Hi up there, Tony here in Buenos Aires,
OK wait a minute! It must be said, up front, that there are a couple of you on this list of emails that understand that the north-up, south-down view of the planet is quite arbitrary. There may also be some of you that have read that every now and again the earth's magnetic field flips almost instantly and with no regularity at all from North it South, or vise versa. This has happened hundreds of times of the eons of time that this planet has been spinning in space. Maybe tomorrow magnetic north to flip back to the geographical south? When that happens all magnetic 'N' lines will point toward an empty spot in antarctica instead of the arctic? But who cares will the maps flip over, probably not!
That said people still look down on the south, a logical result of the mercator projection, the IMF, and the placement of geographic north on top of the page (so to speak). Maps can be misleading presentations.
Just a few weeks ago I began my journey, another crazy trip to bring on a new phase, a new segment in the life of, except this isn't a story, this is me! One minute I'm hanging with my mates in Dublin, then next I'm hangin' with my bro's in San Francisco then suddenly -- for the procedure of air travel is a violent one -- I find myself flipped upside down and as close to Dublin as I am to San Francisco as I am to Cape Town, South Africa.
This spherical planet is a twisted concept.
For the last three years I have looked forward to Springtime and the loveliness that that entails (yes even in the topsy turvy world climate that we have burned for ourselves) and then what happens? Well, it's Autumn! That's what happens, and I'm back in early Autumn, the Summer anything but behind me. Missed it again, bad timing, I suppose?
No it is not just the summer-winter issue, the upside-down, right-way-up thing nor the driving on the right thing but the language and the cultural issues that are such a head f***, if you'll pardon my Spanish. How much more so these cultural changes than any geographical ones?
And, for that matter: How fun is that?
Don't get me wrong I miss my friends and the banter we do be after havin' but, Wow! This place is a smorgasbord: very latin, very south, very Spanish, very Italian, quite indigenous, somewhat tropical, very urban, and very, very hot. But wait it's Autumn again and so then rain has come to cool us down again. Autumn 2005, again Autumn 2005, and again Autumn 2006. Three into two doesn't go but that assumes a unity that represents 'one' year as measure in four distinct consecutive seasons and that simply is not the case.
So what's been happenin' you might ask? Well I had a couple o' things to do and do them I have been endeavoring. First I had to get here: Thank you United Airlines a wholly worker-owned corporation which divests itself of the need to pay it's employees a fair pension while still keeping it's air miles program alive. $37.00 and a couple of days of discomfort and that was done.
What next?
Well dammit it was Paddy's Day and in the world of the green ex-pat that means a little more than it does on the Isle of Green so it was off to Calle Resistencia, the downtown zone of Irish bars that keeps lubricates the throats of those who call for 'Buy' and 'Sell' the Buenos Aires stock market. The excruciating hangover was well deserved!
Next?
Well time to get my Spanish on and my apartment on, my phone on, my Masters-in-International-Relations on... And all that while living with a bunch o' drunks and coke fiends in the Euro-trash world that is the urban South American Hostel scene. Somewhat of a tall order and not easy on the liver!
Ok did I get it all done yet, of course I didn't! But I have started.
Heres my phone number: + 54 9 11 6452-3894, no address yet, same email, I'm registered and have begun Espanol para Estranjeros at the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) and I have an inbox full of expensive offers to share or rent apartments in this complex metropolis (I hope so anyway), the wireless is out in my fun little cafe here. Oh and I have a meeting about the masters Wednesday at 11:30AM so wish me luck!
The UBA is a bit of a kick! It makes absolutely no sense and yet is focused, as far as I can tell, on exactly what is has been designed to be; a cheap institute for quality education. It's extraordinarily beautiful Art Deco buildings are collapsing and rotting around student and teacher alike, as we study in our chairs built for children, but the staircase is still made of marble and the bannisters of brass.
So what next? Search me I'm just buffeting with the wind, but I would be so much happier if I could find a flat, and find one I will, quite soon too if the God's for insane forty-year-olds are on my side.
To those of you that have helped me on my way which is almost all of you I thank you from the bottom of warm and sweaty coronary, to the rest of you ...
Saludos y Suerte tambien!
Posted by Tony Phillips at April 1, 2006 08:38 PM