Turkey day

There is something rather cool about thanksgiving, it's one of the few holidays that isn't all about presents. It's mainly seems to be about families getting together, eating turkey and watching football. I had an awesome day at the disney world magic kingdom. Naturally I had the best kind of turkey...

Welcome to America

What is it about the people that work in the immigration service in Florida? Whenever I fly into this state I encounter some of the most obnoxious people imaginable. The last time i came here, A decade ago, the airports used to employ a guy to tell the mickey hungry, jet lagged Brits to "stand behind the line". If so much as a millimeter of your shoe was over that line, it was cause enough for you to be verbally reprimanded.

This dude has clearly been promoted to sit behind the desk in Miami. What follows is a transcript of my latest welcome to Florida...

Saturday November 19th 2011. 4am.

Following a nine hour flight from Rio, NICK walks upto the immigration desk and hands over his passport to ANGRY DUDE.

NICK
Hi.

Angry Dude flicks thru passport.

ANGRY DUDE
(shouting) What are you doing here??

NICK
Errr, touring.

ANGRY DUDE
(getting louder) where?

NICK
Orlando, Texas, Detroit and New York.

ANGRY DUDE
WHAT???

NICK
Err, Orlando, Tex...

ANGRY DUDE
(interrupting) you got ESTA??

ESTA is an online travel authorization that Nick paid $14 for several months ago. There is NO need for Angry Dude to see a physical copy because its an online system.

NICK
I've done an ESTA, you want to see it?

ANGRY DUDE
(getting even angrier) I HAVE to see it.

A tired Nick opens his backpack, pulls out a red folder and frantically starts looking for the illusive ESTA form. After about fourteen seconds, Angry Dude loses his last remaining shred of patience.

ANGRY DUDE
What's ya job?

NICK
Health worker.

Angry dude thunderously stamps the passport and says nothing.

NICK
Can I go?

ANGRY DUDE
(nods) huh

Nick walks onwards to the baggage carousel.

A few thoughts on my South American adventure.

When I headed to South America at the start of November, I wasn't sure what to expect. My only real knowledge of Argentina was from strictly, the movie evita, the falklands and various world cups. As for brazil in general and rio in particular, even my lonely planet guide seemed to suggest that if I managed to get out of the country in one piece I would be very lucky, if I happened to still be alive-that would be a bonus.

As far as Argentina and Buenos Aires is concerned, I loved the place. The people were really friendly and couldn't do enough for you, and bearing in mind my Spanish skills are only slightly better than my Japanese-they were always very patient! My trick was to make the effort to read the spanish, they would normally laugh and try and practice their english.

In addition to this, the city is amazing value- probably the cheapest place I've stayed.

Aside the safety issues, which were nowhere near as bad as feared, Rio was something of a disappointment. Pretty much the first place on my trip that i wouldnt rush back to. The place I stayed at was awesome, but the most welcoming person there was from the UK.

As for the city itself, I kinda expected it to be sunny and cheap, instead it was raining and expensive. Probably the most expensive place I've been(and that includes japan!). A big mac meal will set you back over six quid. Incidentally the cheapest big mac meal in all the places I've visited, is in hong kong, just £1.64.

Whilst my spanish skills may not be great, my knowledge of Portuguese is totally non existent, and I gotta say Brazil is the only place where they really weren't interested in embracing my pigeon skills.

I did do all the tourist things, but the problem with going on a trip like this is that you start to compare what you are seeing- with what you saw in the last city, and the one before that. More on this, when I show you the pictures.

The iPhone is alive!

After failing to keep up with the pace of my trip, my iPhone gave up on me totally in argentina. Today I finally tracked down an apple store,in the florida mall, and got a replacement. I've also got the swanky blogger app from the app store, so I can do a bit of writing. Video and photos will follow when I get to a desktop computer.

an update on the lack of updates

Apologies for the lack of updates.  As you can see I made it to Rio, and made it out again!  I'm now in Orlando until Wednesday- six days of parks done, three to go!  Then I move on to Texas, then Detroit and finally New York in the run up to Christmas.  I've got loads of blogging to do, but internet access is very expensive here.  But don't worry, it will be worth the wait

taxi

Now when I think of a taxi, three questions come to mind, 


1.  How funky is this theme tune?

2.  How is it that people in Albert square can afford to get a black cab from the east end of London to Heathrow?


3. And finally, why can´t all movies be as good as this?

. 

So why all this talk of taxis?  Well until I came to South America I hadn´t used any at all, but as part of my ¨safety first¨ approach to this continent, I have started to use them on an occaisional basis.  The one I got from my hostel in Buenos Aires to the bus station was fairly uneventful. It´s true, the driver did not see the minute size of his vehicle, as any hurdle to taking on a monster truck.  But we came thru unscathed.  

The pre booked taxi from Iguazu Falls to another bus station was rather poor, as it didnt bother to turn up at all.  Causing some frantic Nick style panicing, and arriving at the bus station with about three seconds to spare.

Since arriving in Rio, I have used two taxis.  The first was from the bus station to my accomodation.  The action here started before I even got into the taxi, as I seemed to spark off a sort of turf war, between the touts and the more official looking taxi that I used.  The journey was itself was fairly uneventful, though the driver did cross himself as we approached a tunnel; but I since learned that was because we passed a church.

This brings us to my final taxi ride.  As mentioned in my previous post, I went to see the movie In Time.  It was showing at the Roxy- Cococabana.  As it was finishing after dark, I figured I´d take a taxi back to my accomadation.  It couldn´t be more than five minutes away.  Up to the taxi rank I marched, armed with a piece of paper upon which I had scribbled the address.  There then followed a little discussion- at first I assumed to work out  who would take such a short ride.  It then became apparent that they didn´t quite know where the place was.  Sensing I could be some help, I said . ¨Polícia, near Polícia¨ A little more discussion followed and we were on our way.  As you will have gathered my accomodadion is near a police station.  We started to go up the long narrow winding road to my hostel.  The driver, (whose english was about on a par with my  Portuguese), kept turning to me for  reassurance.  ¨Polícia, near Polícia¨ I repeated.  Now, somewhere along the line my driver had forgotton the address I had handed him, and was now totally committed to taking me to see the police.  I know this, because he proceded to drive us straight towards five Brazilian policemen armed with machine guns.  Now I wish I could explain how your author managed to get out the taxi, negotiate with these armed policemen, and get to the hostel- but its all a bit of a blur.  

Also taxi related...

why is it called...

some of you may be wondering where the name of the blog came from.

wonder no longer, (but be prepared for some strong language)

my slightly late, birthday movie

rather good, i thought.

buenos aires to iguazu falls to rio

If there was a list of phrases I thought I was unlikely ever to hear on a coach, then ¨would you like whiskey or champagne, sir?¨, would certainly be high up there.  But this is coach travel Argentina style, where for next to nothing, you can travel with next to no one- and be waited on hand and foot.

I should first explain the timeline. Last Thursday I set off from Buenos Aires, then 18 hours later, stopped for two nights on the Argentinian/Brazillian border.  This was to see Iguazu Falls. Then on my birthday, I set off on a 24 hour trip to Rio.  Now the prospect of spending half you birthday on a coach, may not sound too exciting, but the service from Buenos Aires was so good- how could I complain?

Well, we set off at 1pm and the hours start to roll by, but there was no sign of the food. 4pm-no food, 6pm-no food, 8pm-no food.  Hang on, we´ve gone thru a time zone, maybe its 9pm.  9pm comes and goes-still no food.  At about 9.30pm we get ushered off the bus and into the most dire motorway service station on earth.  At this point I am about ready to chew off my right hand.  I ask a dude, who I had met in the line for Brazillian customs (8 hours ago), ¨whats happended to the food?¨. He cheerily informs me that they can´t serve food on coaches in Brazil, and the next stop is in 10 hours time.  So dear reader, my birthday dinner consisted of some variation of a microwavable pasty and a practically inedible creme caramel type cake.  Now, can anyone find out why Argentinians have perfected this art of eating and moving forward at the same time, and Brazillians haven´t?

But don´t worry too much.  The place I stayed at in Iguaazi was amazing.  I was somewhat flattered to have been placed in the 18-35 ¨fun hostel¨. Hostel is doing it down.  It was more like a resort, and on saturday night it was BBQ night.  Great food, good fun- but just a day too early.

was Argentina, food

now Brazil, no food

one of the new, seven natural wonders of the world

if you think I look a little odd here, your right!
its because we had to push eight people out the way, to get the shot-
and are about to run for our lives...

my david attenborough moment

who would do this?  Nick would

my funky shorts, under attack

always good to see

awww

on the crazy boat

wherever you go, never forget...

Hong Kong

Melbourne

the names omega...

The moment I heard about the new James Bond movie, I just had the sudden urge to run to my nearest Omega store.  It seems my old friend Cindy Crawford had the same idea.

ahh good, she´s spotted me.

its a complicated business

For those confused by the James Bond reference...

Elsewhere in Buenos Aires many of the finest buildings have been turned into rather fine shopping malls.

love me do

a bit of the original

The docks.

the funky bridge

it has that awesome classy, concorde type of look

a little more Evita

For a truly strange activity in Beunos Aires, I can recommend the free guided tour of Recoleta Cemetery, the final resting place of Evita.  My trusty "rough guide" describes it as a city within a city, only one where the residents are dead.  And they weren´t kidding...

it´s all a  bit too visable

The final resting place of Evita.

What happened to Evita´s body after she died sounds less of a dignified resting in peace, and more like a tasteless sequel to "Weekend at Bernies".  Soon after she died, her body was preserved by her family.  Then it  was taken by the Military rulers.  Eventually it was handed back in the 1970s, after ending up in Italy.  The body had been mistreated, she had scars, her nose broken and tar was on her feet (maybe to stand her up). You can see the damage on the bronze below.