Buenos Aires

I arrived. I almost didn´t. Qantarse delayed my Chch - Akld flight by an hour, leaving my new found friend and I exactly 10 minutes to run from Domestic to International, through Immigration and down to the furtherest gate to make the flight. We had 2 minutes to spare. I´ve never run so fast in my life. The crew laughed at me when I couldn´t speak to give them my ticket because I was so breathless.

Santiago lived up to it´s smoggy reputation. Apparentely you can see the Andes from the airport. (photos to come)

Buenos Aires is beautiful and dingy. It too has smog problems, but its been sunny and oh so wintery. Well if you can call wintery 22 degree heat at 9pm and todays high of 16 degrees. So much for cold and rainy.

The driving is interesting in BA. My taxi driver (who kindly suffered my attempts at a spanish conversation) drove at 120kmph on the motorway, and if someone got in his lane, would pull up right behind them and flash his lights. They ever so kindly moved out the way immediately. And there aren´t always lanes painted on the smaller streets. The lanes vary from 2 -3 depending on the driver´s degree of confidence. My driver was pretty confident. Oh and swerving between ´lanes´ is perfectly acceptable too.

Upon arrival my apartment lady hadn´t arrived so the security guard let me sit with him. He could say Hello and Good night in English. That was it. Through a variety of sign and broken spanish, we had a lovely 20 minute conversation. Most of it was spent laughing.

Our apartment is great, if not a little noisy with traffic. Spanish Cable tv is hilarious as they are mostly English shows with Spanish subtitles. I´ve already watched four episodes of Doctor House (said in a strong spanish accent).

I have photos but I´m yet to figure out where the usb drive is on these shop computers. So I´ll have to put them up at a later date.

Adios!

Saying Goodbye

It isn't until you're leaving that you realise the impact people have on your life - work colleagues especially. It's a good way of learning how important people are to you and how special you are to them.

The presents are embarrassing but always appreciated. The home made cards are special and to be treasured. Saying farewell to children that you aren't sure if they've completely understood the concept is always heartbreaking when they initiate kissing you goodbye.

It's certainly a very special group of women that I work with. I could think of no one else who would sing a rousing rendition of 'My Body Makes Music' (actions included I believe) at the tops of their voices in a downtown restaurant just to cheer me up as I was overcome by tears of leaving.

Sure beat the lame 'Happy Birthday' song the table next to us had.

27 sleeps

And the room is in chaos. Why is it that we decide we want to hoard so much sentimental stuff while flatting, when we know that one day, the decision has to be made to throw it out?

I am making the most of living in Newtown. Anything I don't want, I leave on the footpath and it's gone in a matter of hours. Like "they" (specialists, researchers and other meaningful nobodies) say,

One man's rubbish is another man's treasure.

Amen to that.

8 weeks to go

So the blog is going to get a revival.

In little over 8 weeks I'll be on my way to Argentina. And lord knows I'll be too useless to write letters and postcards to everyone. So I'll update this periodically with stories from Team On-the-Road-Argentina. It'll be decorated with photographs so those who prefer picture books can enjoy as well.

xx

A Music Therapy Candidate?

If you think I can be difficult and defensive about my favourite bands, read on ...

A woman snapped and stabbed her partner to death after he objected to her listening to Bruce Springsteen music, an Australian court has been told.
The Supreme Court in Brisbane today heard Karen Lee Cooper, 50, used a long-bladed kitchen knife to stab 49-year-old Kevin Watson once in the chest because she "just got tired" of him bossing her around.
She pleaded guilty today to manslaughter and was sentenced to eight years jail.
The court was told the pair had been drinking at their rented home at Cedar Vale, south of Brisbane, on July 8, 2006, when an argument broke out over Cooper's choice of music.
Defence lawyer Greg Maguire said Cooper experienced a "brain snap" and ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, which she used to stab Mr Watson after he said he didn't want to listen to a Bruce Springsteen CD.
"I mean, who the hell doesn't like Bruce Springsteen, for God's sake?" she later told arresting police. "I just picked up a knife and I went 'boom'."
The knife pierced Mr Watson's aorta and oesophagus, and he died at the scene.
The court was told Cooper dialled triple-0 and requested an ambulance before taking a handful of painkillers.
She later told police she had hoped the pills would kill her before they arrived.
The court was told she regretted stabbing her partner, and that she believed he didn't deserve to die.
Cooper has already served 613 days in custody.

Worst Album Cover

I can't even begin to comprehend the message she is trying to express through her music.

Argentina

One Spanish 101 paper,
One and half years of Tango,
Two Community Adult Introductory Spanish courses and
Three years of talking about it.

FINALLY,

I'm going to Argentina.

Wellytown

Sometimes New Zealand has a summer.



And this post is for all those (besides those of us in San Diego who have forgotten what rain looks like) who are living in London or abroad and thinking New Zealand is having one of "those" summers again.
Think again my friends.
This is one of those summers from your primary school, which stretched out endlessly with blue cloudless days.


It's warm enough to go to the beach and stay there awhile. And what would a trip to the beach be without extra large hats, wine, stupid photos and hideous sunglasses - $2 purple sunglasses that take you back to the 70's.



Eat your heart out.

And of course, swimming in the New Zealand summer ocean. Filled with great things like penguins who occasionally swim past you and jellyfish spawn. Swimming in jellyfish is always interesting. If the sea were red, it would be kinda like swimming in not quite set raspberry jelly .. or so I assume.

Japan Week

'Japan' week officially started on Saturday at Flat 93.
(late update due to finding cable to download photos)





The week is shaping up well with promises of origami parties, sushi to rivel Midland's, Phrase of the Day, culinary delights including tempura and wasabi peas, Sakura viewings and the 'M&M Chopstick Challenge' which takes place on the last day.



The celebrations are to mark the leaving of one of the flatmates on his week long journey in Japan. Only, he got to fly Business Premier. The remaining flatmates deny any rumours of envy and bitterness.



Day One included a trip to the market and Yans supermarket. Loaded with sushi making delights, the three flatmates returned home to make their own sushi.






Nobody is left out from these celebrations. Zoe was included after showing immense interest in the rice.


Seen here, Zoe oversees Marianna's technique before trying her own hand at pawing out the rice.





The end of the day was celebrated in the garden with a cup of green tea and drops of rain. Unfortunately the weather did not stay warm and sunny as it had promised. It wasn't enough to dampen the faces of these happy little sandmen though.

Hi! I've added you as a friend on Arsebook...

Hi friend,

I've requested to add you as a friend on Arsebook. You can use Arsebook to upload blackmail material or publish lies, get the latest gossip from your friends, post videos on your profile, tag your friends, use privacy settings to hide your info from enemies, join a hate-clan to disturb people who live, study, or work around you.

Thanks,
Rebecca

P.S. Here's the link
http://www.arsebook.org/#

I've been looking so long at my pictures of you

So it's been a while since I've put anything up on here. Guess other things take priority (and I'm NOT talking about the latest cyber friendship site).

I've been busy with music concerts as there's been a speight of good bands over here recently.

I took my parents to Bob Dylan (those who know my dad know what a Dylanoid he is) in Christchurch. Third row tickets to see a living legend. He played a decent set with songs from old and new albums. What I love about Bob Dylan concerts is you don't go to hear the song how it is on the record. He adapts it in so many ways. Not many other artists I know change their songs so much and still make them sound incredible.
Highlights included 'Tangled Up in Blue', 'Masters of War' and 'Don't Think Twice'.

Not content with a single concert, I flew straight up to Auckland after a day of work in Wellington to see The Cure. A three hour epic show seen from the front row (of course. I couldn't have been anywhere else). I made eye contact with Robert twice (even making him laugh with my stupid facial response). I was smack bang in the middle between Robert and Porl (the guitarist) meaning I could swoon up at Robert as he gave the most incredible rendition of 'Pictures of You' and marvel at Porl's prowess on the guitar.

And of course I asked for the pick. Mouthed it out to Porl as we made eye contact again. He laughed (I must have been the standing joke for the band) and mouthed back, "after the concert". Sure enough, at the beginning of the third encore, he comes out and throws the tiny purple pick at me. It lands infront of the crowd, two people over (who I knew from the 6 hour lining up stage) but that didn't stop me from yelling, "Piss off! that's mine!". Whoooo, never mess with me and my favourite band.

So that's what I've been doing.

Oh and while I was in Auckland, my friends took me out for a posh dinner at this fancy restaurant. You know, I was given flowers, chaffeured to the valet service, that sort of thing.
And wouldn't you know we met a Danish princess.


Here she is waving to her adoring fans. We had a chat about things ... life, family and danishes.

Which was nice.

Moving flats

I sit here now, waiting to go to work. My house around me is still the same - granted a whole lot tidier from this morning.

Sometime between this time now and this time next week, we will have packed up our entire house and moved it to another address.

In one week.
While still going about our daily working lives.


This is going to be entertaining ...

Music Concerts

I'm forever ringing people from concerts. Some desire to share the overwhelming excitement and atmosphere you experience from being there. I'm hardly ever on the receiving end ...

until Wednesday morning as I drove to work. Sharon OE pops up on my ringing phone. As I sit at the lights, I try to decipher the strains of guitar, vocals and static that fall out of the earpiece into something familiar.

My final guess ... Dave Dobbyn.

Yet as I text my suggestion to Sharon, I hear no response. "Was I wrong?", I think to myself. Perhaps her phone just rang me by mistake (an expensive mistake at that).

I should learn not to doubt myself. Guided by another friend attended the London gig tomorrow for the opening band, I checked out the website.

Dave Dobbyn
Tuesday 19th June - Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
9c Victoria Street 8pm


Perhaps I'm better at deciphering than I thought.
Thanks for the call Sharon.
xx

Whatever happened to predictability?

Armed with our Lonely Planet guide, Kelly's 'Better than Lonely Planet List of Things To Do' and the Full House theme tune running through our heads, our trip to San Francisco was looking to be a sun filled five days of adventure.

However, it didn't quite turn out as expected.

Oh the plane ride was great. Nothing like 'movies on demand' to keep you awake for the 12 hour flight. We even figured out how to work the BART ticket system and felt like we had won the jackpot when our $4.85 change was given to us in quarters and one dime. Lord knows why the Americans don't have a fifty cent piece. We even found our hostel with no trouble. Right smack bang in the middle of five strip clubs. Still - it was in the middle of Little Italy. We were 'welcomed' by a rather sombre looking guy who informed us we were in Room 1. Turns out Room 1 was the 9 bed dorm room, already filled with seven guys and smelt like urine. I had booked a 4 bed room. Thoroughly jet lagged, craving coffee and tired, this is not what we wanted to deal with straight up. So we complained. Nothing happened. So we politely asked if we would get a refund for the last two nights if we found another hostel to stay in. THAT got their attention (apparently they think the Green Tortoise is the best hostel around). They become accomodating and put us up in a private room for the same price as a dorm for one night.
Then we went in search of coffee. And had our first experience of dealing with the American way of not including tax and having all their notes looking the same and only 1, 5, 10, 25c coins. Needless to say, I have never appreciated the eftpos system and our currency like the way I appreciated it at that moment, standing in a coffee shop trying to stop from swaying over and get the right change.
The woman was kind enough to explain the money (they don't obviously say 5 or 10c on them) and how to tip. Suddenly the money didn't seem so complicated - just annoying.

This first afternoon was beautiful and sunny - but a chill breeze. We basked in the sun, unaware that we were in for three days of fog. A typical San Francisco summer.

Friday was our Haight-Ashbury day. An adventurous 6 mile walk from town included a stint through the Tenderloin where Marianna lost me when I checked a map on the bus shelter wall, only to find herself surrounded by gangs of youths with their hoods up. Haight Ashbury - famous for hippies, Amoeba Records (hosting The Phoenix Foundation the week after we were there), the Grateful Dead and the Painted Ladies (houses).



Cast your mind back to Full House's opening credits - the bridge, the Tanners and the picnic. Nice family picnic ... on this hill.

Friday night cousin Simon arrived. We had planned our Extreme Tourist day for Saturday and were disappointed to find the fog hanging over the Golden Gate bridge all day.
At least it cleared up for our Alcatraz tour.


A audio tour took you through the old prison explaining where Al Capone was kept and how the only 'successful' escapees got out. One guy thinks they made it and are now living in South America. In fact he sounded pretty convinced because he knew they were learning Spanish just before they left. Wow, now it's so obvious.


Oh yeah and it was pretty damn windy.

We decided to leave the Golden Gate Bridge til Sunday and instead all bought a book at City Lights Book store (Kelly - we went there three times). Which was nice.

This is Cafe Triste - where some of the Beat Poets wrote their literature. If I had been paying attention, I could have told you more about it.














We rode trams up and down the world famous hills, along with hundreds of other tourists. some armed with video cameras (believe me, it's not that riveting). We walked up to Lombard Street to see what all the fuss is about. People were cueing in their 4-wheel drive SUVs to drive this road. Why? This town also has Segway tours. Unbelievable.








On Monday, we went to the Mission Carnival with the longest parade I've ever seen. It was an incredibly vibrant parade with over 41 floats of music, drumming and dancers. We even had time to go shopping and eat lunch and the parade was STILL going.


















Helena took us out on Sunday night to this great bar. Think Malibu/Melrose motel with pastel coloured doors, a swimming pool complete with palm trees, an outside dj cranking good tunes that everyone else seems to enjoy dancing to, and inside dark recesses to lounge within and ... two vinyl beds. Huh?
Still .. great party! Toxic drinks though. We went to the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy's for dessert, only to buy one piece between three of us - those pieces are huge! Still, don't think the waitress thought much of us.

Monday dawned sunny - of course. Typical!


So Marianna and I did our final cable car ride the Pier and hired a tandem ... because we are Ladies! We cycled as fast as we could in lady like fashion to make it to the first pillar of the bridge for photos. That bridge is damn huge! and the view pretty spectacular. Also the 'call for help' phones to prevent suicide were quite a stark reminder of what people think the bridge is 'handy' for.
Before leaving, we purchased products from a CompUSA store (yes, I joined the masses with my IPOD purchase), and dealt with some of the slowest, rudest customer service people I've ever met. Obviously their staff morale is low.

We visted friends of Marianna's in Lafayette - to find the weather about 10c hotter. At least that felt like summer.

And that was San Francisco. Back onto the plane, a 12.5hour plane ride back to New Zealand and straight to work. Like we'd never been.

Can I have ten seconds of your time?

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/CureTourNZ07


Diehard Cure fans Gordon Pitcairn and Alastair Ross have launched a national petition to bring the British band to New Zealand.
New Plymouth diehard Cure fans Alastair Ross and Gordon Pitcairn are behind a nationwide petition to lure the British pop-goth band to New Zealand shores.

The petition, which closes on Monday, is online as well as in 50 music stores throughout the country.

It is being run at Mr Ross and Mr Pitcairn's own expense.

"We hope to get thousands of signatures.

"It's been running about a month and we have a few thousand already," says Mr Ross, an Inland Revenue case manager.

It is not the first time a petition has convinced The Cure that New Zealand is worthy of a concert. A petition to bring the band here was successful back in 1992 - The Cure's last appearance in the country.

The band is heading Downunder later in the year.

But Mr Ross and Mr Pitcairn were bitterly disappointed to discover New Zealand was not included in the tour.

"They owe us," says Mr Pitcairn, who works for the New Plymouth District Council.

"Every time they tour Australia, but they can't fly over to do one show in New Zealand, and there is a huge fan base here.

"We go on to The Cure website and there's fans from Detroit saying they haven't seen the band in 12 months - try 15 years."

Mr Ross says he has headed across the Tasman at great expense to catch The Cure in the past, but Mr Pitcairn says that kind of money would buy every Cure album twice over.

The men say people will probably think they're crazy to launch a petition - especially if it fails.

But fans have to get off their butts to make things happen, they say.

"We have to give it our best shot, and even if it doesn't work, we will still have done more than what we set out to do."

Fans of The Cure can sign the petition at Raw Records, Sounds or the Missing Link.

Alternatively, they can go online at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/CureTourNZ07/



Please sign it. Even if you don't really care if they come. How important is my happiness to you? :) Oh yeah and if you search the petition you can find my grammatically incorrect comment. Oh well. We can't all be poets.

Cheesy singing

Wellington to San Francisco. $600 return.

5 days. Leaving 24th May.


A deal like that? You would expect the computer to say no *cough*.
But instead Grab A Seat said yes.

And so just like that, Marianna booked her and I on an adventure to San Francisco.

I'M GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO!!!
(now you all have that song stuck in your head, don't you.)

Three little words

Communication.

Relatively straight forward I think.

But isn't it funny, how you phone someone (who is meant to be getting back to you) and you leave polite 'please', 'thank you' and 'much appreciated' messages ...

but it isn't until you use the words


"Small Claims Court"


that the person you are phoning suddenly recieves your messages and remembers how to use a phone?

Amazing! You should try it!


Phase Two: Getting quotes for repairing Camille through the insurance company. Grant finally came to the party.

Controversial Healer to visit Auckland.

Controversial indeed. Exactly what type of healing does he do?


"In his book, He Touched Me, Hinn talks of his "life-changing spiritual experience" - as a young boy in a small church in Oshawa, Ontario ... "

Bastards of the world

Last Wednesday, someone rear ended Camille. As we were taking off from lights, he wasn't paying attention and rammed into the back of me. Whiplash galore, I pulled over and so did he. Seemed a really friendly guy and we exchanged numbers. He is fully insured apparentely. My 3rd Party insurance meant I had to make a claim through his insurance, so that night I rang and left a message on his home phone and his cellphone to ring me back.

Just like that child in the Save the Children ad ... I waited.

Thursday. No contact. I rang and left a message on his home phone (which nobody answered on the three occasions I rang).

Still ... I waited.


Friday came and still no contact. This is my work vehicle. I have to borrow cars to make it to work. This is impacting my business. I ring and leave a message on his home phone saying its urgent he contact me.

I wait ...

Saturday. Nothing. I finally ring the home number again after news that I should try the Insurance Companies to search for the car or the police, and Catherine answers. I assume this is his wife. She seems pretty pissed off when I pleasantly say who I am and if Grant is home. She abruptly explained that he was away on work and would have to file the insurance himself.

Hmmm ... I was so shocked at her response I didn't have time to ask questions like, "when is he home?".

So I rang back in the afternoon to ask this and she was so rude to me. Sounding pissed off like I was some kind of telemarketer or child stalking her, she said, "And I really don't appreciate all of these phone calls either". I asked her if she appreciated that it was my work vehicle and I need it fixed as soon as possible. She went on about Grant having to do it when he's back from work. "Which is when?" I politely ask. "The end of the week". Fucking Friday?! This coming Friday! Great for my business!

I'm pretty angry by now but accordingly to Derek, I'm still polite on the phone. I apologised to her. As I put the phone down, I'm shaking with anger and yell "FUCKING COW" and "BITCH" at the top of my lungs. I don't normally call people that. She made me out to be the bad person!

Now maybe I should do a poll. If you were her, wouldn't you have phoned me back and said, "My husband is away until Friday so nothing can be done about it til then, I'm sorry." ... WOULDN'T YOU HAVE DONE THAT! What a bloody bitch to make it out that I was stalking them or annoying them. He ran into the back of me and I can't use my car!

I've done a lot of yelling. I figure I'll not send them any ill thoughts, (or good will for that matter), but just relax until he finally gets back to me. Hopefully he is just a nice guy that unfortunately forgot to get a hold of me - how you do that I don't know, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and that he just has the badluck of being married to a bitch - and they are procreating which is a bad thing for the rest of the world.

I've just thought that maybe the cellphone is shared by them so this poor woman has gotten all five messages, and Grant really is away out on business (god he might be a pilot for all I know) but the way she spoke to me was ridiculous. He hit my bloody car! She didn't even ask if I was okay. What a fucking cow.

I'm sure everything will work out and I'm just going to leave it so that Grant doesn't get an earfull from bitchlady about me being some kind of stalker, and Grant and I can settle it without whorelady interrupting and putting her delegation in. God, the poor guy is probably under her thumb. I should really try to rescue him.

And I will also say to him that I didn't appreciate the way she spoke to me. I can understand her getting annoyed with the amount of phone calls that I made to them, but why the hell didn't she do something about it? What? Did she think to herself, "Oh I know! I'll just leave her in the dark so that she thinks that my husband is screwing her over and avoiding her phonecalls". Wow .. she must have shit for brains.

I don't think Grant is horrible. I just think he forgot to contact me and hasn't been able to. Maybe he should have left instructions for his wife to let me know whats going on ... but come on. He is a male. Sorry, if anyone has a better excuse I'm willing to hear it.

___________

(This is Derek)

Beck is still being too nice about the whole ordeal. Let's point out a few things she has missed.

Last Wednesday was a beautiful day. The birds were chirping. The sun was blazing. Girls sang in the street collecting money for the cause of goodwill towards humanity. Grant, if that is indeed his real name, had his pitchfork at his side when he eyed up Camille. He saw that the lovely, innocent 1967 Morris was struggling to get into second gear - the collision didn't even happen at the lights - but he chose to ignore this. Deliberately. Wanker is an understatement.

He rocketed into Camille. Rocketed. He then acted all nice-guy like because, well, look at Camille and Beck - aren't they just the cutest things? Wouldn't you act all nice, even if you were in fact the devil himself?

Days passed.

Another important fact in this case is that, when Beck first started calling Grant - if that's his real name - on his cellphone, it actually rang. As in, he was in coverage. He should have been able to receive the messages, or the person who had the phone should have been able to. But they chose to ignore it. Deliberately. Wankers. Understatement.

Finally, let us come to the phone conversation with the whore. Beck was far too polite - she is, as you all know, adorable and incapable of ill-feeling unless completely mortified - and this woman deserved a hiding, no less. I would like to have a few words with her - and a few moments in a sound-proof room - but Beck wouldn't allow it. But, being a journo, I have my ways of finding things out and I might just pay the bastards a visit or two in the next few days. Armed with eggs. And a stink-bomb or two.

Anyone up for a clandestine mission?

World of Music Arts and Dance

WOMAD 2007 was held over 16 - 18th March at the Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl, New Plymouth.



It just so happened that that was the weekend that the entire country's weather decided to pack up and produce a large rain front with wind to rival Wellington's bad days.
Great news for the large number of WOMAD goers who were camping on the race course - us included.

Arriving on Friday, none of us had done any research into who were the bands to see except for the Gotan Project. However, the programme is organised so that you have the chance to make almost all the acts as most play twice. Friday had six hours of music, Saturday over 12 and Sunday had 12 hours of music.



Here we are enjoying coffee in our vestibule on Saturday morning. Each morning was spent lazing around, planning where to go and keeping out of the wind and rain. As other tents failed to survive the rain, ours became a place of refuge to dry off, drink coffee and warm up before facing the rain again.


Top Picks:

The Gotan Project

WOMAD was the first time The Gotan Project have played in New Zealand. On stage, there were two djs, a guitarist, vocalist, accordian player, pianist, and a strings section. The band was incredibly tight and sounded just like the cd but with a fuller and more energetic sound. There was no room to tango as the Bowl of Brooklands main stage area was packed.

Mariza

Mariza sings Fado - a song style from Portugal. The music was mournful and yearning yet has a positive spirit in it. Her stage presence was incredible, making us rush off to buy her cd and dvd and then get her to sign it ... does that make us geeky?

Salif Keita


Salif was outcast by his family as he was born white - an albino-African. His show was interesting as he didn't speak to the crowd once during the set (probably due to his inability to speak English).

Fabio & Ana's Tango Workshops

There were workshops on offer as well. Derek and I went to the first tango workshop with Fabio and Ana (who are doing a tango show called One Night In Buenos Aires coming to New Zealand in May - keep a look out) and were asked up on stage to dance with several other couples.




Pictures taken by Grant Pease www.pix2c.net

Word got around about these tango workshops and the next day there were over a hundred people dancing tango at the workshop. Derek partnered Marianna and together they braved the torrential downpour to bring you this final pose ...