Argentina On Two Steaks A Day
04.13.2006
The classic beginner's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts…
04.13.2006
The classic beginner's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts…
Rosario
01.12.2008
The best bus ride in my life was in Argentina. I needed to cross Patagonia, from Trelew to the town of Esquel in the foothills of the Andes, on an overnight bus over gravel roads. My only point of reference was a backbreaking Greyhound bus trip across the United States taken when I was nine years old,…
01.12.2008
The best bus ride in my life was in Argentina. I needed to cross Patagonia, from Trelew to the town of Esquel in the foothills of the Andes, on an overnight bus over gravel roads. My only point of reference was a backbreaking Greyhound bus trip across the United States taken when I was nine years old,…
Controlled Tango Into Terrain
04.01.2008
From a Buenos Aires travel guide: Spice up your life! Take a beginner's tango lesson at 9 and then stay on to dance the night away at the 10:30 milonga. Get swept away i…
04.01.2008
From a Buenos Aires travel guide: Spice up your life! Take a beginner's tango lesson at 9 and then stay on to dance the night away at the 10:30 milonga. Get swept away i…
Elevators I Have Known
05.03.2008
Today is a day of quiet reflection as the elevator in my building undergoes repairs. Small paper signs appeared a week ago to warn us that the elevator would be out of service from 8 AM to 7 PM, and sure enough there has been a steady hammering from down the elevator shaft since early morning. Why maintaining the elevator should require eleven hours of hammering is somethin…
05.03.2008
Today is a day of quiet reflection as the elevator in my building undergoes repairs. Small paper signs appeared a week ago to warn us that the elevator would be out of service from 8 AM to 7 PM, and sure enough there has been a steady hammering from down the elevator shaft since early morning. Why maintaining the elevator should require eleven hours of hammering is somethin…
The Great Porteño Smokeout
04.23.2008
When I first moved to Buenos Aires I knew nothing about the city except that the seasons were upside down and that I should try the steak. Somehow I had assumed that the city got its name from the refreshing mountain breezes that blew down each day from the ridges of the High Pampas, wafting gently across the white sand…
04.23.2008
When I first moved to Buenos Aires I knew nothing about the city except that the seasons were upside down and that I should try the steak. Somehow I had assumed that the city got its name from the refreshing mountain breezes that blew down each day from the ridges of the High Pampas, wafting gently across the white sand…
Nuevo Año
01.09.2008
Porteños greeted the new year by fleeing the city as fast as gridlocked roads could take them. January is the month Buenos Aires takes its summer vacation, and the destination of choice is Mar del Plata, a seaside resort I have never visited. Given my love for crowds, heat and strangers' children it sounds it would be my own personal Mordor. "You can't even see the sand for…
01.09.2008
Porteños greeted the new year by fleeing the city as fast as gridlocked roads could take them. January is the month Buenos Aires takes its summer vacation, and the destination of choice is Mar del Plata, a seaside resort I have never visited. Given my love for crowds, heat and strangers' children it sounds it would be my own personal Mordor. "You can't even see the sand for…
A Very Porteño Christmas
01.01.2008
At christmastime the streets of Buenos Aires are full of fruitcake. Eternal, inedible, weighing as much as a thousand suns, this is a scary pastry even in countries that lack the Argentine anti-talent for baking. But in Buenos Aires it becomes something I don't have the courage to buy, even for kicks. How is it that on all the numberless ships that brought Italian immigrants t…
01.01.2008
At christmastime the streets of Buenos Aires are full of fruitcake. Eternal, inedible, weighing as much as a thousand suns, this is a scary pastry even in countries that lack the Argentine anti-talent for baking. But in Buenos Aires it becomes something I don't have the courage to buy, even for kicks. How is it that on all the numberless ships that brought Italian immigrants t…
Volví!
12.16.2007
The time difference between Buenos Aires and New York City is six months and two hours. The two hours aren't bad, once the strange feeling passes of travelling in an airplane for a full day and night and arriving still in synch with the local dinnertime. The change of season is harder to get used to. A little private blizzard saw me off from New York, and the next day I was …
12.16.2007
The time difference between Buenos Aires and New York City is six months and two hours. The two hours aren't bad, once the strange feeling passes of travelling in an airplane for a full day and night and arriving still in synch with the local dinnertime. The change of season is harder to get used to. A little private blizzard saw me off from New York, and the next day I was …
El Chaltén
05.28.2006
Just when you thought nationalism had nothing good to offer the world, along comes a wonder like El Chaltén. A town with no conceivable economic or geographic purpose other than sticking it to the nearby Chileans, El Chaltén (Spanish for The Chaltén ) is an accidental hikers'…
05.28.2006
Just when you thought nationalism had nothing good to offer the world, along comes a wonder like El Chaltén. A town with no conceivable economic or geographic purpose other than sticking it to the nearby Chileans, El Chaltén (Spanish for The Chaltén ) is an accidental hikers'…
Las Torres Del Paine
05.04.2006
A better name for this place would be Holy Sweet Mother of Jesus National Park, since this is what you will say the first time you set eyes on it. The Torres del Paine is an absolutely ridiculous collection of mountains and lakes squeezed between Argentina and the Pacific ocean in Chilean Patagonia, not far from where Chile turns east at the bottom of the continent. The Torre…
05.04.2006
A better name for this place would be Holy Sweet Mother of Jesus National Park, since this is what you will say the first time you set eyes on it. The Torres del Paine is an absolutely ridiculous collection of mountains and lakes squeezed between Argentina and the Pacific ocean in Chilean Patagonia, not far from where Chile turns east at the bottom of the continent. The Torre…
Land of Fire
04.03.2006
There is a place called the 'Valley of the Beavers' at the Chilean edge of Tierra del Fuego national park, where you can go to see miles of beaver dams in the otherwise dense coastal forest. A giant beaver (presumably with a person inside) roams the streets of Ushuaia with his companion, a giant penguin, wa…
04.03.2006
There is a place called the 'Valley of the Beavers' at the Chilean edge of Tierra del Fuego national park, where you can go to see miles of beaver dams in the otherwise dense coastal forest. A giant beaver (presumably with a person inside) roams the streets of Ushuaia with his companion, a giant penguin, wa…
The Collapse of the Perito Moreno
03.25.2006
It was pandemonium this month at the Perito Moreno glacier. The Perito Moreno is a giant mess of ice that flows out of the mountains in the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, near El Calafate, looking for trouble. In a world of sissy nature that requires protection, handholding, wild…
03.25.2006
It was pandemonium this month at the Perito Moreno glacier. The Perito Moreno is a giant mess of ice that flows out of the mountains in the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, near El Calafate, looking for trouble. In a world of sissy nature that requires protection, handholding, wild…
Junin De Los Andes
02.26.2006
In northernmost Patagonia up against the border with Chile is a child's drawing of a volcano come to life - a triangular white peak covered in snow, with a kind of hump on its southern slope that makes it look like a hunchback. This is the Vulcán Lanín, a stratovolcano that sits on the horizon like a single pointy t…
02.26.2006
In northernmost Patagonia up against the border with Chile is a child's drawing of a volcano come to life - a triangular white peak covered in snow, with a kind of hump on its southern slope that makes it look like a hunchback. This is the Vulcán Lanín, a stratovolcano that sits on the horizon like a single pointy t…
Two Dinosaurs
02.15.2006
On my way back from Buenos Aires from the Argentine lake district (snug up against the Chilean border), I stopped in the provincial capital of Neuquén. Neuquén is one of those unloved but essential cities, like Inverness or Anchorage, that constitutes the only population center in a large expanse of nothingnes…
02.15.2006
On my way back from Buenos Aires from the Argentine lake district (snug up against the Chilean border), I stopped in the provincial capital of Neuquén. Neuquén is one of those unloved but essential cities, like Inverness or Anchorage, that constitutes the only population center in a large expanse of nothingnes…
Penguins at Punta Tombo
02.07.2006
The flight from Buenos Aires to Trelew takes only a little over an hour, but you feel like you've arrived on another planet. Instead of an endless urban landscape that transitions into an even more endless coastal lawn, you find yourself in the middle of an arid plain that looks like a cross between northern Scot…
02.07.2006
The flight from Buenos Aires to Trelew takes only a little over an hour, but you feel like you've arrived on another planet. Instead of an endless urban landscape that transitions into an even more endless coastal lawn, you find yourself in the middle of an arid plain that looks like a cross between northern Scot…
Heist!
02.06.2006
There was a spectacular bank heist here the day after I moved to Buenos Aires. What I know about it has all come through the thick veil of my rudimentary Spanish, so I'm sure details and entire facts have been embellished to suit my sense of fun, but even in general outline it's a crime straight out of the movies. On the afternoon of (Friday!) January …
02.06.2006
There was a spectacular bank heist here the day after I moved to Buenos Aires. What I know about it has all come through the thick veil of my rudimentary Spanish, so I'm sure details and entire facts have been embellished to suit my sense of fun, but even in general outline it's a crime straight out of the movies. On the afternoon of (Friday!) January …
Idle Words
brevity is for the weak
Eating the happiest cows in the world
I Spy
I go for a walk in Beijing and accidentally infiltrate the Chinese space program
Dabblers and Blowhards
Smushing Paul Graham
Attacked By Thugs
Warsaw police hijinks
Dating Without Kundera
Alternatives to the Slavic Dave Matthews
A Morning in Iceland
The best layover in the world
A Rocket To Nowhere
Space Shuttle rant
Best Practices For Time Travelers
The story of John Titor
French Week 3/03 (Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6)
100 Years Of Turbulence
Wright Brothers exposed
NYC Marathon 2003
Bleeding nipples
PC Forum
Business at the speed of dumb
Poland Joins The EU
Report from Warsaw
brevity is for the weak
Greatest Hits
Argentina on Two Steaks A DayEating the happiest cows in the world
I Spy
I go for a walk in Beijing and accidentally infiltrate the Chinese space program
Dabblers and Blowhards
Smushing Paul Graham
Attacked By Thugs
Warsaw police hijinks
Dating Without Kundera
Alternatives to the Slavic Dave Matthews
A Morning in Iceland
The best layover in the world
A Rocket To Nowhere
Space Shuttle rant
Best Practices For Time Travelers
The story of John Titor
French Week 3/03 (Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6)
100 Years Of Turbulence
Wright Brothers exposed
NYC Marathon 2003
Bleeding nipples
PC Forum
Business at the speed of dumb
Poland Joins The EU
Report from Warsaw
Every Damn Thing
Every Damn Thing
Your Host
Maciej Cegłowski
maciej @ ceglowski.com
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