La verdad

het verwijderen van rassen uit trinidad naar trabago, het land waar leo beenhakker coach was en naar de wereldkampioenschappen ging, het het vliegtuig. Nice

Un chiste poquito

Again, I haven't been keeping up with the latest interstellar rulings on incest. But I'm pretty sure Qui Gon wouldn't think this was okay.



Chiste means joke in lunfardo (argentine slang)

More to come shortly, big things are happening. Good big things.

Hablabamos...Go ahead say it....Hablabamos

Rolls off the lengua pretty smooth right? Hola gente - como esta? Yo estoy bien, mis padres estan aca y cada noche he cenado en un resturante buenisimo. As of this past monday morning the entire Minnesota raised Cloyd clan has been rocking the city of Good Winds with a style both considerate and riveting. My mom and dad are staying in the historic (tourist filled) district around plaza de mayo about 25 minutes from my apartment. All I can say about that is the taxi economy has gotten a steady boost from our families frequent shifting of place to place.....Oh and did someone say TAXI!!!

Scream it, paint a sign in neon pink on a black poster with a batman spotlight shining on it, lay in the middle of the road with the words "I need a taxi" written around you in blood, no matter what clever attempt you come up with I can guarantee you one thing - that taxi you see, and need, will not stop for you. Let me quickly explain my slightly negative feelings towards the yellow fever (I may have to start calling taxi service here that). Last night my acclaimed sister selected a fine restaurant for us to celebrate that o so special dia de San Patricio (and the answer to your question is yes, argentines do celebrate St. Patty's and yes the do celebrate it in the same fashion American's do; having a few quiet beers with friends without getting to crazy or over the top.....) Anywho, we were in the Micro-center, restaurant was in Palermo viejo, 25 minutes separated us, the time was 8:10 reservation at 9, sin problemas verdad? Not to mention we had adapted the not so often used American gastronomic schedule, so we were eating about 1 - 2 hours before the average Argentine would be - therefore no one hogging all those 40,000, thats right 40,000, cabs in the city. But alas as the circulating door swept away and the fresh night air passed through our senses we realized one small change from when we entered the hotel not but 40 minutes before. I don't know if any of you have seen what a 50 caliber bullet looks like but it's about 3 1/2 inches long and the width of a whiteboard marker, intimidating when fired from the fixed roof of a hummer, but truly terrifying when hurtling from the heavens in the form of angeles' tears. The monsoon we entered was powerful and relentless, which I assume most of the other residents of the Micro-center gathered after nearly drowning after 4 minutes outside, because every single cab, and this is a hotel district so there should be many, the hive if you will of cabs in the city, but every single cab was either full, or for some very interesting reason didn't want our money and continued to drive past the saddening look of Therese Bowman Cloyd getting soaked to her bones. Long story short we couldn't get a cab, none would stop or all were full, we ran through the rain to the Subte, then had another 12 blocks to run through a schmorgesborg of plummeting rain because the cab we picked up after riding the Subte didn't know the address we gave him. But once we got to the restaurant, and they air dried us until they considered us presentable to enter, the food was good, the pours deep and the conversation, well, the conversation was much brighter then the atmosphere we watched through the window.

I'm not a negative person, and actually I respect a cabbie more than others I think, but I just don't understand why they would straight up not stop for people when it's raining. Thats the most important time for a cab to be used, they could charge an extra 5 pesos I wouldn't be angry, but come on, it's raning.

Didn't mean to sound so stormy, I'm glad I could get that rain cloud to move from over my head, I know it sounds like I was a wet blanket but at least I'm not flooding you with other less passionate information.

Oh and hablabamos means "we spoke' in the unspecific past tense.

Thats all for now cause no one likes reading really long pieces of text with out pictures so I'm gonna end it now, with a picture.



Chau Chau
Hasta

One more thing

Oh and if anyone want's to see what I did for my senior thesis in college go here. I'm trying to drive up the amount of views so I can use it as a bargaining chip for a potential job...Selfish yes, ahhh, yea I guess it's just kind of selfish thing to do. Whoops

Y despues los fotos

Here are some of the highlights of the first half of Elizabeth's visit..

Gustaria decir....algo...

Como se van? Hola - Everybody a searchin' these interwebs having a pleasant day? Are we online reading something provided by blogspot at the office?(michael) at home (mom) or possibly via the latest in advanced wireless technology, the new Anroid phone (Uncle John perhaps). Most likely you reading this because the crime drama you watch religiously every wednesday is at commercial, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Updates,,updates,,updates. Well my sister made it here safely, 12 hour night flight and I've never seen her better. Rumpza, our friend from back home in Minnesnowda, was supposed to arrive at Ezeiza airport around the same time, but in the obviously ironic fulfillment of their company name Cheapo airlines overbooked and alas or little Rumpza friend had to spend the night in the classiest digs the ugly red-headed child of the airline industry could afford, I don't exactly remember the name but it had best, inn, savers and suites in some order. Anywho, she made it the next day, we picked her up and voom... yet another force of nature struck Sa, the Cloyd/Rumpza tornado of fun that is.

We did many things, one of them being me actually understanding what can and can't be done, what is actually interesting for visitors to see, and most importantly where not to eat. Especially when you sister is what we call a Captain in the Gourmet food Gestapo. (The mediocre ravioli I ordered in San Telmo almost made me lose a pinky finger I think) To make it quick, the touristy things are touristy for a reason, they are pretty awesome, and informative. So sometimes it's best to suck it up, throw on your fannie pack, squirt on the sun block and jump on that bright yellow open roofed double decker tour bus for all the Portenos to see. We did so and I learned more about this city (historically and culturally) in 2 hours then I did in the first month, really good stuff.

Aside form touring we also had a little welcoming party, where our eclectic group of friends could meet the famed E-Bone on Rumpztronic. I think that the recent arrivers were a little shocked to see the high population of central and Northern European influence in our group of friends. Ze dutch, ze Germans, y some swizas were running about, and fortunately they all speak wonderfully accented english that really only sounds better and more fun after a few games of beer pong. I'll leave it at this; the question "Do you want to go make party?" Can never not be both funny/and exciting. My usual response was "yes, I like to make party very much ", while filling another triangle of cups on our psuedo-beer pong table. A good time was had by all and the mess in the morning was actually cleaned quickly, which I am always surprised about (I'm usually still half asleep when I'm picking up the bottles and glasses)

Mis padres are coming sunday, Elizabeth and I have quite a potent line up of fine food establishments we will be hitting up as well as a day vacation to Uruguay I'm hoping can happen. (I've been in South America more than two months and have yet to see a beach. Technically that's not really too weird because there's plenty going on inland, but we all think of the sunny coast when we imagine South America, don't we)

Other than those occurances I'm still cruising along at my internship, I just recently joined Conversation Exchange which is an amazing site the brings two people together who want to speak/learn the native language of the other. I have two people already written to me and I just posted my profile a few hours ago, it's all free, and the people all live close, the internet is amazing and I hope that I can really meet some more local peeps through this. I will be stopping work here at DDB at the end of the month and starting a career as a salesman, and also teaching two students in the morning. Pair that up with the tennis partner I think I just found on craig's list and Tommy boy is going to be packing a full schedule, but as they say those who do, do stuff well, those who don't, aren't really doing stuff so there's nothing even to be done well. You know what I mean, so I'm trying to do stuff, therefore have an opportunity to do said stuff well - I think you guys are catching my drift right? Good.

Gustaria decir means "I would like to say" - gustaria is conditional for gustar which comes in handy when ordering an apple at the market - "Gustaria la manzana alla"

Chau Chau

Bien viaje

Oh and PS - I don't know if you guys watched the Oscar's but the Documentary film I worked on in College, The Cove, won best documentary, pretty sweet. Louis Psihoyos the director, writer, and star of the movie and who accepted the award, is one of the main people I met and actually spoke normally with. And he was every bit as sincere when I spoke with him as he was accepting the award, which I find pretty awesome. Anyway I think everyone should see it, it's a good movie, it's moving, and it really is talking about something very important. Go here to learn more about it and see where it's playing. Oh and look for the name Cokely Coyd at the end of the credits - that my "advertising name"

Me echas suyo razon

Buenas chicos - I'm slowly getting a hang of this internet 2.0 atmosphere that now exists. For all you technological dinosaurs (or anyone who spends less than 2.5 hours on the internet a day) web 2.0 is basically the onset, use, and intermixing of all these new online applications. Obviously facebook, myspace, flickr, digg, twitter, newsvine, delicious, etc... Most of my days are spent scrounging the internet for new capabilities in various web programing languages and through this I have discovered the crazy world that is web 2.0 Anyway if anyone is interested by any of this digg is a pretty awesome website along with newsvine.

Segundo, I don't know if any of you guys know Mano Chau, the band but they are pretty sweet and darn catchy. Here's one song I'm particularly fond of



Tercera - The verb echar specifically means "to toss" but is used in a lot of colloquial phrases. For example, no me echas la culpa, " don't toss me the blame" , I like it cause it is a cool way to say a lot of things. The title of this post is asking you, if it is that anyone is reading this, in which case I would really only be asking myself, but anyway im blowing my mind too much right now...The title of this post is asking that you toss me your idea about a certain predicament I have found myself in. I have a job opportunity basically brokering auto transport for people in the US, this job would pay well (for expat Argentine standards) but I would be working 40hrs a week talking to Americans all day, not really what I left America for you know? But this is salary and commission based so if I'm good I would move from being paid well to ballin' real nasty potentially, saving money for that sunny day in the future when I can make a motorcycle trip back up to the states.

On the other hand I now have enough contacts where I could teach english full time and make enough money to survive, but it would involve a lot of jumping around the city everyday as well as paying me a fair amount less...hum?? The benefit of teaching is the human interaction, face to face, with argentines of all different walks of life I would be teaching them for at least 8 months and really get to know some people. Or I could also get to know some people but on the phone, and they would likely be living in Vermont. Either way I know that I will have a job paying me enough to survive and discover more about this city. Plus there's always that chance a producer will see me tearing up the dance floor on a friday night at Kika (local club) and immediately invite me to join his traveling urban/interpretive dance troop, who knows? If anyone has any insight please share it, or, if anyone has about 15,000 $ they would want to send me, that too would help, then I could just do a little bit of both these jobs.

My sister and Megan Rumpza arrive tomorrow around one, I think they are both stopping in Sao Paulo before the come to BA, which means that they will have been traveling for something 18-20 hours I think. So that means straight walk to the ecological park for a few hours strolling the jungle right?


As for right now, I am still working at DDB, getting to know the people I work with pretty well which is really awesome and still everyday trying to learn more spanish. It's weird though, since I'm so immersed in it some days I feel like I am completely absorbing everything, words, phrases, tones, all of it. Then the next day, or maybe even a few hours later, it will feel like I put on a helmet and regressed back a month in my understanding of what people say. I think learning a language is similar to feeding yourself. When your hungry, you eat every little thing you come across and it still tastes good and makes you want more. But then you reach a certain point and any piece of food, even the most delicious looking Chipotle burrito with chicken and steak and corn and green tabasco and extra guac and sour creme (there's nothing like that here) wouldn't be appealing to you. But then two hours later, your hungry again and start eating everything in sight. I think that works, right? But, did someone say something about a Chipotle nearby??


Chau Chau.