Random stuff

Welp, I've been trying (hoping?) to add something to this deal once a week. Oops.

It must be all the election excitement around this city... I finally figured out the election was for the (equivalent) of the mayor of Buenos Aires. It was a runoff from last month, pitting the national education director against the owner of the Boca Juniors (one of the 2 big soccer teams nationwide... sort of the equivalent of Jerry Jones running for governor of TX or something).

Except most of the city thinks the winner, which turned out to be the owner of the sports team (see photo below), is pulling a Hillary Clinton and running for one office while also having an eye on an even bigger prize later on (the Argentina presidential election is in Oct this year). Anyway, I guess I'm learning a lot about Argentina politics. It helps that Argentines are never shy to share their opinion... and they almost always have one, be it well informed or not.

Although I will comment that American politicians are rank amateurs compared to the Argentines when it comes to promising the people all kinds of tax-payer-financed goodies, freebies, and give-aways in exchange for their vote... More free education (as it says to the left)! More free health care! For some reason, there's a vibrant underground economy in this country plus a massive tax evasion problem. Interesting for us foreigners to watch and observe.

Speaking of, I've also added hanging out at the "Club Europeo" to my list, the website is at http://www.clubeuropeo.com/es_home.htm for anyone interested. For $7 pesos (or less than $2usd) per visit, I can practice Spanish conversation with a lot of locals (and expats, the crowd is from all over, Australia, Germany, Italy, USA, England, Japan, etc). I might just cave in and pay the $40 pesos per month to join since it's a really stylish place on the 21st floor of a building on Corrientes (Buenos Aires' version of Broadway) with an awesome view. Also, there's a really hot Argentine lawyer that's coincidentally working on her English. Yee-haw.

Enough typing for today. I need to do my part and save some power for the national energy crisis. Everytime it gets super cold, everything grinds down to a halt. I'll have to write more about the situation some other time. Maybe also talk about my first international car show, featuring a lot of (dinky) stuff that you wouldn't see in the USA. Mostly because you would be instantly killed by the first oblivious soccer mom blabbing on her cell phone behind the wheel of her SUV. Although this is a photo of the new Camaro, for those that haven't seen it yet.

Ok, on that note, it's time to go. And to everyone in Dallas, congrats on all your rain! Earlier this year, didn't the "experts" say this is gonna be the beginning of a new "dust bowl" era??! GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL WARMING, AIGGGHHHHH, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!