Keep your head on a swivel, ladies and gentlemen.  Second, there is no concept of right of way, it is every driver for his or her self.  An example:

I especially like the guts of the person on the little moped as they cut through the left turning traffic.  Nice work.  And I should note that this is not an extreme or unique example of driving here, that's just how it is on the roads here.  But you get used to it.