more random stuff

Ducked into an internet cafe because it started to rain and the nearby art gallery was closed for siesta (we{ve been lucky in that we really haven{t been rained on apart from the downpour at Iguazu)

Speaking of luck, Rhia and I both got pooped on by birds last week. She got hit by a pigeon and a passing woman said "Money!" in Spanish. The next day, while we were horse riding, somethnig else got me. I think this whole luck thing is, well, crap.

When we went to a movie in Rosario, we want to see the one showing on screen number five, so Rhia asked for "cinqo." But the ticket guy misheard her and gave us tickets for a show on another screen: Sicko.

Funniest thing ever, also in Rosario. At the place we went for dinner after the movie one of the options was an all you can eat barbecue. For a smaller price you could get "1/2 of all you can eat.[ We weren{t sure how they figured out when you were half full.

This is a problem that must plague locals too, but in Argentina, we{ve had to go to an ATM at least once per day. The machines will only let you take out the equivalent of $100 Canadian a day, or 320 pesos. If you get 320 you get three 100s and a 20 and virutally nobody wants a 100 bill, especially since the cost of most things is in the single digits. We figured out that if you got 280, you at least get a 50 a 20 and a 10. But we always end up with a stockpile of 100s and spend a good deal of time trying to find a place where we can spend enough to break one. I think this problem will only get worse in Bolivia and Peru.

There are stray dogs everywhere, just wandering around. I think this is largely the reason for the piles of poop that are ubiquitous in cities, although dogs with owners contirbute to this too. Most of the dogs have no apparent interest in people. They just sleep in the middle of the sidewalk and people step over them. Yesterday we did have one mangy fellow begging at our table at a restaurnt, but that{s been surprisingly rare.

I{m always ammused by the way stores tend to congregate by theme. So you get blocks of women{s clothing stores, then men{s then children{s, then hardware type stores, blocks of banks and so on. There are lingerie and underwear districts, but you can also buy underwear on virtually every street corner and in every subway station. It{s weird.

Walking around town yesterday and today we kept running into news photographers and videographers covering the election. There was a TV reporter doing streeters today and a bunch of print reporters scrumming a candidate. I must admit I did get a little thrill, so maybe I will be able to get back into the swing of my job in a month after all.

Another pedestrian woe: all over the place, in the middle of city blocks, there are underground or multi-storey parking lots from which cars are likely to emerge and run you over at any minute. In Brazil there were warning lights outside them, but they just flahed all the time so weren{t much good. Here they seem to have bells, but again, they don{t seem to tell you anything about when a car is actually coming.

All the school kids seem to wear uniforms. At lunch time or after school you see dozens of different uniforms but we don{t actually see that many schools. It doesn{t seem to add up. The schools we do see don{t often look like North American school, so I suppose I{m just not spotting them.

The people of Argentina in particualr are really proud of their country. They love its beauty and its diversity and will tell you about all its various great places and figures. The national rugby team finished third in the world cup a couple weeks back and everyone was thrilled. They also seem to have athletes excelling in every sport: tennis, polo, golf...and they adore these people. On the street it seems like every third person is wearing a blue and white football or rugby jersey.

Hmmm...that{s all for now.