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?