Day 20, MAMBA and More

(Thursday, the 28th of January, 2016)
I woke up this morning and did the usual, ate breakfast and went out to buy a bag of cookies for my lunch. I decided to head for some museums within walking distance today, I decided on the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (MAMBA) and the National History Museum (MHN).

Both were really great in their own way, the MAMBA had some great pieces and exhibits, including a historical one which originally opened in 1965 in downtown Buenos Aires called "La Menesunda". So they rebuilt this exhibit on the third floor of the gallery and man it was super interesting. "La Menesunda" means a difficult or embarrassing situation, which describes the exhibit perfectly. It was a maze of mirrors mixed with a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. It spanned about 12 rooms and you had to walk through each room one at a time as each room threw you into a different, unrelated situation. A room full of neon, a room full of old TVs playing old news clips, a bedroom with actors lying in bed staring at you as you pass. Eventually you find yourself in a giant refrigerator, a room full of punching bags, a room full of confetti and fans, it was really fun and cool.

After that mind melting experience, I stopped in a park to eat my lunch and then I headed over to the National History Museum. This museum had a one hour guided tour in English, which I took and that helped. Although, the tour didn't cover the whole museum so I went through again afterwards a bit slower to cover the whole museum. This museum had a lovely collection of artwork depicting most of the battles and important moments of Argentina, as well as tones of portraits of leaders and important figures. They also had a ton of historical swords and weapons that belonged to famous generals and the like. All in all, a great experience. This museum was free, along with the tour and that has been one great thing that I've noticed about the cultural stuff here in Buenos Aires, I haven't had to pay more than $5 CAD for a Museum of gallery.

After taking some pictures of the busts outside of the museum, I headed back up to San Telmo and had a really hardy, filling dinner at a restaurant near the hostel which was a "Milanesa", Schnitzel with fries and an egg on top. With that filling me up, I headed to bed.

See all of my photos here! Full size here!

Today's video feature is "Grupo Arcano" with "Rumba En Mi Barrio".

Day 19, Errands

(Wednesday, the 27th of January, 2016)
A good morning was had today, very similar to yesterday's, wake at 9:30 AM, get breakfast before it ends at 10:00 AM and wait until the museums open at 11:00 AM to about noon. Today was a bit different though, Mario and Lorena recommended a place to go the get a SIM card (their niece works at the place) and they also suggested I get a SUBE card. So this morning was spent doing a few errands. The shop that they recommended was on Florida St, a huge pedestrian street filled with shops, that was a fun experience. I also hit up the "Casa Rosada", the Pink House, which is the office of the president of Argentina, after that I headed to a coin and money museum, which was a lot better than it sounds. They also had a room of unrelated abstract art, which was fun to look at, but the main attraction was great too, I got to learn some history of the battles of Argentina, and about all of these competing currencies at the time. After that it was museum closing time, so I headed back.

Dinner was a relatively cheap and tasty affair, although everyone so far thinks that it is odd that I prefer eating at around 8 PM, but whatever. I went back to the hostel to plan the next day.

See all of my photos compressed and organized in to folders here!
I do feel as if the app I'm using to resize photos is kind of messing them up, so you can find a giant folder of full size pictures here.

The Mambo Legends are back again with a piece called " La Orquestra".

Day 18, Crypt Walking

(Tuesday, the 26th of January, 2016)
Today will be my first full day in the city. After that research I did yesterday I had a shortlist of places to see and things to do. After the small breakfast provided by the hostel (it's quite good, but mostly bread and jams) I headed out to the Recoleta neighbourhood to visit "Cementerio de La Recoleta".

That was an amazing sight to see, lots of famous and historical people and families are laid to rest here. There are no graves, it's all small mausoleums. The art and statues here were amazing and it was interesting to see different styles of mausoleum right next to each other. Entrance to the cemetery was free and I stayed about two hours, wandering the alleys between the ranks of the resting. I took tons of pictures.

After a good long while in the cemetery, I stopped to eat lunch in the park outside. My lunch was by no means healthy, I had stopped for some groceries yesterday for my lunch, which was simply a 1.5 L bottle of water and a bag of cookies, similar to those a Royal Dansk cookies that you get in tins. After the sweet lunch, I crossed the park and headed up the street a few blocks to the Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Art. I spent about an hour and a half in there, and saw some great pieces. Museums here have very small opening hours, normally from about 11 to 5. I didn't think I could fit another museum trip in the time I had, so I headed back to the hostel.

Our family is great friends with a couple who has family in Buenos Aires and they offered to show me around and give me some help in B.A.. I had sent an email to them yesterday wondering if they wanted to get together and they replied with an invite to dinner at their house. It turns out that their apartment is literally two blocks from the cemetery I was at this morning. So I had about an hour break and then I headed back on the Subte for another 30 minute ride to Recoleta. The metro line doesn't get to to close so I had to walk the last little bit, interestingly enough, that neighbourhood has a distinct lack of street signs, so I did get a little lost on the way there. The most surprising thing about that journey was that some couple mistook me for a local and tried to ask me directions. After I gave them my dumbfounded face, they asked, "wait are you from here?", to which I stumbled out a hast no in Spanish and they headed off.

Once I finally got to the apartment I had a great time. The hosts are named Mario and Lorena and we had some great conversations about Spanish, French, the new Canadian prime minister and getting around the city. Dinner was excellent as well, they served me a Shepard's pie which they called a " pastel de papas" or a potato pie. We finished at about 11 PM after some ice cream and then we had the ordeal of getting me back to my hostel. One odd thing about Buenos Aires, a pretty large city (metro 12 million), the subway closes at 11 PM. We thought about buses but I didn't have a transport card called the SUBE and the buses don't accept bills. Taxi ended up being the best choice, bit even they like to take advantage of tourists and give them an extended ride. But all went well and I made not back to the hostel to sleep for another day.

See all of my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is "The Mambo Legends" with "Para Todo El Mundo LA Rumba".

Day 17, Good Morning Big City

(Monday, the 25th of January, 2016)
Well, good morning big city. I was on edge since I woke up at about 6:30, for some reason I thought the bus was going to be direct like a flight, and that everybody was going to the same station that I was going to. That obviously was not the case, so I was getting more and more worried when I saw people getting off, because I thought that that might be the station and trust I'd miss it. But this fear was quite ridiculous, and and the remaining riders got off at Retiro Station, the final station, which is where I was headed. Now the plan was to take a subway down to a different neighbourhood where the hostel is, and most signs in the station talk about a subways station named Retiro as well. Turns out, that it's not in the same building, its about 2 blocks away. And when I got there, the station was closed for maintenance, so that turned into a few more blocks as I had to hit up the next station on the line. Although, once I reached a functioning station things were quite easy to navigate, and cheap. The Subte as its called, doesn't charge fares based on distance, so it only costs 0.50$ CAD to go anywhere on the lines, unlimited interchanges.

I made it to the neighbourhood I'm staying in, it's called San Telmo and for the life of me I couldn't find my hostel. The sign they have outside is completely faded, its called Hostel Tango and you could barely see the letter H, T, and O. The entrance is a nondescript double door made of wood that is always locked (you have to get buzzed in). I walked past it twice before I clued in. Even though it is pretty nondescript on the outside, the inside is quite nice, with murals and paintings covering the lobby walls. It's also huge inside, skinny, but deep as the city block.
 

The rooms are cheap and it's quite empty, so I get the dorm price but also a private room at the same time, because no one else is in the room with me. I got in at about 10:30 AM and I spent some time napping and recovering from the arduous bus ride. For lunch I went for some cheap empanadas at a place around the corner, after that, it's siesta time. So my first day has pretty much been recovery, and pinpointing the locations that I want to see during my stay.

See all of my photos here!

Today's video feature is "Sonex" preforming "Cascabel".

Day 16, The Next Step

(Sunday, the 24th of January, 2016)
Good morning my last day in General Alvear and the Mendoza province. The day greeted me with rain from the storm last night that lasted well into the morning. The time here moves so slowly, but also fast at the same time. After a late breakfast, one hour or so of mate and some more tips for Nick, then it's lunch time. And everyone knows what happens after lunch time, siesta. Before I know it, it's 4:30 and I have to get my stuff packed.

(An unrelated picture of a cactus-type plant)

We stopped in town for a little but of pre-dinner, because I am apparently getting food on the bus. The thing is, the kitchen of the restaurant doesn't open until later because the Argentinians eat dinner so late. The most we can get is grilled cheese, so after that enthralling dinner, we head to the bus station to wait for the bus. The bus is rated "semi-cama" meaning semi-bed or half-bed, I'm also supposed to get almost airline type of service, so I'm hoping that dinner is good.

Mistake. This is one of those dinners that I might regret the next morning. The meal was, a mini ham and cheese sandwich, cold cubes of potato and carrot (a salad I guess?), spinach cannelloni and a mini carrot muffin. Now, some of those things sound like they would be nice on their own, but the main course, the cannelloni was quite terrible. Piping hot noodle exterior filled with barely defrosted spinach and tomato sauce, the potato and carrot salad was a mess as well. Not great, and I'm not really sad that I didn't manage to get a picture of that dinner.

Let's see how the night goes on, I'll be waking up in the big city, if I'm even able to sleep at all.

See all of my photos here!

"(U)nity" is back at it again with their piece "D'Axel's Dream".

Day 15, I Can't Think of a One Word Title for This Post

(Saturday, the 23rd of January, 2016)
We had a lovely day today, with lots of mate and lots of funny stories. My Uncle always had the best stories from his time living in Trail B.C., hearing these stories almost guarantees a great day. We had a great light lunch of pizza and salad in General Alvear and a light dinner of Alfredo pasta. It's actually quite refreshing to eat light since I've been eating lots of heavy "asado" meat for the past few days. The night closed out with another big storm and some power outages. All in all, a relaxing and exciting day at the same time.

(This drove by while we were having lunch)

A bit of administrative details through, I moved some pictures over to the laptop intending to post them to Mega.nz, although I forgot and the laptop is gone to Chile with my Grandpa. I also may have deleted the photos from my phone already, so there may be some lost photos that I'll post in about a month. Sorry about that, I know some people are following my pictures, I'll just have to make it up to you with some more pictures of Buenos Aires.

See all of my pictures here!

Back to Latin music, today it's "Fajardo, Junior y Sus Estrellas" preforming "La Botija".

Day 14, Thoughts

(Friday, the 22nd of January, 2016)
Today marks two weeks out of Canada. I've spent one week in Chile and the other in Argentina so far. I do plan on spending a lot more time in Argentina than I originally thought, but Chile will have its time later. I'm also planning on spending a week in Uruguay, specifically Montevideo, so I'll have to add that country to my list as well. It does seem like I might have to change the name of this blog! We will see though, I am enjoying both countries immensely, the people in Chile have been friendlier, but the food and drink here in Argentina has been amazing. Although, there is still tons of time to change those perceptions. Today I finalized that decision of going to Buenos Aires and I bought a ticket for an overnight trip on Sunday into Monday morning. So things are coming together, I still have a few days to enjoy the country life.

See all of my photos here!

Today's musical feature is a little different, still from the Congahead YouTube channel but it's African instead of Latin. "Africa Forestdance" preforms "Tutu".

Day 13, Birthday

(Thursday, the 21st of January, 2016)
Today started off like most other days here, peacefully and slowly. We took a few trips to General Alvear today, once to buy a window air conditioning unit because the days and nights have been getting hotter and they had no A/C before. After spending some time installing that, we turned it on to cool the home while we went back out to that winery where we bought the tanks, this time we went to pick up an industrial grape crusher. This thing is heavy made of wood and iron and built to crush a lot of grapes at once, quite exciting.

Later that day at around 8:30 PM, we headed out again to a restaurant named Bamboo to celebrate my uncle's birthday. We listened to some great jokes and stories about my Grandpa's time in the Chilean army, and I got some great do's and don'ts for when I'm in Buenos Aires. I'm super excited to be heading out there.

See all of the photos I've taken so far here!

Today's music selection is preformed by "Bio Ritmo" and is entitled "Muralla".

Day 12, Migration

(Wednesday, the 20th of January, 2016)
Nothing notable happened today, it was one of the most relaxing and satisfying days yet. I've begun migrating things off of my laptop and onto my phone and tablet, because I think I'm going to be sending my laptop back to Chile with my Grandpa when he heads back. I'd rather not carry my giant laptop through the rest of Argentina and Uruguay. I'm not even sure that old this g will survive the trip. Anyways, that means that once the laptop is gone I'll be posting from the Blogger app on my tablet. So posts might look a little different and postings may be slower, if it doesn't look like it changed, then the Blogger app does a good job.

See all of my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is "Alex Alvear & Mango Blue" playing "Mango".

Day 11, Exchange Pt. II

(Tuesday, the 19th of January, 2016)
We woke rather early today, (although not as early as Day 7) to head to a major town about 1 km away. The main purpose of this trip was to exchange money, because we spent all of our cash buying the tanks yesterday. We were initially headed for a "casa de cambio" a currency exchange business, but after we saw the expected exchange rate in the window, my uncle called some guy and he would offer us a better rate. I thought we were headed for another casa de cambio but instead we found ourselves in a cafe a few blocks down the road. A few minutes later after ordering some coffees and pastries, some guy walks up to the window of the cafe from the street and gestures to my uncle. So he heads out and they are exchanging wads of cash on the street. He then comes back in and starts passing me wads of cash, it doesn't really help that thanks to the inflation, their biggest bill, the 100 peso bill is only worth about 10$ CAD.

It seems like the cafe was trying to get rid of a commercial juice press. This caught the eye of my uncle, so he ends up buying the machine off of the cafe and we load it into the back of the van. Back at home we had a super lunch (I've been slacking on my food blogger pictures) followed by a siesta, then a quick dip in the nearby river to cool off. We then had a lazy dinner and finished that off with some yerba mate.

Yerba mate is this leaf mixture that you add water too, similar to tea. You add 85-95 °C water to (traditionally) a hollowed, dried out gourd, or other cup filled 3/4 of the way with the mate leaf. You then drink the infusion out of a metal straw. It's a very social drink here in Argentina and Uruguay, people will pass the mate around and talk for hours. It's so prominent, that you can buy specially made bags that have three pouches, one for a thermos (of hot water) one for the mate gourd and one for the yerba mate leaf itself. But anyways, that's besides the point, I just thought it was interesting, it tastes quite good too.

We believed we were done for the night but the sky was threatening a storm, and everyone here says that I have to see an Argentinean storm, cause they are a lot stronger than the Ontarian equivalent. Even though the storm passed us by, I definitely could tell that it was massive, lightening was always flashing somewhere in the sky that there was like 45 minutes of constant light somewhere in the sky, which was amazing. After that though, we were all tired and we finally called it quits on the day.

See all of my pictures here!

Today's  musical feature is  "Eric Kurimpski" and the piece is titled "New York Titan".

Day 10, Wine?

(Monday, the 18th of January, 2016)

It seems like mu uncle has been doing a lot of thinking about making his own spirits and stuff from the local fruit. So this morning after breakfast, we went to a nearby winery about 20 minutes away and bought three 500 L. tanks and one 1'000 L. tank, with heating coils covers and some 10 L. and 20 L. glass jugs. The idea of doing this seems a lot more real now, if he can get grapes for cheap and the fruit for essentially free, why not? We spend a good portion of the day ferrying the tanks from this winery back to his house. We topped off the afternoon with another few ¼ kilos of ice cream. That was the essence of the whole day, lunch and dinner were good but small because we've all been snacking on the peaches that we acquired yesterday. I did finally go around and get proper pictures of most of the buildings on the property, so I'll post those.

All my photos here!

Musical feature of the post is "Bareto" performing "Matagalan"!

Day 9, Loco

(Sunday, the 17th of January, 2016)

A super great morning was had by all of us, I had some more cereal with yogurt, it was great. We had a little bit of downtime after breakfast so I decided to finish another one of the mixes that I had floating around. The upload speed here is quite slow though, we are looking at about 5 hours to upload a 64 MB. file. Getting this mix up might be an overnight thing.

After that we went out for some groceries to some local shops and we got a little tour of one of the operations, I got some great photos of the animals. We had a great lunch of egg salad sandwiches and then is was siesta time. I got to talk to my family on the slowest Skype connection ever, which was good, ,it was nice to hear the goings on back home in Canada but after that, we headed of to “Loco” Rico's house for some dinner.

We had a great time at his house, I got to try some authentic prosciutto that he made (which was great) accompanied by lost of beer and little empanaditas which were delicious. We were talking with him about the economic situation here and he asks us if we want to go pick some peaches, I was a bit surprised but I decided to tag along. We headed to this huge lot nearby that had about 100 rows with 20 trees on each row, each tree full of fruit maturing and rotting on the branch. The situation is that the price of fruit is so cheap the producer can only sell a kilo of peaches for about $0.10 so he doesn't hire people to pick the fruit because he'd be taking a loss just by hiring them. So he lets people just go on his property and pick peaches for themselves, we fill up about two cardboard boxes full of them.

We were marveling at the fact that even in the middle of these economic problems around here, no one is capitalizing they just seem to be stuck in the old ways. If fruit is cheap why not make jams, jellies, alcohol something else. Using a still to produce alcohol is completely legal here in Argentina so my uncle is thinking about buying one to make some liquors, he's just surprised that he's the only one trying to to that.

See all my pictures here!

Today's music video is by "Armando Son Jimenez & Orquestra Sabor" performing "Pa' Mi Gente".

Day 8, Alvear

(Saturday, the 16th of January, 2016)

The first morning in Argentina started off on a good foot with a bowl of cornflakes in yogurt (super liquid yogurt, similar to Yop). That breakfast definitely had a different texture than normal cereal. We went to town next for a bit of ice cream, well, I thought it would be a bit. We ended up eating ¼ kilogram each of ice cream for only 3 dollars Canadian each. What a deal.

After returning, me and my grandpa got a tour of the property which is quite extensive and then we had some of that leftover barbecue for lunch. What follows a late lunch is naturally a siesta in a hammock, all in all a great first half of the day. I'm going to see if I can make a siesta a daily thing while I'm here.

After the siesta I got to meet a neighbour that everyone calls “Loco Rico”, and we spent a lazy hour on the patio exchanging jokes and drinking beer. I also got some great suggestions about places I should go when I'm traveling in Argentina.

(Beer & Peanuts with Loco Rico)

We had a beautiful dinner here in General Alvear, the local town, at a fancy resto-bar which had some of the best pasta around. We actually got to eat free that night because my uncle bought an iPhone 5 from Canada for one of the owners, so we had a tab. Phones are quite expensive here so he thought he could get them a hone for cheaper from Canada. There is quite an interesting economic situation going on here, phones are expensive, cars are expensive, gas is expensive but land and fruit is super cheap. The government also seems to be pushing natural gas powered cars (because apparently they found a lot of natural gas around) so every gas station has a few pumps that are marked GNC and I'm pretty sure that is quite cheap compares to gasoline.

With that interesting dinner conversation bouncing around in my head we finished off the night with some more ice cream (I had a milkshake that was delicious) and then hit the sack for a new day.

All of my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is a song titled "Pasado-Presente" performed by "Alex Alvear & Mango Blue".

Day 7, Border

(Friday, the 15th of January, 2016)

I was definitely lying yesterday when I said I got up early, because today, at the dark and gloomy hour of 4:45, we woke up and headed out to a border crossing high in the mountains into Argentina. With a beautiful breakfast of microwaveable hamburgers from a gas station, I was ready to sleep through most of the drive. Although, I do have to say that this crossing was one of the most beautiful I've ever been to, instead of sleeping I spent the better part of two hours taking pictures of the mountains. To get to the crossing you have to climb the side of one of the mountains, (my Gramps drives a Chevrolet Spark by the way) so were riding along in our little car sandwiched between 18 wheelers going through 30 switchbacks and like 6 tunnels to get to the Chilean side of the border crossing. By this point its just a three lane road, one to Argentina, two to Chile, that's how small the border crossing is. We get waved through and continue and on the way to the Argentine side, we see a line of cars 3 km long pretty much parked, people are walking around talking to the other cars, we heard later that the wait to get into Chile if you were at the end of the line was about 8 hours, ouch.

Luckily we didn't have to wait at all on the Argentine side, because we missed the booths on the first pass, yep, they aren't in the middle of the road like a U.S.-Canada border, you have to veer left, through the oncoming lane to some building like 200 meters off to the side of the road. It was quite poorly designed so we just drove on by the first time. We kept going for about 3 minutes, and once we saw no more signs for anything to do with immigration we pulled over at a hotel to ask what was up. Apparently we passed up a few minutes up the road, so we go back spot it and we do an illegal U-turn into the customs area. Canadians have to pay a fee to enter the country, so I'm ready, with Argentine pesos, American dollars whatever they need. Turns out, I was supposed to do it online and pay by credit card, print a receipt and hand it to them. Since I didn't have it, they let me fill out the form online on one of their computers at the back of the building, which was super nice. So with that we were headed off to my uncle's house.

My uncle bought a massive lot 4 hectare lot with five buildings, some pools, two water towers and a radio dish on the lot for about 35'000 USD. It used to be a cannery, but the owner went out of business and the buildings became derelict. The main house is quite beautiful though and my uncle is fixing up the other buildings.

My uncle and his girlfriend had a baby quite recently at this house in Argentina, so even though they are both Canadian the baby boy is Argentinean. We arrived safely and after settled in and met my new baby cousin I went for a nap in one of their hammocks. The recommended that I have a small sleep because we were invited to an Argentinean barbecue dinner later. The thing is it starts late, we left our house at 7:00, the meat started cooking at 8:30 and we finished eating at 11:00. The food was amazing, sadly I forgot my phone and camera, I still snapped a picture of the food on my uncles phone, but I missed a great opportunity. I had a lot of firsts today, first time trying mate (that I can remember), first time trying blood sausage, first time trying something called “sweetbread”, which is the thyroid of a cow. That last one was quite weird in texture, the rest of it though was delicious. We went home and I promptly went into a food coma and slept.

I took a ton of mountain shots, you can see them all here (in the Day 7 folder) along with all of my other shots.

Today's musical feature is another performance by "Pierogi", this time playing "Ma'Land".

Day 6, Exchange

(Thursday, the 14th of January, 2016)

We woke up a bit early and headed to the capital taking a little detour to pick up some stuff in a nearby town, this took us pretty far from the way we usually go to get to Santiago so we took a different highway. This highway ended up being a thin road that threaded up the mountains to cross over and descend the other side, sadly I sat on the wrong side of the car to get good shots of the valley, I took some pictures anyways, tell me what you think. It was quite a fun ride, blind hairpin corners, a little bit of brake squeaking, good fun. I also missed a great shot of some graffiti on some type of concrete stormwater lane down the mountain, maybe another time. But, I did grab a great shot of a graffiti Tupac (I'm pretty sure, just need to get online to confirm) just hanging out on a wall, when I saw it I just started chuckling.

We made it to Santiago and we stopped by the house that has internet, I was told to bring my laptop so that I could check emails and whatnot. I was thinking we'd be there for at least a half an hour, maybe one hour. So I'm settling in, downloading my inbox, turns out we were there solely to check emails, so 5 minutes later we pack up and leave. The thing is, we were taking a bus back later and wouldn't be returning to this house today, so I'm walking around some sketch parts of the city with a laptop, two phones, and all of my Chilean cash on me, because the reason for this trip was to exchange the Chilean currency for Argentinean pesos. Long story short, nothing happened but there were definitely some places where I had to watch my bag. We got everything done and headed back to the farm on a bus, loaded with Argentine money, car insurance and some gifts. When we got home we packed and ready for the next day, because I believe that I'm headed from my uncles house to Buenos Aires and I won't be back for a few weeks. Plans are shaping up though.

On a bit of an unrelated note, I've been finding that the Nexus 5 camera has been doing a great job of taking pictures for me, all of these shots are from the Nexus 5. I did bring a digital camera, but this has just been more convenient and produces at least decent, if not good quality shots.

See all of my photos here!

Today's music video feature is "Pierogi" preforming "Spin".

Day 5, Lull Pt. II

(Wednesday, the 13th of January, 2016)
To be honest, today was just another chill day, which I'm fine with. It affords me a chance to catch up with all of the content that I downloaded and brought with me, I brought something like over 1'000 podcasts, so I have a lot of work to do. It seems like I'm getting a taste of retired living, I wonder if this is how it'll be in 50 years when I retire, somehow. I doubt it, but whatever, that's a long way in the future. I'll leave you with some more assorted pictures from around the farm and elsewhere. If there are any questions or whatnot please email me, you can surprise me when I get into internet zones and I download my inbox!

All my pictures here!

Musical feature of the post is a piece called "Tirandote Flores" by "Ensalada De Pulpo", it features some wicked trombone, which is probably why I like it so much!

Day 4, Lull

Tuesday, the 12th of January, 2016)
Another chill-out day was had by in over here in Chile. We seem to be taking it slow now until Friday, when were heading up to Argentina to see my Uncle. I ended up finishing the first mix, the hip hop instrumental one that I was working on, and I think it plays pretty well. The power went out tonight for about an hour after dinner at 9:30 ish, which was fun. It came back on after an hour for about 10 seconds, you could here a collective cheer throughout the neighbourhood followed by a collective groan, it was quite comical. The power came back for real this time 5 minutes later but that is pretty much all that happened today. I might be able to pound another mix out tomorrow if I'm really feeling it, but we'll see.

(Before)

(After... great lunch)

See all my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is called "Siboney" preformed by "(U)nity".

Day 3, Beach

(Monday, the 11th of January, 2016)
Nothing too noteworthy happened today. We headed out to the a house by the beach that my Grandpa owns, it's about a one hour drive from the farm. My great uncle Ricardo stopped by for lunch, which was great, it was nice to see him again since I saw him last in 2010. He hitched a ride with us to the beach house. He own a house in a small town by the coast, he grows plants and flowers on the lot to sell in a street market in that town. We dropped him off and my Grandpa bought some flowers for his garden, while I took a few pictures. He calls this property his jungle, which is kind of true, there are papayas, lemons, avocados and mandarin oranges growing everywhere along with numerous flowers.

(Ricardo's Property)

We then headed to the beach house for a bit to do some housekeeping, and that was pretty much the entirety of the exciting things that happened today. I do appreciate the down time though, I've be having to organize my digital life a bit, because everyday produces around a page of blog post and around 60 pictures, that is going to add up quickly. And I have to curate as well. Although I have some free time today so I decided to start planning some mixes. I take songs that I like, and put them together into about a 1 hour long track, you wouldn't think it but getting the transitions between songs right can be quite hard. I don't profess to be good (just ask my friends, my first two were quite bad), but they're quite fun to make. I'm planning on making three this time, one for hip hop instrumentals, one for jazz and one for rap. I came prepared, with a fully packed library of songs on my laptop so I'm set! I'm also planning on making the hip hop and the jazz one clean (...enough) to be able to be family friendly, because I haven't really been able to show them off outside of my group of friends. Alright squad, be on the lookout for those, and if you have any suggestions for mix topics I'll take them.

(Beach House)

(Neighbourhood Dogs)

(Obligatory Mountain Shot)

That pretty much covers today, it was quite a bit less overwhelming than the previous two days, but I'm glad that it's settling down as well.

All my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is "'Round the Town Percussion ft. Doug Hinrichs" from the Congahead YouTube channel.