Dead Man Walking....

At the time, I was thinking the man in the photo above was the first dead person I have seen in public. We just don't run across a lot of accidents on a daily basis in Texas. In a big city like this, I have a feeling it is a different story.

It all started around 11:00pm on Friday night. I was busy polishing my pictures from my hike earlier in the the day with Tom. I heard an ambulance pull up and stop right in front of our apartment. The loud siren came to a screeching halt right below us.

In this city you get used to hearing a lot of sirens. Like every few seconds. I was in my zone so it didn't click at first. Then ten minutes later, I heard another ambulance come to a screeching halt right below us. At that point, I figure I better go check it out. What if our building was on fire?

Well I went out on the balcony to see what the commotion was about. When I looked over the edge, I freaked out. Right there in front of me, right below my apartment... there it was! A DEAD BODY.

I saw the dead body flayed across the curb with blood on the sidewalk. And hovering right over him was what looked like a TV news camera crew.

I ran back inside straight to my wife with my hand over my mouth with a look of horror on my face. She said, "Oh my god what is it? Your face is white as a sheet."

I couldn't move. I kept saying, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" I finally blurted out that there was a dead body right below our apartment. "He must of been hit crossing the street!", I shouted.

We both went back out on the balcony to see what was going on. Only instead of seeing the scene you see above, with the dead body flayed on the sidewalk, the dead man was up walking around shaking hands with the "news crew" and other people standing around.

After closer examination, it was pretty clear it was not a news crew, but a film crew. They were filming a movie.

I felt like a cruel joke had been played on me. Only worse, because they spent the next four hours taking over 50 takes of the loud ambulance coming to a screeching halt right below me.

Happy Halloween.

Protest On My Front Doorstep...

My kids starts school tomorrow and we needed to get all of their school supplies. As we walked out to get them, we were greeted with our first Buenos Aires protest... Right in front of our apartment! Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. I didn't have my camera handy and had to use my cellphone.

The protest was organized by Union of Civilian Personnel of the Nation or UPCN. From what I can tell, they are a labor union representing civil employees of Argentina.

I'm no expert on the labor situation here and my Castellano (the local Spanish) is still very poor. But, I think they were protesting the effect of recent inflation on their wages and demanding a bigger Christmas bonus. I'll have to wait and see if the local English language paper explains things better.



They completely blocked traffic on Callao in front of our apartment and made a bunch of noise with loud drums and fireworks they shot from canons in the back of pickup trucks. Alicia seemed pleasantly surprised by all the commotion unfolding right in front of her.

But before you knew it, they dispersed and life on the street was back to normal.

Where We are Living Now...

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile. We've been spending all our time looking at apartments and getting our daughter setup for school. Everyone back home is requesting I take more pictures and I hate to say I've slacked off on that too. However, I thought I would share a few pics of our new neighborhood.

We are setup in a temp rental for 2 months or so in the Recoleta. It's a 968sqf, 2 bedroom apartment that suites us just fine for now. It's furnished nicely and has everything we need to function.

Our Temp. Apartment

It is a little tough going from 3,600 sqf to 968 sqf and we are getting use to having everything on a much smaller scale. You should see the size of the bathrooms. My wife about died when she saw the size of the washing machine ( you can see it in the last picture peeking out from behind the bottom cabinet).

It is in a great neighborhood though. The Recoleta can be a little on the touristy side, however it works in our favor since most employees in the shops and restaurants are use to customers speaking English.

Our New Neighborhood

Here are a few shots of the neighborhood. Most people give me a "Yeah Right!" look when I tell them Buenos Aires looks a lot like Paris. Let me know what you think.