after shopping..

This is what I have learned:
- Flu AH1 warnings in the supermarket are creepy and strange. Advice ran along the line of "Don`t stand too close to other shoppers." Hello, paranoia anyone? On the other hand, if the pandemic serves to make people less pushy, there`s something good in it for me..
- I have managed to eat both Pizza and steak in one day, my last day in Buenos Aires. As you know, the city combines the best of many worlds: Italian Pizza and Pasta, french bread, argentinian steak...
- everything is artesanal here, chocolate, beer, ice-cream. I thought this means something related to artwork, but maybe it only means "hand-made." It is certainly no guarantee for quality but I like the way it sounds.
- I have been visually insulted by a “manly leather store“-watch men: Yes, it IS possible.
- Berlin remains the only city featuring the possibility of a unisex clothes style

One thing that is boiling the blood pressure both in Argentina and in Chile is the "Parricidio de Estado," recent laws which allow a parent or judge to prohibit the other parent to see the (usually his) child if child support is not paid. This rather strict law seems to have come to pass reacting to the original highly lax one, where the parent (usually father) could simply disavow his child and fuck off. Yet what is happening now seems to be quite bad, where children are used as bargaining chip, in a difficult economic situation, and hitting devoted, not louche, fathers.

There were other themes that wanted attention – in the form of banners, balloons, and a loudspeaker accusing and making a roll call for a demonstration - at the plaza de Mayo, where I went to glimpse the remnants of a bit of Independence Day Celebration. Among the various colorful posters I remember “Las Maledivan quedan Argentinian“ and “Pirata Ingles nos sigue invadiendo“ – anybody heard of English Pirates molesting Argentinian waters? Is this something or is it something like the guy who can cook noodles with his mind?
Walking on. On Avenida Corrientes they are showing "Frankenstein - the musical," and I almost bought a magazine about dwarfs (to see what the competition is doing) before I realized my mistake, that the magazine is in fact called "pymies"... so I sticked to a Rolling Stones with Michael Jackson cover.

My flight home was less nice than the first one; British Airways´food quality seems to depend on the country where they can buy supplies; we were waiting at least two hours in Sao Paulo where they filled up, cleaned and scrubbed the airplane – or whatever they did – until we left, in heavy rain. The silence in the – quite big – plane was palpable. It is a creepy feeling to hold one´s breath with some hundred other people. I wonder why there are no smoking signs AND ashtrays on the toilets (is the plane that old?). I miss my connection flight in Heathrow - even though, hello P! Hello I! Hello N, and hello T! – I did not plan it! Makes you superstitious doesn´t it?

Buenos Aires, Independence Day

My second Buenos Aires experience could hardly be more different from the first. First time, it was the party hostel in Palermo, going to dinner at 12, the dog stand outside the 10-people dorm room, a British chick going crazy (before getting drunk), and everybody in general summerily hyped.. except me and my untimely bout of what-will-become-of-me-depression.
This time, I flew into an airport scenery fresh from "Twelve Monkeys." After givig a bogey health report - who`d voluntarily check any flu symptoms? not me, cough-cough - we were fotographed by mouth-masked airport personel. With about 79, Argentinia`s death toll is highest after the US and Mexiko. (Chile is 5th. as you see I'm flirting with death)
Leaving that atmosphere behind, as well as Argentinians eager to practice their English, which leaves a devastating effect on my confidence and comfort to speak Spanish (It`s a bit like a friendly struggle of wills, I ask in Spanish, they respond in English ...)
All grown-up I called up hostels (hence the struggles) and mastered public transport to a hostel in Palermo. I remember that first traveller I met, a fairly boring Itailan. Today I would consider using the Bangkok public transport. Or at least I would be less impressed.
The hostel is remarkably quiet. It is also cold, but they told me this morning if I had told them, they would have switched on the heating. I am on the third floor with a hermosa view of the roofs and a fatty smell from the fast food restaurant nearby. There aren`t even many people smoking in the hostel, which amazed me. This in a country where you still find smoke-infested toilets in busses and at the airport, where people just can`t wait... I remember the airport in oklahoma which had a positively smoker-hating architecture, making it necessary to walk for half an hour until you could exit somewhere to put dirt in your lungs...

Anyway, shopping in Buenos Aires - in fact, being in Buenos Aires - is not a good idea when all you have for clothes is the same tattered and incongruent stuff you have worn for a year. In my opinion, shopping always requires stomach, especially if you are a woman, but this here is a different level of the game. Today is Independence Day in Argentina (see my sensational title), I will see whether any stores are open to spend my money in shame and gibbery excitation about so much pretty leather stuff..

wrap-up party, santiago

The last day in Santiago was eerie. Much of this was certainly caused by my lack of sleep. There was much rum - here in Chile I can stomach this kind of alcohol, it`s drinkable like water from an old faucet with its personal aroma -, there was much cold, and there were shifting combinations of friends in the famous apartment - I slept in between so I wasn`t too attentive.

Then we watched two movies at Festival "Cine B". Nobody has explained to me what the "B" stands for but I will wait to ask until my own, wilder theories have settled down a bit. One was a short film which abruptly and frustratingly stopped in the middle of things, and a feature filma bout a day in the life of a family of Chilean peasants, or "huacho" (that was the title of the film). This one had been at cannes, but I wasn`t smitten - it certainly had nice images but dragged on painfully - first we see the grandmother`s day. Then we see the mother`s day. Then we see the grandfather`s day. Then we see the son`s day...

The atmosphere was invigorating and energetic yet I almost dropped from lack of sleep. I had had to pick up my Ersatz passport at the German embassy on their generous opening hours 9-12, four times a week. This time the embassy was packed, including 10 nuns, all of them old, funny and German. "Ich kam fuenfundfuenzig nach Chile..." a ball.

Entering the Santiago streets after the movies felt like stepping into a war zone - or like Kreuzberg on the 2nd of May. Some Chilean socker team had won against some other Chilean socker team, and everybody seemed to think it was time for a statement. I blame partly the incessant loop of and the live coverage of Michael Jackson`s funeral. I saw that girl cry for her dead at least seven times, and it was surreal before that number. The guys of the apartment were watching transfixed and commented rather bitterly.

the idea was to get four hours of sleep before getting up at 4.30 to get to the airport. Yet the apartment hosted a friendly and lively political roundtable (or so it seemed from listening to them), which meant sleep between 1-3am, approximately. Remarkably, everything worked so far, despite the dazed state of mind and body (yes, I can hear the loud coughs of all you fresh parenting people, but I don`t have a baby - and hence the incentive and the hormones - so I am amazed..)

a little bit of this and that in valpo

the weather remains unpredictable and therefore entertaining. there was an all-day long downpour two days ago, which made you feel sad for all the free-spirited but sickly looking dogs here. even when they drag themselves to the middle of road to empty the sick content of their bowels exactly THERE.
but I was talking about the weather. glorious sun today so we went to the beach, with the idea of exercise. The air smells of sea and everything is pretty much "nordsee" to me, although it is the pacific. on the way back we pass a monton of pretty witches`houses, derelict, with bays and corroding roofs, overgrown gardens, simply fetching. one house even had an old lady watching us secretly behind her gardine.
señora viviana, owner of the house, continues to show her motherly affection. Fortunately, Rodrigo is her main target. To me, it can be quite amusing. when she is around, he always has to do stuff and answer her questions. (But then, I sometimes have to answer questions too. there was the remarkable incident with a towel-lady, who asked me whether my father permitted me to live with a man..) She is a dentist and doing his teeth as well, or rather, something with his teeth, I didn`t quite understand the details of this explanation. She told us, in her usual fluttery non-stop style, that her son was having "la gripa famosa", which was freaky until new information arrived, the son had only been vaccinated against that famous flu...