We go out for walks daily and still haven't come close to running out of new material. In an innocent effort to see the Fine Arts Gallery, we were nearly consumed by a giant prosthetic flower sent to Argentina in 2002 by an alien species called "Las Naciones Unidas". It is really something to see; polished aluminum petals that actually open and close. We didn't see it happen, but it does.
Today we went to check out a gym membership for Jen. The club was interesting; picture piling a normal gym's worth of stuff, including swimming pool, into a long and skinny storefront having 4 storeys. It was very hot and sweaty today, so the gym was mostly empty.
We are trying to decide what to do with our lives after Buenos Aires, which may happen as soon as March. We figure that waiting too long to go to the South of Argentina may result in problems with the weather (like cold and rain). That is where a lot of the good hiking is, so we may go there in March.
We are then considering going to a city called Mendoza, which is in wine country, and sits at the foot of the Andes. It is apparently a very nice place as well, and from the sounds of it, both Bariloche and Mendoza would provide easy high-speed internet access which would keep me working.
We are considering going out to a place called "Notorious" tonight, which is a record store chain and live music venue rolled into one. It seems to be mostly Jazz, and according to one review I read, it's easy to under-dress, which for me is pretty much an automatic, even in places like Nanaimo, so that's a bit of a concern. Whatever, I'll just say I'm a fashion designer and hope for the best. In terms of the rest of the music scene, we haven't
really been hit over the head with anything yet (except bird shit, branches, low-hanging signage and awnings).Jen has been pooed on by birds twice in her life; the first time it was a duck, which may not count since their poo is pretty hard, and the second time, just yesterday, it was a pigeon. I have never been shit on by any kind of bird. My nephew Stan once finger-painted in bird poo at the Biodome in Montreal, and the cleanup effort was pretty messy, but I don't think that could count against me. There are two kinds of people in the world; those who have been shit on by birds, and those who haven't. Which kind are you?
8 comments:
Hey You Guys (this is arlo),
I wanted to second Cindy's comments and congratulate you on your numerous, extended posts. I think you write faster than I can read! Though that probably doesn't surprise you.
In fact, Cindy and I have enjoyed reading your journal so much that we are considering starting one up too.
Our lives are so exciting here; just the other day I recompiled my kernel against a 32-bit library but didn't notice it until my virtualization logs indicated a marked decrease in floating-point calculations. Don't worry though, I immediately re-compiled against the native 64-bit library and everything was back to normal. Please don't tell my other friends though.
-Arlo
Hi You Two!
Am so honoured to be part of your adventures... as I am definitely in need of some travels myself but am stuck here until I finish my thesis... how many years can that take? Anyways, am glad you are blogging daily, but just wish you'd stay down there longer so we could come visit... some time in the spring of '08?!
Wine country sounds good! Do share... and think warm thoughts for us, cause even in Vancouver we have been getting unrelenting slush.
Miss ya!
Paula.
Hey Neil and Jen!!
Reading about your wacky adventures has made me realize that I'm not taking full advantage of the Netherlands yet. Better get on that.
It also reminds me that I wanted
to improve my Spanish and visit South America sometime soon. Better get on that.
Oh, and I'm the second kind of person: the gets pooped on kind. Twice. Last time was a week and a half ago. "Is that pigeon shit on your coat?!" "Ummm... I didn't notice that... heheheh" My coat
needs a cleaning, and waiting for the rain to wash it out isn't going to fly. Better get on that.
Groetjes,
Jason
Hi Guys,
I love your blog! It looks so beautiful and warm in your surrounding parks!
The weather here is a little dismal and the weather people are calling for two more days of rain and then some sun, glorius sun! The snow drops bloomed this weekend to help cheers us up though (well me atleast).
What kinds of things are blooming there other than the giant aluminum flowers?
In answer to the bird poop question...I don't remember ever being pooped on but I once sat in some very stinky seagull poop on the top of the rock of Gibralter, while trying to get a neat picture. I got the picture but was cursed to wear stinky shorts for the rest of the day. Luckily my traveling companion Tanya, whom I was taking the picture of, was also sitting in bird poop so we laughed and stank together.
Love to you both!
Meg
PS. Neil do you want us to send you your unitard?
To have you send my unitard would mean having to reveal the location of my highly ornate diamond-encrusted unitard case. I think it would be best to just keep it where it is...
N.
Okay, pigeon shit.
After an ecstasy-soaked, blissful, Sonar weekend in Barcelona in 2002 -- three days of floating along on a cloud of gauzy, glimmering happiness, sunshine all day, dancing all night -- after that, sitting with Kevin on a touristed terrace so encumbered with mineral-water-promoting parasols that the cloudy sky above wasn't visible -- after that, under a thicket of parasols, sitting and enjoying an end-of-month-long-journey-beer with Kevin, a beer which took a long time to get given the proclivicities of the catalan service industry -- after bliss-soaked weekend, under parasols, sipping a fought-for beer . . .
when somehow a dollop of pigeon shit makes its way through the crevice in the canopy of parasols, all hawking mineral water -- con gas as the spansih say -- through the crevice in the canopy and with no fanfare no fuss and a minimum of splatter, lands in my beer.
Thus marking the end of a happy time.
But no pigeon has ever shat on me.
.k
As always happens with this discussion, we need to invent more types of people:
1) Those who have been shit on by birds.
2) Those who have not been shit on by birds.
3) Those who have not been shit on, but have been otherwise rudely violated by bird shit.
But these types of discussions always lead back to the original dichotomy. There are two kinds of people...
N.
i'm the first kind.
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