Tweet-Tweet

I spent the last few minutes on Twitter -- I just don't get it. Cool idea, kind of, but I really don't care what Dave Matthews is doing right now, or that he burned his mouth drinking coffee on a random day in May, or whatever. That being said, I got the CD-quality version of Sledgehammer, the Peter Gabriel song, from Live at Mile High Stadium and it's blowing my mind. I wish that my computer's speakers could get loud enough to rattle my brain. It's going to be the ultimate summer driving song -- right alongside Time of the Season. DMB's new album comes out in a few days. Can't wait to get that.

Not too long until I come home. Hard to believe. Rainy Season is kicking in down here. Trying to get a little ahead of the game, so my finals can cover up for slightly sub-par midterms.

Cooked some chicken tonight; stuffed with ricotta, garlic, and wilted spinach, and then wrapped in prosciutto and baked. Pretty damn good. A couple of my friends only have 1 more weekend left, so it should be a pretty big one. Cubans, or a good dinner, or something.

hasta pronto,

Miguel

May Update

My house has become twice as crowded in the past 2 days, with a new guy and a new girl moving in. The guy is from Philly, the girl is from France. They both seem nice, but for the past month or so it has just been me and Augustin, and we never had any problems, so it is a little disappointing to lose some of that personal space and freedom. On the other hand, it is a good opportunity to meet more people, and speak more Spanish, so I´m down for that cause.

My computer broke, I don´t know if I have mentioned that on here or not, but that is part of the reason I haven´t been online as much recently.

Dad and Sue are coming down this week, and I´m pumped. After somewhere around 6-7 months down here, all told, it is going to be cool to have some family to hang out with. RJ counts, of course, but he doesn´t buy me food, so it´s slightly different. We (and by we I mean my Dad) have rented an awesome apartment in my favorite part of town, and it has an outdoor grill -- Argentine cook-outs are seriously the best in the world, and I really look forward to having my brother, my Dad, Sue, and a couple of our friends from down here, drink some Malbec, chill, and eat a bunch of meat. I can´t think of many ways I´d rather spend a night.

3 midterms down, 1 to go. 2 went well, 1 felt like a first date with a linebacker -- and he wasn´t a gentleman.

I stole that quote from one of my idols, a guy I know from work, but it fits.

When my Dad is here we will be going to Montevideo as well, which means I get to meet RJ´s crew of friends, and, more importantly, I get to eat a chivito, the completely-loaded-with-good-stuff steak sandwich that the Uruguayans are known for.

Final random note: I plan on going to New Orleans to celebrate my 21st birthday when I get back, and I can´t decide where I want to eat, but I´ve been spending way too much time thinking about it. Favorites are Emeril´s Delmonico, because it´s Emeril´s, and that is supposed to be his ´nicest´ place; NOLA, because I always love it; Restaurant August, because John Besh is a bad ass and I´ve never been to one of his restaurants; and Cochon, because I hear great things, and if you look at the menu you will salivate.

I´m rambling. Take care, y´all,

Miguel

Corruption Map

I have been getting a little tired, after 6 months, of writing about the type of stuff I do on a daily basis, so I think I will continue to use this blog to post interesting, not-necessarily-related-to-Study-Abroad stuff. Although I will say that I have midterms these next few weeks, I just baked my first batch of empanadas ever (they were delicious), I am drinking a hot mate, and I am about to start studying again. Dad is coming in 2 weeks, I am pumped. I went to the horse races down here this weekend, and while I was scared to bet, I picked the first 2 winners. My horse scratched for the third race, I guess, and then we left.

Anyways, I am going to post an image that I found that was put together by a bunch of political scientists who study corruption. Judging from how dark Argentina is, it is probably accurate. My globalization teacher constantly talks about how the U.S. is less corrupt than Western Europe, which is much less corrupt than South America. I think this is interesting to keep in mind when you hear people whining about U.S. current events -- people are going to take advantage of what they can, everywhere in the world, but the U.S. seems to do a pretty good job of controlling it, instead of more or less encouraging it, like Argentina seems to. Our teacher uses this example: if you get pulled over for speeding here, you pull out a 20 dollar bill and drive off. If you get pulled over in the U.S. you pull out a 20 dollar bill and drive off ... in handcuffs, in the back of a cop car, for trying to make a bribe.

Checking In

Has it really been over two weeks since I last wrote? Woah, hard to believe.

I haven't done anything on par with RJ's trip, but a few things have changed lately.

First of all, my precocious brother and sister decided to follow in their big brothers' footsteps and join the blogging world. While I can't necessarily endorse either of their views (""now as a mississippian I have seen first hand people take capitolism to a whole new level, even to the point of extreme or even beyond facism but there is a point were you have to agree with me and i do not see why everyone does not agree with what i previously wrote."/ "i guess some poeple are just born to be dramatic, and others just aren't"), I can pass on the links to their pages.

sister: spotlightonthedramaqueen.blogspot.com
brother: marchelephant.blogspot.com

Ah, good stuff. As for me, a few recent changes in my life: I finally bought my own mate, which I drank for about 3 hours straight the first night it was ready. Mate is a kind of tea that is extremely popular in this little corner of the world, and while it only has about half as much caffeine as coffee, I hear it has some other stimulants as well. All I know is that I felt absolutely wired, and I haven't drank that much in one sitting again, although it did help me knock out more school work than I have in a while.

On another note, a guitar turned up in the house today, so I've really been enjoying that. It's an old, fragile piece of crap, but the nylon strings give it a really warm sound and make it really easy to play. I'm lovin' it.

Dad is coming down in under a month, which is really exciting. I haven't even gone out in a week or two, but my justification is that I am going to ball in the next few weeks -- my Debit card debacle should be sorted out by Monday, and I plan on using my soon-to-be-accessible cash flow to get out of Buenos Aires for a couple of weekends. Pictures, and updates, to follow, of course.

I've also been playing a lot of online chess. I think rocking out to some jazz/Dave/"Creep" by Stone Temple Pilots/Beatles/Mogwai/etc., nursing a mate, destroying people in online chess, and taking it unbelievably easy may be the secret to happiness. I have 2 months and a couple days left here, and I think they are going to fly by.

I'll put something substantive up here eventually. Until then, I'm still alive and kicking,

Miguel

La Vida Argentina

We have another national holiday today, which means no school, which means we decided to go out last night to one of the biggest, best clubs in the city. It was a blast.

Looking out over the masses:

RJ is coming through Buenos Aires tomorrow, but only for a few hours, on his way much farther south. Check out his blog at some point if you get a chance, I'm sure he will put up pictures, and his trip sounds incredible. He'll be spending a few days among the glaciers, and then hiking in the mountains for 4 or 5 days. I'm really jealous.

The whole continent has the week off for Easter, so I want to do something. I may end up heading to the beach with a couple friends from here and some Argentine girls, or maybe with some Ole Miss students who are studying all around Argentina and Uruguay. We'll figure that out soon.

Our friend from Harvard yesterday had a pretty cool story. A Harvard student that he knows, or knows of, at least, was studying in Mexico and couldn't get access to some of the sources she needed for her paper, or thesis, or whatever she was working on. Anyways, long story short, one of the professors, the head of the department, I believe, made a few calls, and one day her phone rang -- the Mexican president was on the line, and apparently offered to do whatever he could to help her get the information she needed. Bad ass.

The TV is on right now, and there was a commerical that reminded me of something interesting down here. I don't know if this is subsidized by the government or not, but I assume it is: grocery stores, and a lot of other places, offer good discounts to people who pay with credit cards. I think this is because, and I think I've already mentioned this, there isn't really enough money in circulation, but increasing the money supply would increase inflation, which is already way too high. And which the government lies about.

I have an eccentric Economics teacher who worked for World Bank, who told us, more or less, "Come on man, you don't have to be an economist to realize that if you spend 20 percent more at the grocery store every month to be the same thing, the inflation rate isn't at normal levels, like the government is saying."

Approval for the current administration is falling fast, and there are talks about going against the constitutionally-set election procedures to make the election earlier in the year, before it's completely unwinnable. Or something like that, honestly I haven't followed this as closely as I should have, but it's still interesting.

That's all for now folks, take care.

Weekend Update

I know it's not actually the weekend, but my (2 day) school week ended today.

Which brings me to my first point. How poorly organized is this school schedule? Todays class was 'optional', because the school bussed a bunch of students out to the provincias for what is basically "field day" -- I decided not to go, mostly because in order to go you had to be at school at 8 a.m., which means I would have to wake up before 7, which .. well, is probably, on average, closer to the time I go to sleep than closer than the time I wake up. Maybe that's an exagerration, but it's still waaaay to early for any self-respecting Argentine to be awake. So class today: optional (and if you go to the party you get an additional free excused absence). The next two weeks are cancelled, because of Easter and a national holiday. Tuesday was also a national holiday -- no school.

Speaking of the national holiday, I decided to walk down to the park and read (which was really relaxing -- there was a guy playing the harp right by me. Perfect). Of course I didn't bring my camera, and of course I passed something cool but couldnt take pictures. There were tons of students waving banners (including one red one with a sickle and hammer), chanting, and marching down a street, which I guess was shut down, because there was a cop with his lights flashing at one end. It turns out the big gathering was at Plaza de Mayo, where everyone gathers whenever anything big happens, so I should have went there. The next big holiday is to remember the Falklands War, so I'm definitely heading down there with my camera (and running shoes). I'm hoping for some great anti-England photo ops ... a guy was passing out anti-England flyers in our building the other day. Ridiculous. I met an English guy who works out at my gym, but he told me he tells people he is from Scotland.

I went to a Peter Gabriel concert the other day, that was cool, but I wish I had the videos to put on here. My internet is too slow to make uploading video practical. Here is a photo, I love outdoor concerts:

I found a really cool bar last night that is not only no-cover on Wednesdays, but gives out free food and drinks. They just started a few weeks ago, but every Wednesday is a theme: Argentine Night, Cuba Night, Spanish Night, etc. Last night was Spain. Apparently for Cuba they gave out free cigars. Last night they had free Spanish food (gazpacho, omlette espanola, etc.) and Sangria (which had roughly the same alcohol content as kool-aid, but was absolutely delicious), as well as a flamenco show. I met some Argentine guys that I am going to play soccer and basketball with. Next week is Scandanavian Night, so I think I will go with the Fins.

Until next time, chicos,

Miguel

More Thoughts

Alright, so when I first thought about what I was going to write next, I figured I would talk about all of the stuff I have been up to -- the Peter Gabriel concert last night, the really cool club we went to on Friday, school, and the upcoming week. The thing is, I'm reading a really interesting book my Dad got me for Christmas, Brothers, a book about the Kennedy's, by David Talbot, and I came upon a few passages that I thought were too interesting not to share.

The first one is describing a memo that Sherman Kent, chairman of the CIA's Board of National Estimates, wrote in 1962 (1962!) to describe the likely outcome of a full-scale Cuban invasion. See if it doesn't seem just like a memo that could have been sent accurate 8 years ago:


" The good news, Kent wrote McCone, is that the initial resistance from Castro's forces would melt within a few days of the U.S. invasion. Euphoria would reign as Washington promised to turn over control of the nation as soon as possible to a government that was representative of the Cuban people. Then the situation would quickly deteriorate, Kent predicted. 'Substantial numbers' of Castro's forces would survive the initial U.S. assault and 'would continue a guerrilla resistance' in the country's interior. Much of the Cuban population would support this resistance against what they would perceive as a U.S. attempt to 'reimpose upon the Cuban people the yoke of 'Yankee Imperialism''. Establishment of a pro-U.S. government would be 'greatly hindered' by the persistence of 'terroristic underground resistance in the cities' and guerrilla resistance in the countryside. 'Pacification of the country, to the extent necessary to permit the development of a credible . . . regime, might be long delayed,' Kent noted. As a result, the U.S. military would be forced in a 'prolonger' role as an occupation force, which would become a sitting target for terrorist violence. This would provoke American soldiers to take 'arbitrary measures against the general population,' deepening resentments against the U.S. occupation and adding fuel to the resistance. Meanwhile, the United States' international standing would suffer badly as a resuilt of its unilateral military action, isolating the country from its allies in NATO and Latin America and heightening suspicions about U.S. power in the rest of the world. "

Reading things like that, one can't help but see where the truism "if we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it" comes from. Really interesting stuff.

The second passage is a more sensitive subject, but I think that everyone has seen the Loose Change videos by now, and if they haven't they definitely know someone who has. The movie, which I believe can be found on Youtube and Google video, has a lot of interesting evidence about how 9/11 could have been an "inside job". I don't have NEARLY enough information to buy into such a controversial theory, but these quotations I'm about to copy provide an eye-opening example of just how shady these types of things can get.


"the top-secret memo, which was signed by the country's highest military commanders, urged the administration to stage a variety of shoking incidents to create a rationale for invading Cuba. Among these were ... simulating Cuban shoot-downs of U.S. civilian and military aircraft (phony "casualty lists" in the U.S. newspapers would "cause a helpful wave of national indignation," noted the memo); and blowing up an American ship in Guantanamo Bay and pinning it on Cuba, an incident the memo compared to the mysterious explosion of the U.S. battleship Maine in havana harbor in 1898, which helped spark the Spanish-American War " ... "But the Joint Chiefs' most cold-blooded suggestion was to mount a terror campaign in Miami and other Florida cities, and 'even in Washington' that would create international revulsion against the Castro regime. The violent campaign would be directed at Cuban refugees in America, the chilling memo read. 'We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of the Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government." The book also mentions that: "The military leaders did not spell out how their exploding bombs would only be limited to wounding, not killing, their unsuspecting victims."

Crazy stuff. All I know is that I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the guy who decides what is and isn't morally permissible when you are talking about deciding what is best for a country of 300 million people in the middle of The Cold War.

Anyways, hopefully you thought those were interesting and thought-provoking. I need to be getting to sleep, but I'll try to write a normal blog about my life tomorrow.

Take care,

Mike.

Thoughts

I went to the Zoo today. I felt a little out of place, because it was me, the big American; a bunch of small, leather-skinned Grandmothers; lots of young parents; and tons of tons of small children. And of course the animals (lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.)

I think Argentine children are the cutest children in the world. The Zoo wasn't that impressive, but it was funny to see how excited kids can get over the smallest things ... they would yell just because the lion moved (MAMA! SE LEVANTO!) or because a carp decided to swim near the surface of the murky, nasty water (oh! Un pez enorme! "It's a huge fish!") That was awesome to see.

The Zoo was also cool to see from a 'grown-up' perspective. I haven't been to a Zoo in years, but as a child you just except things the way they are. A camel is cool, but probably more because you haven't ever seen one outside of Aladdin than because you look at it and think: "How in the hell did that thing evolve, and why does this guy have more humps than that one?" The camels also, unfortunately, reminded me of a Fergie song, but I won't hold that against them.

Click on the picture to see it all:



Having Skype has definitely cut into my blog time, but I'll try my best to keep posting new stuff. I haven't done too much touristy picture-taking stuff, but one of the other recent highlights was going to a jazz bar a couple of weeks ago. Live jazz. Awesome.


I've been eating a steady diet of steak and pizza, close to 1 of each a day, because they are both cheap and easy. Eggs and milk have filled out the diet.


I found something not quite as bad as the previously mentioned Barfy, but it may be from the same company: Faty. It's also some form of frozen patty. I'm not making this up -- I'll take pictures if I have my camera with me next time I go..


We turned back the clocks today, so now I'm only 1 hour ahead of Boston, 2 hours ahead of Gulfport/Oxford. I may be going to see RJ in a couple of weeks to try to catch the tail-end of beach season. We'll see.


Take care guys,


Mike

Hola!

A lot has happened since I wrote last, and I know I've talked a little bit about what I've been up to with some people, but I'll try to fill in the gaps.

On Monday I went to orientation, which was super boring because I had already been through it once before, but I did get to pick my classes; I have Monday and Friday off, which will be nice when I want to travel. After orientation I decided to walk home. I must have covered at least 50 blocks, because it took me, roughly, about 2 and a half hours. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not been extremely hot outside -- I only had a 100 peso bill on me, so no one would let me buy a water because they didn't want to make change (this is typical of Argentine store owners). I drank like a camel when I finally got home.

I saw a few interesting things on my way home. The first was a beautiful, traffic-stopping woman. Literally traffic-stopping, because she had a host of people around her with big mirrors and a guy on a box was yelling directions for her to pose in certain ways in the middle of the street. The guy was yelling in English, so I approached them and started talking, and it turns out the model was from Sweden ... figures. I really should try to visit that country some day..

Another unexpected moment was when, about an hour later, I saw 2 big stores side-by-side, each filled to the brim with mannequins. Odd. I kept walking, and the next store I passed was also stocked with fake people. This went on for blocks and blocks ... at one point I started laughing at how ridiculous it seemed, but by the time I reached the end of Mannequin City I had accepted it. It was funny to see the different body types, from hyper-endowed women and jacked men to skinny people to children. I'm positive that any type of mannequin you could ever want can be found in this part of town.

I went back to school on Tuesday and went for a walk afterwards again, although this time I didn't head directly home. I took a nap on a park bench next to a lake, and then walked for quite a while, winding my way back home and literally smelling the flowers. It wasn't terribly exciting, but it was definitely relaxing, and I want to head back that way this week and take some pictures.

My food concerns have been sorted out, and I have been eating better of late. A good steak can be bought for a dollar or two, no kidding. I had been trying to have one a day, although I didn't get to go buy one today. Sometime soon I am going to whip out a little red wine compound butter like we do at the restaurant and keep it in the freezer. Should be excellent.

I went out last night with a buddy from Ole Miss and a guy in his program, from Harvard. It was a good time, and I look forward to doing it again. We're playing soccer tomorrow afternoon.

Rearrival

Bienvenidos a mi blog ... for those of you following along at home, I have rearrived in Argentina, and I am writing from the university´s new computer lab, on the 17th floor ... the view is awesome.

I left this past Friday and arrived on Saturday. The plane ride was boring, despite what Tommy might describe as a ¨club-type atmosphere¨. At about 1 in the morning, unable to sleep continously for any significant amount of time, I noticed a group of Argentine-looking men congregated around the bathroom, chatting. I didn´t think anything of it, until about an hour later, when I noticed that they had moved to the area right behind me, and they had just replenished their cocktails. As far as I could tell, they were wandering around the plane and drinking for several hours, which was fine with me because there was no techno being played.


I wasn´t able to stay away from techno for too long (people that are really into techno differentiate it into all types of sub-genres: electronica, house, etc. I´m going to have to be more vague, because I have no idea how to tell these types from each other) because one of my roomates, a 28-year old Finnish girl, invited me to come with her on a pub crawl. The pub crawl was interesting because it was me and about 30 Fins, and I learned more than I ever thought I would know about Finnish (which wasn´t much). Nokia, for instance, is the powerhouse of the Finnish economy, and the Fins loved it when I lauded the no-nonsense approach and extreme durability of the Bryan Gaddy classic, ¨The Brick.¨ At the last stop of the night we encountered a belligerant South African rugby team, who spent half the time speaking Afrikaans (sounds a lot like ¨freaky-deeky-Dutch¨) and the other half of the time talking about how small the bouncers were. I was told that you must be six foot six to be a bouncer in South Africa, although the guy that told me this claimed to be six-four, and I had several inches on him. His credibility was suspect.



pub crawl:

Anyways, all of this happened at night. During the day I walked around for about 5 hours, without a map, which was pretty satisfying, because I still remember my way around and my new apartment is pretty centrally located. I stopped for a rest at one point, in a ¨local park¨, and an old lady leaned over and asked me where I was from. Apparently I was the 3rd guy with a backpack who had came and sat there that day. She was eager to let me know that Argentina today is a ¨disaster¨, not at all like it was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and that kids today lack respect for their elders. While I´m sure there is some truth to what she said, it was pretty funny to find how the ¨back-in-my-day¨ mentality is a global one.

On the way home I stopped at the local convenience store (my old house mother used to call the one near us El Chino, which refers to the Chinese, not the khakis, and, oddly enough, just about every other convenience store in the city seems to be operated at least partially by Asians) to get some groceries for the week. On the first aisle I went down there was a brand of frozen hamburger patties named, get this: Barfy´s. If there is some sort of award for the worst, most terrible attempts at putting an appetizing name on a semi-American product, I think Barfy´s has to win. There really is no competition.

Having decided to pass on the Barfy´s, I went back to the meat counter. I bought .6 kilos of ground beef, and I should have realized what a bad idea this was when she rang up the price -- 6 pesos. In other words, I got over a pound of ground beef for under 2 dollars. After trying to stomach one meal of what must be ground-up scraps and realizing that "the chinos" could have put whatever they wanted in there, I threw the rest away. I think I will stick to chicken breast, or something non-ground, so that I know exactly what I am getting.

I don´t mean to imply that the meat counter´s only offense was the dicey ground beef. When she rang up my price I looked up to the scale and realized, to my own disbelief, that there was an aquarium directly on top of the counter with about an inch of water and two lizards, probably about 6 to 8 inches each, nose to nose in the water. I´m not talking about Iguanas, or some kind of tropical, regal lizards -- one was white, and shrivelled, and the other looked grey, and possibly dead. I have a strong feeling that keeping disgusting reptiles near raw meat is breaking some kind of health violation.

The weather here is sweltering hot, and my place has no windows. At night I commandeer the fan from the living room, put it in my bedroom, and hope not to get called out. So far so good. I hope everyone is doing well back home, and feel free to drop me a line at mpmalenf@olemiss.edu.

Hasta luego,

Mike

Summer's End

The Argentine summer, at least as designated by the university's academic calendar, is drawing to a close, and I'll be repacking my bags in the days that come. Obviously I will be bringing shorts, shirts, and a toothbrush (and BBQ rub, Nestle's Strawberry Milk Powder, and Crystal hot sauce), but also 4 months of prior South American experience and a ton of excitement about the upcoming Copa Liberatadores and World Cup Qualification matches, the Radiohead concert in March, the opportunity to eat a ton of parillada, and whatever else the semester throws my way.

Excellent news: when I first left for Argentina last June, one American greenback was worth 3.026 Argentine pesos. The exchange rate has since risen to over 3.53 pesos per dollar. Spectacular.

More excellent news: When I arrive, this coming Saturday, I will essentially be 21. I will, in actuality, turn 21 several days before I come back.

I'll post an update when I'm safely settled into my new home. Hasta luego..