Archive for October, 2009
New Zealand – Tierra de mar y montanas
Auckland recevied us on October 15th, the night before we took our plane at 6 AM, luckly we went to the airport early because the supervisor of Qantas didn’t let me to do the check in because I didn’t have a ticket to leave NZ. I don’t know if he thought that I wanted to stay longer or what, but were not possible argument to made him to decline his asking, so I bought a full refund ticket for January that I should to return soon.
The first days we stayed with Federica, her boyfriend Kleber, from Brasil and a friend of them, Grace. The Friday after we arrived, Fede, JX and me had dinner with a friend from Argentina, Guillermo, who was on business in Auckland; in a very cool Greek restaurant. That weekend we went with him to Waiheke, an ex hippie island in the north of Auckland. It is a nice place with lot of vineyards, we rented a car and we drove and walked all over the island. The company that we rented with asked us to fill the gas by the end of the day and they didn’t came up to pick up the car, lot of trust or a little of disorganization.
Before we returned the car, we were walking on the beach and we saw a group of 8 or 9 girls playing soccer on the beach, so we asked them to join the game, after a while we realized that they were a little young so we asked them how old were them and one of them said: ¨is Shanny’s 16th birthday! after that Guille said: chicos cuidado que vamos todos presos!
The day after we went to Rangitoto and Motutapu islands (Maori words, not easy to pronounce or remember). If you stop by New Zealand don´t spend the 24 bucks that the ferry cost, it doesn’t worth it. It is a volcano, which you can walk to the crater and there are also some lava caves, but the walking is a little boring.
After Fede´s apartment we moved to Anna´s house. It was a mess but she was a very nice and interesting person, IT consultant, medieval sword teacher and with arms all over the house. She was from CouchSurfing and Michael, another CSer hosted by Anna, was living with us. Michael, cool guy from LA, helped us a lot preparing our resumes and he cooked the best mussels with pasta and garlic that we ever tried! We all went to our second CS meeting on the pier.
Edi Talbot came with a contact who was renting a house in Herne bay, (very nice neighborhood from Auckland). It was a cloth store with two floors, Edi´s mother gave us some mattress, sheets and pillows; so after 3 months using a sleeping bug and sharing a bedroom, and sometimes the bed with Juan Cruz I returned to a gorgeous bed by my self in my 
own room (tonto te extraño). We revolutionized the house, there is a big sheet were all the people who comes has to sign in, there are two mannequins, one with a special sign in and with furniture built by us, yes we cut and ensemble the wood to made our own furniture. It is not the best but it is beautiful. The first week we took cold showers but now the hot water is working properly and the fridge and the stove has to arrive soon. If you stop by NZ, or you have friends coming to in the next 5 weeks, there is room available!
We went too, what was supposed, the best DJ in NZ, Fat Friday. It was like Rangitoto and Motutapu, not because there was a crater because it was a little boring but we had fun with the group of 8 Mexicans, Nick and Edi. On the way to the house two crazy girls asked us: red or black? for probably more than ten times….. they didn’t know what to bet in the casino and they find us as a solution to clarify the doubt, so Juan choose red and I said black. Yesterday they came to play cards, “Podrida¨ para los que la conocen. They are still a little crazy but they are nice people. Finally for this post, last Sunday we had one of the coolest programs ever, we went to a ¨professional¨ bike park in Wood Hill with four friends of Edi, we rented bikes and we started going down. It was little risky sometimes but it was lot of fun!
Now I have to focus seeking jobs so it is where this post finished!
Add comment October 29, 2009
Tecnologia comparada e impuestos inentendibles!
Desde hace unos meses lei en el blog de Julian Gallo un post sobre la comparacion del valor de una misma laptop en Estados Unidos y en Argentina, fue bastante interesante pero no postee nada al respecto. Hoy con la promulgacion del impuesto tecnologico y con un poco de indignacion sobre el mismo, me sente a escribir unas lineas.
La tecnologia llega tarde y los precios ya eran superiores a los de los paises desarrollados. Ahora el proyecto de ley modifica el artículo 70 de la ley de Impuestos Internos y afecta el futuro precio de las computadoras de escritorio (PCs), los celulares, las heladeras, las cámaras de fotos y de video, los calentadores y los televisores, entre otros.
Para todos estos productos, sean importados o fabricados en Argentina, se establecen los impuestos internos en 17% y se elimina la reducción del Impuesto al Valor Agregado (IVA), que pasará de 10,5% a 21%. Los fabricantes y los importadores calculan que los aumentos se trasladarán al público en orden del 35%.
Fueron excluidas del aumento (por ahora) las computadoras portátiles (laptops y notebooks), ya que algunas de ellas se ensamblan en Santa Fe, además de todos los productos fabricados en Tierra del Fuego, quien también contará con una reducción del IVA.
Es triste que nuestros politicos no se den cuenta de muchas cosas pero que no se den cuenta de que la tecnologia acorta distancias en todos los sentidos de la palabra, que es una excelente forma de educarnos, leer, trabajar o estar conectados; aproxima lo terrible…
Hace unas semanas la marca japonesa Nikon, empezo a comercializar en Japón y los Estados Unidos su modelo S1000pj, la primera en contar con proyector integrado… tienen una idea de cuando va a llegar a Argentina y de cuanto va a costar ahora…?
Post especial para Cata, Paige, Nick y todos los genios de afuera que eligen vivir en Argentina y siempre les pedimos algo tecnologico cuando viajan, disculpas!
1 comment October 23, 2009
What is a Journey?
Couple days ago a friend sent me this video that I want to share with all of you,
1 comment October 23, 2009
Melbourne II and good bye Australia
Our second post about Melbourne is going to describe our last weeks in the city.
First of all, I´m going to talk a little about our Uni, it was good but not what we were expecting. We thought we were studying with Aussies (from another careers) but Hawthorn is only the language center from University of Melbourne. They were people from all over the world except from Australia, neither my teachers where from Australia, one of them was from Chile and the other one from Scotland. Things for some reason happened and what in the beginning was not what we expected turned to the best things that the Uni gave us, our classmates. We made very good friends specially people from Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Taiwan, Chile, Thailand and China. W
e also feel much comfortable with our English and it is always good study for 5 hours Monday thru Friday for 5 weeks.
One of the weekends we wanted to go to Phillip island but because people in Australia is over punctual and we are still a little unpunctual we lost our bus…. however we decided to rent bikes and go to St Kilda one of the famous beaches in Melba. The weekend after we went earlier to the bus station and in a raining day we went to the Island. It was beautiful but we didn´t see the little famous penguins.
With some students we organized an international soccer game but because it was raining 
we decided to play it indoor, but after one hour we had to stop it because was not allow.
One of the Saturdays we wake up little early and we went to the footie grand final. Debbie invited us and we still own her a wishky (sorry Debbie). The Grand Final is like the super bowl in United States or the final of the libertadores in Argentina, also the both most well known teams were playing, St Kilda and Gellong! as we predicted couple posts before. St Kilda was wining during all the game but 5 minutes before the game finished Gellong made it and the stadium burned it. It was a great experience and it is possible be in a same place more than 100.000 people, from different teams enjoying a wonderful spectacular.
Finally we left to Great Ocean Road and to Tasmania with classmates, but both super deserve new posts. After them we returned to Melbourne for 30 hours, where we talked and smoked chicha with Saad, we had lunch with Paula and we had our last Australian bbq (for a while) with Edward´s family. Then we flew to New Zealand.
Australia is a beautiful country and the people who we have met there was amazing, thanks to all of them that we have crossed and we hope our ways cross again somewhere, someday!
We selected the best 50 pictures (from more than 400) of Melbourne and we uploaded them to be the final Melbourne photo gallery, enjoy it!
Add comment October 16, 2009
From a match to a big fire
Tipping point from Malcom Gladwell explains how little things can make a big difference, it tries to explain how trends or social behavior starts.
First it divides people in three different categories: Mavens, Connectors and Salesman. I belive it also has to include the followers but he didn´t mention anything about them. The word mavens came from Yiddish and it means the people who accumulate knowledge, this kind of people are data banks who solve other peoples problem generally by solving his owns. The second ones are the salesman and if you don´t know the connectors don´t worry they will find you. What is important about the salesman is that they translate and simplify the information provided by the Mavens to make it understandable for everyone and what it is important about the connectors is that they act as social glue when the message is running. I felt my self in his three categories, but sometimes as a follower as well!
There are two main conclusions, first epidemic requires concentrated resources but everyone can start them, second you need to have a criticize looking to see trends before they happened.
I liked the book but some of the chapters turned a little boring because they have a very clear explanation about cultural or history events in United States that were not very interested for me. It also was my first book in English what it make it a little dificult, but I really enjoyed it.
When I received the book, the person who gave it to me, asked me to returned it to her or to give it to someone else who wants to understand that everything matters and that small things can make a big difference. I gave it to a friend and I hope you all can get the idea of the book.
Add comment October 15, 2009
Taiwan and Argentina thru Tasmania!
After the experience with the vans in Great Ocean Road we decided to rent another in Tasmania, but because we did it in the last minute we were not able to rent a camper van, however we rented a regular van were you can not cook, sleep comfortable or wash the dishes. We bought a stove and we borrowed a saucepan and dishes from the hostel were we stayed the first night. This time we went with Nelic and Timmy, to good friends from Taiwan. The first night in the hostel we met three cool Germans and it was a pasta competition.
The first day we drove from Hobart to Craddle Mountain, a beautiful national park in the middle of Tasmania. The first night was freezing but we survived it, then we decided to hike around one of the lakes but somewhere we took a wrong way and what we thought was three hours converted to 6. There was snow and no food but the landscapes were gorgeous and overpower them.
Our second day we drove to Stanley, north east of Tasmania. Stanley is a fisherman town with now more than 700 permanent habitants. We went to the only and the best restaurant and we had seafood and beers, then we parked close to the ocean and our second day has finished. The third day was driving to Coley bay thru the vineyard region of Tasmania. We stopped our van in the national park and we cooked pasta. Meanwhile Juan was cooking, me and Timmy went for water, when we were returning I heart something from a tree and I thought Juan wanted to scare us but they were in the van cooking so with the only torch (thanks Nick) that we had we light to the tree and we thought it was a Tasmanian devil, so we jumped to the van and we never get it out until the next morning. It was very funny see the different reactions of everyone.
In Coles Bay we met again with the German guys and we hiked for 5 hours, Juan and they swam in the ocean I took an oriental attitude sitting on the beach.
In our last day we parked the van in a parking where it was a limit time duration parking, that we didn’t know, so the next morning we had a ticket. We went to the council to pay it but because we were international tourist and it was our first ticket it was canceled but as soon as we get to the van our second ticked was sticked in the windscreen. We returned to the council and after the same woman start laughing, we paid it.
Add comment October 14, 2009
6 crazy south americans in Australia
During 5 days we rented camper vans and we drove more than 1300 km. We went from Melbourne to Warrnambool thru the great ocean road and then we went to Grampians national park, in the north of Victoria state. Juan, Paula and me had left one day before Kike, Alex and Stefa, the three of them and Paula from Colombia.
The first night, and because we forgot buy salt, we cooked our pasta with water from the ocean, it was delicious. The morning after that we met with the Alex, Stefa and Kike.
Great ocean road and Grampians are both beautifuls, in the beginning we stopped every kangaroo but because they are to many the last day we were a little tired of them, we saw whales and koalas, thanks to Stefa. Driving with both vans was crazy, we stoped every 30 minutes to see how the other van was, we cooked together (with salt from the other van), we had vodka with condense milk one cold night, and only one day we were able to took a shower.
Traveled with the Colombians people was lot of fun, we came to Australia with the idea to study English but after 5 days with them you don´
t know all the Colombian slang that we have learned. Marica, arrunchados, pana are some of the new words included to my Spanish dictionary now.
The camper vans renting is pretty command in Australia, the company that we used have more than 750 all over Australia, the campers have place for 3 people including a little kitchen and a table that you can remove it and converted in a super king bed. They had a promotion that if you took a picture naked with the van you received a day for free, I can´t remember if we did´t.
Add comment October 11, 2009
Australian bbq I and II, chinese dinner and some new fruits.
Food is something new, different and usually delicious while you are traveling. It always shows part of the culture of a group of people or it represents part of the culture from a place. I remember once someone told me that is not only important if you like or not a specific food, it is important know why people have chosen that food to represent them culture… Someone who have tasted sushi knows that Japaneses used the rice to fermented fish, then it was taken out of the rice and only the fish was consumed?
On Tuesday 23rd we went to a bbq with the first family that hosted us, it was beautiful. They had invited friends and relatives because we were going, for us was like Christmas. Vaughn cooked a great bbq and we had the opportunity to taste kangaroo (there are 26 millions of aussies and 58 million kangaroos, that I don´t know how they census them). For dessert we had toasted bananas with ice cream and maple.
Our second bbq was in Saad´s house, a good friend from Saudi
Arabia, who is Juan´s classmate. In one moment we were more than 18 and there were people from all over the world.
Yesterday we had a delicious spice chinese dinner with friends from Taiwan, we drank oolong tea and plum juice whit more than 5 different traditional meals. I really don´t know what I have eaten but it was fantastic and today I feel well.
Some new fruits that I have tasted while I´m traveling are:
Pepino melon
P
assion fruit
Carambola
- Mama Marta y Mama Monica no se preocupen que estamos muy bien alimentados!
Add comment October 1, 2009
