Archive for August, 2009

First Impressions of Argentina

Posted by treksa on Friday, 21 August, 2009

We’ve been in Buenos Aires for a week now and have loved nearly every moment of it.  We have visited many parts of the city and have walked miles and miles and miles (I guess there called kilometers here).   We look forward to our next few weeks here and hope to learn more about this city and its people (porteños).

This is a very big city with people everywhere at all hours. 
Manhattan is busy, but Buenos Areas is bananas.   Walking through the city, taking the bus to school, everywhere we go the streets are filled with people, it seems every street level space is filled with a bodega, kiosk or some sort of retail store.  And they protest something, all the time.

That's 4 steaks for $4Beef and Wine are cheap, everything else is about the same.
Did you know it’s cheaper to get a glass of wine than a bottle of water in a restaurant?  Did you know it’s cheaper to buy a steak than it is to buy a liter of soda?  Well, it is.

Watch where you walk.
If you’re not watching where you are walking, you WILL step in SOMETHING… Dog walkers can only walk a maximum number of 14 dogs…”Huh?,” you say.  That 15th dog really puts them over and shakes up the bunch.  Maybe it has something to do with balance – 7 on this arm, 7 on that arm?  In any case, we’ve also observed a number of feral dogs in the city.  They seem much better behaved than domestic dogs.  They don’t seem to bother you at all. 

If you’re not watching where you are going when crossing the street, you WILL get hit by a car (or bike).  Even when pedestrians have the right of way, cars that are turning will turn right into the crosswalk and right up to the crossing pedestrians, just waiting for a little room to squeeze through.  Oh, and did I mention, bicyclists and motorcycles don’t adhere to traffic laws.  (There are a fair amount of bikes, but no one wears a helmet.)  And, aside from all the dog poop, if you’re looking up and not down, it’s very likely you could trip over missing pieces in the sidewalk.  It just happens.

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An Afternoon in Mexico City

Posted by treksa on Wednesday, 19 August, 2009

Here we go!

The second leg of the trip was a success! We got to the airport at the advised 2 hours before our flight. We were in an international terminal and ours was the only flight for a few hours, so it was dead except for the short check-in line for our flight. Unfortunately, it seemed that everybody in front of us was packing their entire life into the suitcases (in a way very different from us), so it took about 15- 20 minutes per person to check in – so it was the longest short line in an empty terminal that I have ever been in.

Our flight to Mexico City was rather uneventful. We watched a movie (Fast and the Furious 3), obeyed the stewardesses when they instructed us to put down our window shades for the movie, put them up when we were landing, and then shut them again once we reached the gate. (Thought that to be a little strange that we must put down our window shades for all to enjoy the movie, even though not everyone was watching the movie, but that worked for us.) Fortunately, our bags were checked through to Buenos Aires, so once we landed, we didn’t need to bother with our luggage – just clear immigrations and customs, which wasn’t a problem.

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We Had Way Too Much

Posted by treksa on Monday, 17 August, 2009

One backpack each – that is all we have for the next 6-12 months.  So what to do with everything else?

Carra making sure nothing breaks

Packing our apartment proved to be a much more time-consuming task than we expected.   After spending nearly a week visiting West Coast friends and family, we returned home to the dreaded task of boxing our lives into a 7’ x 10’ storage unit.  

In all, we used 36 boxes, 5 rolls of packing tape, and 375 feet of bubble wrap.  It was quite the process.  On move day, we grabbed the 24 foot truck from the storage facility, parallel parked it directly in front of our apartment (that took a little work) and were able to load the apartment into the truck in about 3 hours.  Not bad for it being just the two of us hauling the boxes down the stairs, out the door and down the stoop and around the truck.  Unloading it was slightly easier.  We had an elevator up to our unit and with a bit of clever maneuvering, we were able to fit it all in the space in less than 3 hours.  Definitely a full day. 

It Fits!

 This biggest surprise of the move though was how long it took to clean up the small odds and ends we hadn’t boxed up.  We felt it would be a quick cleanup, but it took us far longer than we anticipated.  We spent time over 3 days going through the papers and miscellaneous items. 

We crammed hard on Sunday.  It took us most of the afternoon, well into the evening, just packing up our backpacks, determining what fits and what had to go.  Tim and Katie came over for one final walk through and offer of help.  I can assure you they had no idea their main task for the day was simply moral support.   Maybe they should do a post on their perspective of how things went.  We went to bed thinking that we were in the clear and would have no problem heading for NYC by 1 on Monday.   But sometimes, all the preparations just don’t quite cut it.  It was terrible.  It seemed like an endless pile of stuff would appear wherever we had cleaned.  Thankfully Tim dropped his car off for us Monday, for one final trip to storage (thanks guys!).  We fell a little over 2 hours behind schedule, but successfully emptied our apartment and made the Bolt bus by 3:30pm, with 10 minutes to spare.

All clear, it's time to get moving

All clear, it's time to get moving

Gear List

Posted by treksa on Sunday, 16 August, 2009

Yes, it’s true…we’ve managed to make it all fit.  We’ve packed the bare necessities to get us through a few months.   Below you’ll find our packing lists of everything we stuffed into our backpacks.  And yes, we will be very tired of our clothes by the end of our trip (probably even after week 6).  And yes, it was very challenging to decide on only 4 pairs of shoes (but I snuck one more pair in there).

Carra’s List
Sleeping Bagcarras_packing list
7 pairs undies
6 pairs socks
down vest
long underwear
sports bra
2 bras
4 t-shirts
5 tanks
1 hoodie
1 pair shorts
1 fleece
1 pair fleece pants
rain pants
rain jacket
1 pair jeans
1 skirt
1 pair khakis
1 pair casual shoes
sleep sack
athletic pants
cute sandals
chacos
trail shoes
flip flops
2 long sleeve shirts
baseball hat
sun hat
ski hat
gloves
cardigan
board shorts
swim suit
sleeping sack
long sleeve button down
packed towel
Medications (4 bottles)
Expandable bag
2 books
Wrinkle Release
2 belts (black and brown)
1-Small Toiletrie bag (included are wet ones and hand sanitizer)
Sunscreen (high spf – the sun is really strong!)

Jared’s List
sleeping bagjareds_packing list
4 t-shirts
1 active shirt
5 short sleeve button
2 long sleeve button
7 pairs undies
7 pairs socks
1 belt
rain pants
rain jacket
hoodie
fleece
long pants
khakis
jeans
swimsuit
long underwear
beanie
cocoon
rain cover
gloves
board shorts
trail shoes
flip flops
packed towel
expandable bag
1-small toiletrie bag
Medic Bag
Medication (3 bottles)
4 books
Bug spray
Net Book Computer
Camera