Getting stuff done, seeing new places, and doing the usual

With Stefan gone, the mission was to get stuff done. There were really only two things to do: buy a phone, and rent a flat.

Getting the phone was easy. I'd seen what I fancied on my first walk around town last Friday: a relatively basic, but nice, Motorola, for $169. Cheap and sufficient. Purchasing it was a doddle. The woman in the shop just did what she had to do and did it with a smile, and then I went to the shop next door to get some credit. Getting stuff done should always be that easy. Like installing software on a Mac. Download it. Drag it to the apps folder (yes, that's right, just do what the picture tells you to do). Bang. I did that with the flickr uploading tool today. Here's one of my new uploads for starters. I think it sums up my mood at the moment:

Anyway, the next task was going to be trickier. I browsed through Clarín while having a cortado con tres media lunas (espresso with milk, and three small croissants - that's my breakfast over here, so learn the Spanish), and stopped to see what the classified section had to offer in the way of flats. A few properties, for good prices. Jaime wasn't lying when he said that paying Pisos Compartidos $950 a month to share a room with someone, in a dodgy part of town, was rather steep. Far too steep! If you're sharing a room around here, you could end up paying about $400. $950 a month will get you your own room, in a nice part of town.

So, I found a place for $930 a month, in a beautiful part of town. Alto Palermo! I'd always said I wanted to live in Palermo, for two reasons. Borges lived in Palermo, and I too once lived in Palermo (in Sicily). It's available from next Tuesday, and I fancy taking it, so I've booked myself into a hostel in San Telmo for the time being. This hostel is far better than the last one because it's in a nice part of town (still not absolutely perfect, but so much better than where I was), I have an en-suite bathroom, and I can freeload wifi here :-)

As soon as I found I had an internet connection, I got locked on to rinse fm and caught Crazy Cousinz. The beauty of the time difference is that the daytime shows I generally listen to will be on during the hot part of the day, when I won't want to be outside anyway. Things really are working out well. I was euphoric as I listened to the Cousinz playing their set (even though, as always, there was plenty of dodgy mixing going on...), and when they announced that "Go" by Meleka was available on iTunes, I didn't delay... The joys of modern technology! On the previous occasions when I've lived abroad, I've had to forfeit a lot of the culture I enjoyed. But these days, I seem to be able to nadar y guardar la ropa (have my cake and eat it)... This is all surely too good to be true. I downloaded a garage mix from way back for free, loaded up my Nano, and got going.

It was very hot today. This guy must've been baking:

It really was hot. I even have a red neck to prove it. For me to have a red neck, given that I've been walking around outside for the past few days anyway, is proof enough of how strong the sun must've been. Anyway, I spent the afternoon in the green part of the city. Very green. Very nice indeed. There's a zoo here, I might pay it a visit sometime. But I'll definitely be heading to the Jardín Japonés and Plaza Holanda with a rug, a book, and plenty of water and salty snacks, on a regular basis. 

Anyway, I saw on my map that there was a planetarium in the vicinity too, so I headed for it. It took me a while to find it. Quite a long time. I didn't mind, because I'm in no hurry these days, and it's not like I minded being outdoors. However, by the time I found it, I'd missed the events I could've attended that day. But anyway, there's plenty of time to do plenty of things there. I may learn all about the stars while I'm over here, in addition to getting one hell of a suntan. The planetarium building is totally cool: 1960s science fiction!

It was cool inside, and by the time I got there, I was very tired and hot, and I wanted to sit down and stay there for hours. But I had the long walk back to look forward to... I sat down mid-way, but I had nothing to read, and I didn't have the energy to write, and I was out of water anyway. The lack of reading material was getting to me, though. I'd browsed through some books earlier in the day, but found nothing suitable. Fortunately, when I got off the tube and started making my way back to the hostel, I discovered that a bookstore had magically appeared.

Of course, bookstores can't magically appear, but I definitely hadn't seen it on the way to the park. I'm talking about magical appearances here, because I spent the morning looking for the same internet cafe that I'd used yesterday. Yesterday, I found this place twice, without problems. Today, I walked up and down the street about three times, but couldn't find it anywhere. Total confusion. Where had it gone?

Anyway, a bookstore had magically appeared. I went in and bought an anthology of Argentine horror stories. I want to stop writing this now so that I can start reading them. Anyway, I'm off to see the flat again tomorrow and probably put the deposit down. Life is going well right now, so let's hope that I get the flat and everyone continues to run smoothly ;-)