Goodbye for a while

My online life has been pretty much inactive lately because of the holidays, and especially the terrible heat; it's difficult to do anything during the daytime, and for the most part I've been shifting to a routine of sleeping four of five hours at night, going to work, returning home under the scorching sun, having a light lunch and then dragging myself back to my room to get three more hours of sleep and/or reading light fiction while the afternoon rages at temperatures over 35 °C (that's 95 °F in FFU), then sometimes using the small pool in my garden to cool the fire, and finally having dinner as the sun comes down at an artificially late hour. During all that time I don't use the computer much; the room it's in has no air conditioning, so I keep the PC on only as needed, for short periods.

And now, I'm going on vacation next Sunday, so you'll have to learn to live without this blog for about three weeks. I'll begin by revisiting Malargüe in southern Mendoza, and then proceed to Neuquén, Junín de los Andes, and possibly the small town of Piedra del Águila by the Limay River. It's doubtful that I'll have Internet access or the time to use it during that time, except in Neuquén City, so you'll have to wait to read my report and see pictures and stuff. Don't miss me!

Happy New Year

I hope my loyal readers had a great New Year. Over here it was so hot that we went relatively light on food and focused on cold beer... which didn't stay cold for long. We ate outdoors (a round of sandwiches around 10 PM, main course starting 11 PM) but the air was absolutely still.

The first day of 2007 was even worse. Amidst the constant feed of non-news that fills TV from mid-December until March, great headlines warned us that the temperature was above 35 °C and the sensación térmica (lit. "thermic sensation", a kind of heat index, only it takes the wind into account as well) was almost 42 °C. With the sun hanging high and unmitigated by clouds, the streets were deserted. The media from Buenos Aires reported a catastrophic scenario of empty avenues and the usual massive exodus of porteños towards the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province..., a nightmarish migration of millions of middle-aged men with beer bellies and fat suntanned women carrying along screaming little children and bored teenagers pouring into the very same places they visit and get ripped off at every year since the 1980s. (Who endures a 4-hour traffic jam on a hot road to stay in a hotel room and go to a casino?)

Not that rosarinos don't do the same, of course. The less favoured, however, turn to the public pools, the beach of La Florida, or the islands. I read the other day that Rosario has the largest amount of public pools in the country, where you just get a physical, pay a small fee (AR$5 tops), and stay as much as you want; plus there are more than a few clubs with such facilities. La Florida is a barrio that stretches along the river in the north of Rosario, east of Barrio Alberdi proper, and La Florida is also the name of the beach — which has two parts: a beach resort where you pay, and a free area. La Florida is lined with pubs and bars; at night they tend to get full, since boliches (discos, disco-bars) move to the coast. Finally there's the islands in front of Rosario, which have always been popular but have been greatly developed in the last few years. Boats leave at regular intervals from a few piers taking eager passengers equipped with summer gear.

I'm not a fan of going elsewhere for the day just to keep cool; you have to have equipment and you have to spend a significant time going to and back from the place, all the time sweating while you carry your backpack or whatever. I'm just patiently waiting to get away from Rosario for two weeks. Mendoza is not necessarily cooler (in fact it's hotter at times) but it's much less humid; you can get by just drinking lots of water and staying in the shadow.

I'm wondering whether I should stick to a less-than-daily posting rhythm in this blog. I've been having less visitors lately, probably because they're on vacation. I'll be away for two weeks anyway, and I don't think I'll be posting much (if anything) from Mendoza. I have interesting plans for after the summer, though. Just wait!

Good news in short

Last week's news are like a parade of horrors, and I haven't mentioned half of them. So we need some good news.

• Tomorrow it will be (according to the National Meteorological Service) hot as hell in Rosario, but Sunday it will be cool (cooler than spring should be, but let that be a lesson on how we mustn't put away coats and long-sleeve shirts).
• Argentina will earn more from foreign tourists coming to the country than it loses from Argentinians spending money abroad for the first time this year, since those statistics are compiled (1992).
• In a brave display of imagination that we almost never witness in a politician, Deputy Mónica Prato of Córdoba will protest the lack of compliance of Córdoba Province's government with the national law that mandates free (as in beer and as in speech) tubal ligation for all women. She will do this by going to two public hospitals and requesting that her tubes are tied, threatening to go to court if her request is not granted. Good for her.
• Yesterday the sky turned ominously dark and people got scared. Everybody drove their cars under cover and lowered their blinders, waiting for the coup de grace..., but it didn't hail again.
• Bailando por un sueño will have a "blond vs. brunette" dancing duel live with Eliana Guercio and Evangelina Carrozzo, which is good news for some, but more importantly, I can watch another channel -- I don't have to stupefy my brains to endure such a horrid display of bad taste, and I can see non-paid girls far more beautiful and less disgracefully slutty than those two by just taking a walk downtown.
  

That's it. It's a bit sad that I had to look around for good news (yes, there's that journalist maxim that says "good news is no news"), but I did collect enough for one blog post. Cheers!