What are you running away from?

February 23, 2006 | Filed Under Argentina | No Comments

Check out this recent AP article, titled Run away to South America. The author mentions that most of the single expatriates she met in a Chile language school “came here to escape something.” Doing a Google search on the phrase “move to South America” brings up the website called Escape Artist, which provides “resources for Americans fleeing America.”

What I Was Escaping From…

I wasn’t running from any one thing in particular, but rather an idea of what my life would become if I stayed in the United States. My life was quickly headed towards the bland and uninteresting existence that awaits most college gradates. I had just finished college and reached a turning point - I could focus 100% on my small business and try to seriously grow it, or take a job at one of the many large corporations recruiting out of the university. I watched as all my peers […]

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Attending Rock Concerts in Buenos Aires

February 23, 2006 | Filed Under Argentina | No Comments

On Tuesday the scene outside the River stadium was complete chaos as ticket holders rushed to enter the stadium. At 9:45 PM, when the Rolling Stones started playing, the line to enter the stadium was still 10 blocks long. Many of the people waiting to get in were foreigners who had bought their tickets from scalpers, on Mercadolibre, etc.

The news showed despondent Chileans, who traveled all the way from Chile (since the Rolling Stones will not make a stop in Santiago) to hear the Stones perform in Buenos Aires, who said they’d paid $500 USD for their tickets and now had no way to enter the stadium. Most Argentines had shown up to the stadium at 5:00 or 6:00 PM, aware that they would need several hours just to get inside and find their seat.

The concert promoter decided not to hire the River stadium security apparatus and instead chose a […]

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Show Me the Beef!

February 16, 2006 | Filed Under Argentina | No Comments

Beef and Tango. Tango and Beef.
That’s the image lots of norteamericanos have of Argentina. Gauchos grilling huge bifes over the fire. Sultry spike-heeled women curling themselves around Carlos Gardel wannabes. Pretty good marketing angles if you want to attract hungry carnivores and romantic tourists.
Let’s get off the dance floor and head straight to the corrall today.
Without beef, there would be no Argentina. At least not this Argentina. The one with Buenos Aires—once the “Paris of South America” and the estancia elite (the ranchers). The country whose capitals boasts boulevards of historic French mansions and an expansive countryside dotted with grazing cattle.
For a century and a half, a small minority of Argentinians have made themselves wealthy by exporting their range-fed beef Europe and later to Asia. But it took a century for the feds to figure out that taxing emigrating carcasses—along […]

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Living ‘DNI’-less

February 13, 2006 | Filed Under Argentina | No Comments

Life can be tricky in Argentina without a DNI. I’ve said it over and over again on many different posts. When you’re here without a DNI, people just assume there’s something wrong with you. Everything becomes a hassle and an explanation. Everyone wants to know why you don’t have a DNI. The fact is, if you don’t have a DNI, Argentines assume you don’t have the right to be here. Now, one particular reader has tried to contradict me on this issue, so I want to share that as well as another I just got today.

First Reader’s

I know Expatriado is a big fan of the DNI, however,we did rent a house, buy a car, open a bank account and get health insurance without a DNI. We did get them as we intended to stay here awhile, but the only real tangible advantage is the discount for travel […]

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The Great Laptop Divide

February 8, 2006 | Filed Under Argentina | No Comments

or “California Incommunicada”
Traveling “laptop-free”–and cellularlessly–in California, I find it impossible to stay connected. Even in Silicon Valley, home of the microchip. My forays to my home state–the land of Starbucks, T-Mobile, Google, and Frye’s–open the floodgates for my email inbox and answering machine back in San Nicolas. After spending the recent holidays in the eerily beautiful desert town of Joshua Tree, California, a cybernetic hailstorm of messages pelted me when I returned home and flicked on the PC and and picked up the phone. (Did you notice this blog took a break, too?)
It is downright impossible to stay plugged in the Golden State without my own personal electronic devices! Alas, my Argentine cell phone doesn’t work abroad, and I’m not gonna carry my desktop PC! So just what do other cell-less, laptop-less foreign tourists do when they need to call home? Check or send e-mail? Or simply check on eateries […]

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