June 26: International Day Against Torture

One man's story underscores the need for international efforts.

Here's more about what happened to Mohammed Omer on this day one year ago.

This Morning at the Fruit & Vegetable Stand

Purchased:

1 gorgeous cauliflower, 3 large zucchinis, 2 cloves garlic, 1 kilo Italian tomatoes, 1/2 kilo strawberries, 2 bananas, 1 head butter lettuce, 6 eggs

Paid: 20 pesos ($5.30 USD)

Celebrating Year 1

One year ago today, we arrived in Buenos Aires for the first time as residents rather than as visitors. In 12 short months we've completed the renovations to and bought furniture for the apartment, secured residency permits AND renewed them for another year, set up Argentine bank and credit card accounts, made friends, and basically gotten into the swing of our new lives here. And thanks to the much more economical cost of living here, we've been able to pursue our dream of traveling both regionally and internationally.

On this fine fall day, we celebrated with daughter Belen (who is staying here for a while) with lunch at Croque Madame. Que bueno!

To the End of the World & Back

On April 12, we boarded a large ship in Buenos Aires; two weeks and 3,972 nautical miles later, we arrived at Valparaiso, the major port for Chile, some 1.5 hours driving time in a bus over the mountains and down into Santiago.

In between we saw southern Patagonia on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides. We rounded Cape Horn, thus earning the right to wear a gold earring in our left ear, sailed through the Straits of Magellan, and cruised the Chilean fjords.  We saw penguins, llamas, and guanacos (sometimes all together) and the Skua Glacier. Here's the itinerary and some of the 750 photos we took:

Leaving Buenos Aires: the city looks much bigger from the sea than the land. We get ready for the shipwide "emergency" drill. Our stateroom is on Deck 3, one up from the water line, giving us a great view of rocking swells later on in the voyage.

Montevideo, Uruguay: the boat stops for 6 hours of shore time at Uruguay's capital. We wander the historical and downtown centers, buy a bottle of fine Uruguayan Tannat, then head back to the malecon skirting the Rio Plate to enjoy it and the view. Kurt says he's reminded of Havana.

Punta del Este, Uruguay: the Altantic beach retreat in this part of the world. Calm, clean and organized; Linda liked it a lot more than she thought she would. On the list for future short vacations. The fish market on the wharf is extra special.

Puerto Madryn, Argentina: we hook up with Modesto, Rosa, and Diego from Miami and grab a cab to Punta Tombo, home to 1.5 million magellenic penguins at the height of the season (plus assorted other Andean wildlife) before winter migration. Enough are still there to make the two-hour ride each way worthwhile. The scenery looks like a mix of Hill Country and West Texas. The penguins burrow into the ground.  

Navigating Cape Horn & Environs: Chile claims title to this toenail of South America, protected by a light house and a garrison of naval personnel stationed for 6 months at a time. Fortunately, we have great weather; only later does the captain tell us that the same cruise a few weeks earlier had encountered 40-foot swells and Category 3 hurricane winds. The scenery is breathtaking. 

Ushuaia, Argentina: "The end of the world," only 50 miles from the tip of Antarctica. It's a small town with nothing fancy except the scenery.  It's gorgeous.

Punta Arenas, Chile: Chileans call this the southernmost city of the world (ignoring Ushuaia's claim to fame). Everything is neat and clean. The main plaza is centered on a huge monument to Magellan. The saying is you will return if you rub the Indian's toe. Around the square are turn of the century mansions and government buildings. We have a glass of wine in one former mansion now restaurant and hotel. The populace seem innured to the rainy weather; we're the only ones with an umbrella. Linda buys an alpaca sweater in the plaza for $15 USD; no one seems to have Chilean pesos here.

Strait of Magellan, Chilean Fjords, and Skua Glacier: We cruise through the strait, delineated by fjords and other remnants of glacial activity. The captain makes a slight detour to the Skua Glacier. Incredible.

Puerto Montt, Chile:  Bigger and funkier than Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt is a haven for seafood lovers. The specialty is king crab. We later are told that the town was devastated in the early 1960s by a 9.5 earthquake that produced a tidal wave which also destroyed Hilo, Hawaii and did extensive damage in Japan. Another finding: trained llamas do their business just like dogs.

Santiago de Chile: We leave our ship at Valparaiso (with regrets after such a wonderful time!) and head inland to Chile's capital. Like the rest of Chile that we've seen, the city is very neat and clean, though the smog is unfortunately a real problem. 

• Day 1: We spend our first full day exploring Cerro San Cristobal, the city's highest hill and home to the municipal park. We hike up part way, stopping at a hillside restaurant for a great lunch. We take the teleferico (like a ski lift) to the summit, wander around the shrine to the Virgin, and then take the funicular back down the hill. All along the way are places to eat and sit, all neat as a pin.
  
• Day 2: The next day we head out for quick tours of the neighorhood and central markets, the precolumbian museum (complete with figurines depicting all sorts of every day activities), and the other hill in town, the Cerro Santa Lucia.
• Day 3: We've just a few hours to wrap up our visit. We breeze through the plaza outside the government house (where we are treated to "saluting" dogs of the federal police), and catch the tail end of demonstration in front of the statue to Salvador Allende, who was overthrown by a Pinochet on Sept. 11, 1973. At the airport, we don masks against the threat of swine flu, only to find out later that they probably offer no defense. 

What a trip!

Recent Events

The mirror masterpiece by Raul (the artista en cristal) is now installed in the living room. What a difference! We're reminded of the line in The Big Lebowski about "bringing the whole room together." 

In other events, we've started the process of renewing our residency papers. Hard to believe that time has already arrived. Step 1 was completed this morning, with another criminal background check, which consists of checking our datos personales and fingerprints. We passed. Next week we'll lug photocopies of all relevant documents (which were properly apostilled in the US state of origin and then officially translated and legalized here) down to the immigration office. The process gets much easier, since we already have most of the necessary documentation from our initial permit gained last year. New items are bank statements showing monthly transfer of pension funds to Argentina, thus complying with the terms of our residency permits.

Meanwhile, signs of fall are everywhere. The air has turned much drier and cooler and the sun is now shining into the apartment from different angles. Should be perfect weather tomorrow for our next date with Lorenzo (our pretend dog), scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

In addition, tomorrow is a holiday in Argentina, meaning that both vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be much lighter in our neighborhood. The holiday honors those who served in the Malvinas War of 1982. In one of those strange coincidences, the funeral of Raul Alfonsin also is scheduled for tomorrow. Alfonsin became the first democratically elected president of Argentina in modern times, following the disaster of the Malvinas War and the political oppression and human rights violations of the military dictatorship in the 1970s and early 1980s. Alfonsin passed away at age 82 yesterday, March 31.

Save the Windows

The bedrooms, dressing room, and bathroom in our apartment flow around an "aire y luz" (less poetically called a ventilation well in English). The windows opening on to the well are beautiful examples of the French-style design that dominated architecture here in the first part of the 20th century. When we bought the apartment, Kurt vowed to restore the windows to their original beauty. Today he completed his mission, sealing the panes of the last of this set of five windows.

The job was not easy, requiring some gravity-defying contortions to remove old paint, putty, and other debris from both the inside and the outside and then to apply sealer to 24 different sections of glass in each mullioned window. (ADD 1: That's on the outside, Kurt points out. Inside work involved cleaning 156 individual sections of glass on each window.)

The project also featured several trips down to the planta baja (ground floor), where Sr. y Sra. Recondo good naturedly retrieved for us a variety of tools and materials that landed in their patios. It's one way to get to know your neighbors.

London for Less

There are some silver linings to the economic crisis. First, for some reason the U.S. dollar is up against most other currencies, including the British pound. Second, air fares are down. Both good reasons to finally make that trip to London. 

Another good reason: we very much needed to change our travel pattern from Texas - Buenos Aires - Texas to BA - Texas - BA. So on February 26 we flew back to Austin, using the return portion of our tickets that had brought us to Buenos Aires last May. (Thanks to our good friends Roger and Maria Nasr for putting us up!)

With our Texas business (tax filings, bank runs, and medical appointments) out of the way, we left for London on March 4 on an open-jaw ticket that allowed us to return from London to Buenos Aires. Of course, we had to connect through Houston on the return leg, which made for a very long trip: we left the apartment we had rented in London at 6:30 am on March 12, and arrived at our home in Buenos Aires at 11:30 am on March 13, some 31 hours later. 

London was worth it, though. We stayed in Southwark, right off the Tower of London Bridge, on the south side of the Thames, in an area of refurbished warehouses that had served the docks in past eras. We were pretty much in walking distance of most attractions: we trekked across various bridges, to Bloomsbury and the British Museum, to Westminster and Parliament and other government buildings, as well as to closer sites, including Burrough's Market, St. Paul's Cathedral, the National Theatre (where we attended a dramatic reading by playwright David Hare), and the adjacent Festival Hall area, with all sorts of enterprising entertainers performing for passers-by. Photo impressions here.