Sao Paulo weekend

I flew to Sao Paulo for the weekend, specifically to visit a friend who I met when he was in New Zealand in 2006/7 to learn English. Thiago works for the airline, Gol, although that's not who I flew with. I was on TAM and collected some Air New Zealand Airpoints dollars. Anyhow, it rained quite a lot and we went around mostly by car. I spent the entire weekend socialising with Thiago and his friend Marco, plus some others who joined us for a meal at the Australian-themed restaurant chain "Outback", in shopping malls and out night-clubbing.

early riser

Hotel Arapey in Montevideo apparently USED TO BE recommended in Lonely Planet guides. I had looked at an old copy from Wellington library, which is how I came to stay there last night. I found some bad reviews online, but found the place to be fine for the money ($28 US). Nothing special. Only one of the four light bulbs in my ceiling light was working, and the speaker in the corridor outside continued to play music ALL NIGHT, but the TV in the rooom had lots of channels and there was plenty of hot water for the shower.

Anyhow, I woke up this morning at quarter to seven. Quite why, I'm not sure. But I'd had nearly 8 hours' sleep so that was ok. I discovered that television advertising at that time of day is aimed solely at fat people. In particular, women. There were only two ads, which came on repeatedly. One was for pills that speed up your metabolism to encourage weight loss. The other was for Slender Shaper. It's a kind of vibrating belt that shakes away the fat. Several women were shown wearing them, strapped to various parts of their body.

Slender Shaper has five speeds (cinco velocidades) and -- as with so many products demonstrated in "advertorials" -- one of the main selling points is that you can even use it while watching television. Perfect for lazy, fat people who want to sit around seeing TV shows while some invention does the work for them.

Photo Post : Montevideo

In a Parrilla (steak house/indoor barbecue) in Mercado del Puerto.

Ciudad Vieja - old city buildings.

Palacio Salvo, on Plaza Independencia.

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Colonia was founded in 1680 and is now a UNESCO world heritage site. The street shown above has Portugese buildings with the original cobble stone road. There are lots of old cars in the old town area, as you can see below. I came here on the fast boat from Buenos Aires and will leave tomorrow by bus for Montevideo. The hostel I'm staying at is on the main road. Along the pavement during the daytime you will find dogs sleeping in the sun. By night, they run up and down the street trying to bite the tyres of passing cars.

Photo Post : Flying over the Andes

I do try, honestly...

Yes, I try to be open-minded and have unconditional positive regard for Americans, but the majority of them don't make it easy !

For the second time on a Manuel Tienda Leon shuttle bus from Buenos Aires international airport into the city I have had to listen to cringe-making conversation involving a citizen of the USA. I saw this woman consider sitting next to me as she boarded the bus, but the fact that I was reading probably put her off and she chose another victim to sit beside. The poor person who had to listen to her was a Chilean woman.

For the next 40 minutes, USA-lady pestered the woman with comments in broken English and -- bizarrely -- the occasional "je suis", as if French was going to be appropriate. She made the extraordinary claim that she knew a few words of Spanish, then proceeded to ask her victim what "today" and "Monday" were in Spanish. USA-lady said she was living and working in Chile, yet she appeared to know no Spanish whatsoever. She also claimed to have lived in Nigeria at some point in her life.

As the bus neared its downtown destination, USA-lady spotted a statue and asked her victim "is that a saint" ? She repeated it several times, as if that was going to make it a sensible question, and went on to suggest that the building behind it could be a church. "NO", I screamed internally, "It's Christopher Columbus, and that's the Casa Rosada... the most famous building in the whole of Argentina". USA-lady then dug out her city map and stared at it for several minutes in a vain attempt to work out where she was or what the building could be.

The other occasion when this happened was my first arrival in Buenos Aires. An elderly American man wouldn't stop talking, loudly and in simpleton language of course, to the driver. He claimed to be an author, and went on and on about his books. I had never heard of him and had no intention of remembering his name or trying to find any of his work in print.

strange breakfast

Monday morning, and I've been to breakfast as usual. Today was different.

Having been asked for my room number, I went in and noticed there was no-one else having breakfast. Still, I gathered up some juice, tea, flat scone-like things, butter and cheese, a bowl of orange and kiwi fruit pieces and some yoghurt. As I sat and ate, I could hear sounds coming from the other side of the partition. Still no-one else joined me in the breakfast room. Every other day there had been only a few tables free.

A couple of women who were probably in their late 50s put their heads around the door, then went away. I finished my breakfast and was about to leave when a staff member came and I was again asked for my room number. Could I be the only guest in the hotel this morning ? It seems unlikely. Did no-one else get up early enough to have breakfast (at 9am) on a Monday ? A holiday Monday of course. The mystery remains.