Sunday, January 31, 2010

A Few Quick Argentine Musings

Argentina has indeed been hot.

I love being Captain Obvious.  :-)

Andrew and I have been with our friend Claire (she´s half-French, don´t mind her)
since the day of our arrival in Argentina.

Claire Sandwich
Things are going generally well.

A couple of notes worth mentioning...

The first 3 straight hours of our flight out of NY to Santiago, Chile, was complete
and pure turbulence.  At one point the plane took a short dive, and I found myself
grabbing my brother´s hand in preparation for our imminent doom.

"Damn!" I thought.  "Mom is gonna be PISSED."

But we didn´t perish in a plane crash, which relieved us greatly.

Still Alive.

After our arrival at the airport, Andrew and I marveled at how little Spanish we
actually knew.  We somehow found our bus and 60 cents and 2 hours later we
managed to find the hostel we were staying in.  I don´t know how we did it, but we did.

Being that the weather is so hot here, Andrew and I felt right at home in Buenos Aires
because most men were walking around the city streets and parks with their shirts off.
We noticed that the women didn´t quite take off their shirts, but many of them rolled
them up as far as possible, despite their body type or current stage of pregnancy.  I
swear I saw some of the unborn trying to kick their way out, screaming "SOMEBODY
OPEN A WINDOW OR SOMETHING!!  I`M BURNING UP IN HERE!!"

Drivers in BA are known for their incredibly daring and dare I say "loco" driving talents.
That´s fine - other countries are notorious for that as well.  What stood out about BA
was that when the sun went down, the drivers of taxis, private cars and even most buses
never even put on their headlights.  Some were so dim, they must´ve been in there since
1954.  Others just seemed to not want to use them at all.  This made for crossing streets
at nite a fun guessing game. 

Andrew´s language skills have improved quite significantly since our arrival.  He´s been
studying and speaking quite a bit.  I have not.

I seem to have a general travel sickness that never quite leaves me.  Every time I take a
big trip somewhere, my immune system seems to say "Time to go offline for a while..."
I´ve been congested almost non-stop since our arrival with that one-nostril-is-clogged-then
-the-other-gets-clogged-while-the-first-one-clears-up-lather-rinse-repeat condition.  It
hasn´t stopped me from doing much besides tasting the supposedly delicious food we´ve
been eating.

Now that my congestion is going away (not because I´ve been resting, but I think rather
because of the Emergen-C packets I´ve been downing daily), I seem to have acquired
some sort of eye infection, which is always a blast.  I just put some flower gunk in my
eye at the suggestion of a few members on the farm we are at now.  We´ll see what that does.  

We´ve had a really nice time at the first farm we WWOOFed at - we are still here now,
but leaving tomorrow (Monday) for El Bolson.  We hope.

I´d like to write more because we´ve done a lot more and met some great people already,
but my thoughts are a bit jumbled and I just want to put up some photos now anyway.

Also, we really like Mate.  No accent on the e?

Hope things are well.

Ciao...

Apparently, Jesus has short hair in Argentina.  Most likely due to the seasonal temperatures.

Here is a giant tree that confused Andrew.

Jumping into the pool after a long and hot first day at work.

I´m still wearing these socks.

Dirt plus sun plus socks plus boots  =  Fun colour contrast!

We found 3 of these during one day of weeding tall grass.

Simon and one of his beautiful daughters, Sara.


-JoeySee

A Few Quick Argentine Musings

Argentina has indeed been hot.

I love being Captain Obvious.  :-)

Andrew and I have been with our friend Claire (she´s half-French, don´t mind her)
since the day of our arrival in Argentina.

Claire Sandwich

Things are going generally well.

A couple of notes worth mentioning...

The first 3 straight hours of our flight out of NY to Santiago, Chile, was complete
and pure turbulence.  At one point the plane took a short dive, and I found myself
grabbing my brother´s hand in preparation for our imminent doom.

"Damn!" I thought.  "Mom is gonna be PISSED."

But we didn´t perish in a plane crash, which relieved us greatly.

Still Alive.

After our arrival at the airport, Andrew and I marveled at how little Spanish we
actually knew.  We somehow found our bus and 60 cents and 2 hours later we
managed to find the hostel we were staying in.  I don´t know how we did it, but we did.

Being that the weather is so hot here, Andrew and I felt right at home in Buenos Aires
because most men were walking around the city streets and parks with their shirts off.
We noticed that the women didn´t quite take off their shirts, but many of them rolled
them up as far as possible, despite their body type or current stage of pregnancy.  I
swear I saw some of the unborn trying to kick their way out, screaming "SOMEBODY
OPEN A WINDOW OR SOMETHING!!  I`M BURNING UP IN HERE!!"

Drivers in BA are known for their incredibly daring and dare I say "loco" driving talents.
That´s fine - other countries are notorious for that as well.  What stood out about BA
was that when the sun went down, the drivers of taxis, private cars and even most buses
never even put on their headlights.  Some were so dim, they must´ve been in there since
1954.  Others just seemed to not want to use them at all.  This made for crossing streets
at nite a fun guessing game.

Andrew´s language skills have improved quite significantly since our arrival.  He´s been
studying and speaking quite a bit.  I have not.

I seem to have a general travel sickness that never quite leaves me.  Every time I take a
big trip somewhere, my immune system seems to say "Time to go offline for a while..."
I´ve been congested almost non-stop since our arrival with that one-nostril-is-clogged-then
-the-other-gets-clogged-while-the-first-one-clears-up-lather-rinse-repeat condition.  It
hasn´t stopped me from doing much besides tasting the supposedly delicious food we´ve
been eating.

Now that my congestion is going away (not because I´ve been resting, but I think rather
because of the Emergen-C packets I´ve been downing daily), I seem to have acquired
some sort of eye infection, which is always a blast.  I just put some flower gunk in my
eye at the suggestion of a few members on the farm we are at now.  We´ll see what that does.

We´ve had a really nice time at the first farm we WWOOFed at - we are still here now,
but leaving tomorrow (Monday) for El Bolson.  We hope.

I´d like to write more because we´ve done a lot more and met some great people already,
but my thoughts are a bit jumbled and I just want to put up some photos now anyway.

Also, we really like Mate.  No accent on the e?

Hope things are well.

Ciao...

Apparently, Jesus has short hair in Argentina.  Most likely due to the seasonal temperatures.


Here is a giant tree that confused Andrew.


Jumping into the pool after a long and hot first day at work.


I´m still wearing these socks.


Dirt plus sun plus socks plus boots  =  Fun colour contrast!


We found 3 of these during one day of weeding tall grass.



Simon and one of his beautiful daughters, Sara.
-JoeySee

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Departing Directly Southward

I thought I'd just put a quick note up here to let anyone and everyone who reads
Writography know that I'm heading down to Argentina with my brother Andrew.

This is Andrew:




We will be in Buenos Aires for about 5 days, and then we will be traveling to Rio Negro,
to a place called El Bolson.




The farm we'll be working at has a description in Spanish...

LOCATION : El bolson
Hola somos artesanos y estamos en faeria Regional de EL Bolson con nuestras artesanias Campanas Tubulares \" Canta vientos \" y somos constructores de \"Construccion Natural\" y Trabajamos con Permacultura y cultivos Organicos y disponemos de una chacra de fruta fina , huertas ,frutales , una Taller de artesanias
Estamos desarrollando una Comunidad .cultivando ua Huerta comunitaria una construccion comunitaria en las orillas del Rio Azul.
Accomodation: Tenemos disponible una casita de fardos y de adobe para 2 personas con una cosinita y un bano.
Food: Alimentacion variada cocina colectiva.
We are: Somos una familia muy grande y trabajadores . nos gusta la musica las danzas los cantos y las fiestas y conocemos mucha gente en chacras organicas y trabajamos para el cambio Planetario Espiritual de LZ
When to come: Octubre a Marzo ( prinavera - verano )
Additional comments: somos gente alegre, abierta, buena onda y espirituales.

Children *tenemos dos hijos. Si, puden.

I didn't understand much of that, but I did understand the important part:  "Nos gusta la musica las danzas los cantos y las fiestas..."

We like all that stuff too.

We're hoping to meet up with some new friends in BA upon our arrival, both
American and Argentinean.  We'll be couch surfing for a few nites as well, and
hopefully meeting some fantastic people from our time with them.

Ok.  Enough for now.  We're off Thursday evening.

Hope to write again soon.

Ciao....




-Joey (and Andrew)

Departing Directly Southward

I thought I'd just put a quick note up here to let anyone and everyone who reads
Writography know that I'm heading down to Argentina with my brother Andrew.

This is Andrew:




We will be in Buenos Aires for about 5 days, and then we will be traveling to Rio Negro,
to a place called El Bolson.




The farm we'll be working at has a description in Spanish...

LOCATION : El bolson
Hola somos artesanos y estamos en faeria Regional de EL Bolson con nuestras artesanias Campanas Tubulares \" Canta vientos \" y somos constructores de \"Construccion Natural\" y Trabajamos con Permacultura y cultivos Organicos y disponemos de una chacra de fruta fina , huertas ,frutales , una Taller de artesanias
Estamos desarrollando una Comunidad .cultivando ua Huerta comunitaria una construccion comunitaria en las orillas del Rio Azul.
Accomodation: Tenemos disponible una casita de fardos y de adobe para 2 personas con una cosinita y un bano.
Food: Alimentacion variada cocina colectiva.
We are: Somos una familia muy grande y trabajadores . nos gusta la musica las danzas los cantos y las fiestas y conocemos mucha gente en chacras organicas y trabajamos para el cambio Planetario Espiritual de LZ
When to come: Octubre a Marzo ( prinavera - verano )
Additional comments: somos gente alegre, abierta, buena onda y espirituales.

Children *tenemos dos hijos. Si, puden.

I didn't understand much of that, but I did understand the important part:  "Nos gusta la musica las danzas los cantos y las fiestas..."

We like all that stuff too.

We're hoping to meet up with some new friends in BA upon our arrival, both
American and Argentinean.  We'll be couch surfing for a few nites as well, and
hopefully meeting some fantastic people from our time with them.

Ok.  Enough for now.  We're off Thursday evening.

Hope to write again soon.

Ciao....




-Joey (and Andrew)

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Erica in NYC

Erica contacted me to do some photos for her portfolio.  I was thrilled to be asked to photograph such a beautiful young woman.  She was awesome, and as a result, we completely rocked the shoot...






































































-JoeySee

Erica in NYC

Erica contacted me to do some photos for her portfolio.  I was thrilled to be asked to photograph such a beautiful young woman.  She was awesome, and as a result, we completely rocked the shoot...
























-JoeySee