I’ve been going pretty much non-stop since last Wednesday. It’s hard for me to believe that less than a week ago I was sitting in the airport in Buenos Aires getting ready to leave. Since then I’ve flown for 15 hours, been molested in Houston airport, and spent five days bouncing around New York City with my friend. Leaving Buenos Aires Before leaving Canada I managed to pick up a prescription of Ativan to help with airplane anxiety. I actually have a mild-phobia of hurtling through the atmosphere in a huge pressurized cylinder. I don’t let my fear stop me, but I get extremely anxious during high ...

As of yesterday, I am no longer the owner of a SLR camera. I purchased my first SLR back in 2004, so I’ve been a SLR user for almost 7 years. And while I love the quality of photos you can take with a SLR camera, dragging tons of equipment and lenses around gets a bit tiring. That’s even more true when you start picking up some of the nicer, heavier lenses, many of which I owned previously. I sold all my L-series glass about 6 months ago, partially because they weren’t being used and also because I needed the cash to finance some of my current traveling adventures. I wasn’t originally going to ...

Six months ago I was sitting back in my apartment in Chilliwack trying to figure out where the first destination on my big adventure would take me. I immediately thought of the Caribbean, since it was an area I had been to many times and I was familiar with. Since the goal of my trip was to also work while exploring the world, that meant wherever I ended up would have to have decent access to the internet. That took Cuba off the list, as well as most small towns. I was actually homing in on the Dominican Republic when, out of boredom, I started thumbing through The 4-Hour Workweek, a popular book ...

I’m in the process of checking myself out of my apartment in Buenos Aires, and will be shortly heading to New York City for a few days of feasting and sight-seeing. One of the first items on the agenda though is to head to B&H camera to pick up my first micro four-thirds system camera. E-PL2, Photo by John Biehler I’ve decided on the Olympus E-PL2 camera, which is one of the newest, highly reviewed micro four-thirds bodies available. John Biehler just did a great write-up on the same camera, so definitely check it out. While John used the 17mm lens, I’ll probably be buying the 20mm f/1.7 lens, ...

I’ll probably do a summary post on Buenos Aires the night when I leave, but this is my last weekly update from Buenos Aires. My little widget says that I’m leaving my apartment in four days, at which point I’ll be migrating to a hotel for my final night. I’ve been trying to get my landlord to commit to a time to do the final walkthrough so I can get my damage deposit, but he hasn’t responded to me. I’m not worried, since I do hold the keys and he can’t really rent it until he gets them back from me. But it would be nice to have that all in place for peace of mind. I’ll send another email in a ...

So, I’ve lost track of how many days that I’ve been here. I was originally coming for something like 87 days, so it must be near day 80 or so. As the title of the post says, I’m down to only 8 days left. I spent the weekend down in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. I had a great time, and was almost sad to leave when the time came. Staying in a hostel was a great experience, and I always had people around. Compared to Buenos Aires, where I work mostly solo during the weeks, it was nice to have some company around again, even if for a few days. I’ll do a full trip review as ...

I´m currently at the Antarctica Hostel in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina, affectionately called the city at the end of the world. This is officially the southern most city in the entire world, so it´s pretty amazing to be here. Beagle Channel, Ushuaia I´ll do a proper trip report when I´m back in Buenos Aires, but since I have a few hours to kill before my penguin tour later today, I thought I would do a quick update. The keyboard I´m using in the hostel is prety funky, and many of the keys are out of place compared to a normal keyboard. So, this entry is pretty slow going! But I´m having a really ...

While I technically am leaving for Ushuaia in two days, for all intents and purposes (due to the early nature of my flight), I basically leave tomorrow evening. Photo by Stella Maris on Flickr I’m excited about Ushuaia for lots of reasons. First, the weather is a lot colder down there compared to Buenos Aires. The high on Thursday is 9C, and the low is 6C. That’s almost what the weather is like back home in Vancouver as well. While a lot of people like really hot climates, I’m not really one of them. I would rather be too cold than too hot – you can always put another shirt on, but if you’re already ...

On my original flight from Houston to Buenos Aires I commented on the fact that we hit some turbulence near the equator. It was probably about 2am for me and I was a bit groggy from ativan, so I didn’t really take too much notice. But I thought at the time that it may be related to crossing from the nothern hemisphere down to the southern hemisphere. Clouds in the ITCZ, Photo from Wikipedia Sure enough, there’s a region of unstable air around the equator called the Intertropical Convergence Zone which often causes turbulence for flights crossing between the two hemispheres. Sometimes the turbulence ...

Yesterday some friends and I decided to make the journey over to Tigre, which is a little town on the Delta about an hour outside of Buenos Aires. On a normal day it may have been a lot of fun, but the weather turned sour on us and pretty much ruined the trip. No matter though. We rolled with the punches and found humour in crappy situations. The Journey The train to Tigre leaves from the Retiro train station. I had thought we would be able to use the subte (subway) to get part way there, but would have to taxi the last part of the journey. Once we got on the D-Line though, we realized that we ...

Yes sports fans, it’s time for another update. Today is day 65 in Buenos Aires. About an hour ago I had my last hair-cut in the city, and going forward there are a bunch of “lasts” about to happen. In fact, it seems like most of the expats I’ve met in the city are already gone or on their way out. A guy named Emerick from Montreal left two weeks ago, and another guy from New York is leaving this weekend. I suspect many people came to experience a summer in Buenos Aires, and now that summer is trailing off, it’s time to leave. Everyone I’ve talked to had enjoyed their time here, but like me, are ...

Next weekend I’m off to visit the southern most city in the entire world, Ushuaia, Argentina. From there, many people hop on a cruise ship and head down to Antarctica. It’s an expensive trip to Antarctica, starting at around $5,000 a person, but spending a day or two visiting one of the most remote parts of the world is apparently well worth the price. I will not be visiting Antarctica, but I will be visiting the Antarctica Hostel, located close to the Beagle Channel and in the shadow of the tail end of the Andes mountain range. Ushuaia will obviously be the most south I’ve ever been in the world, ...

As many people know, I’ll be heading to Europe right after my trip to New York City. I officially arrive in Ireland on April 6th, and will be spending the next few weeks around the United Kingdom. Europe is expensive, there’s no doubt about it. Most hotels are around $150 a night for anything decent, and many hostels get bad reviews for what they charge. Since I’ve been living pretty cheaply in Argentina, I’m going to live it up a bit in April. Ireland was definitely on the schedule, as was London (briefly, as I’ve been there before) and Paris. But given that I had a full week to kill in the ...

I’m hungry. Not in general, but for some of the comfort foods from back home. I’ve been told most people miss their friends and family when they are away from home for extended periods of time. But after a while, most people start to really crave some of the foods back home. I sure know I am. What kind of foods do I miss? Bacon? It exists, but not it’s more like fried ham. Pizza? Simple thin crust only. Only ham and olive toppings mostly. Breakfast food? Not really, mostly just breads and yogurts here. Perogies. Nope, haven’t seen any at all. Thai food. Not really. In fact, rare to find anything ...

When I first started planning this trip, the thought of spending almost a full year in perpetual summer seemed like an amazing goal to shoot for. I mean, who wouldn’t want sunshine and warm temperatures all the time? Truthfully though, I would love nothing more than to have a serious cold snap down here in Buenos Aires. It’s been around 28C or higher pretty much since I arrived. If that were a dry heat, it wouldn’t be too bad. But it’s very humid here, and it makes the heat seem that much worse. In fact, we’ve had 45C days here since I arrived if you factor in the humidity into the equation. ...

I met a guy from Ireland at a pub about four weeks ago here in Buenos Aires. Once we got a few beers into our system, I thought I would pick his brain about what happened is his country. In North America we all know that they got themselves into a bit of a debt crisis, but the how and the way are mostly lacking from media over here. In short, it was their own fault. Banks were participating in predatory lending, and most people in Ireland were hungry for credit. Many of this guy’s friends had three of four credit cards, fancy cars, and banks were basically giving away mortgages to most people ...

I’ve been busy making plans for April. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet on most of it, but I’ve done a preliminary timetable and the budget works. So this is what it’s looking like. March 31 – April 5 – New York City, USA April 6 – April 10 – Shannon & Limerick, Ireland April 11 – April 15 – Edinburgh, Scotland April 15 – April 17 – Dublin, Ireland April 17 – April 21 – London outskirts, England April 21 – April 26 – Paris, France There’s a bit of bouncing around there, but I’m coordinating meeting up with a few other people, and that’s how it has to happen to work. For example, I’m meeting ...

I’ve been blogging about buying a new camera for quite some time now, and I’m pretty sure I have it narrowed down. Unfortunately, buying a camera at this point is a compromise for me, and I have a hard time making compromises in the technology sphere. SLR cameras and lenses are heavy. They are hard to carry, hard to pack, and a pain to take from place to place. But if you want high-end image quality, than a SLR offers you the best of the best. I love my SLR, but my Canon 40D SLR is in need of replacement at this point. I sold most of my lenses last year, so I don’t really have any professional ...

This last week was a weird week. I met up with a few friends and had some great times, but it was also the first real time I’ve been homesick in any capacity. There was nothing really that happened to make me feel that way, I was just sitting around and realized I was a long way from home. So I spent a day or so of being a bit melancholy. Thankfully the feeling has past, and it’s business as usual again. Weekends always get me excited, mostly because I have more opportunities to get out and explore on Saturday and Sunday than during the week. My Mac widget says I have 26 days left in Buenos Aires, ...

Today is my mom’s birthday! Like almost everyone older than me, she just turned 39 today. That means she has many long, happy years of bingo playing ahead of her! My mom was pretty sad when I moved out of Chilliwack, but she’s been taking my absence like a trooper. I try and do a call with her at least once a week, and we catch up on all the excitement back in cow town. I hope she has a great day today, and that people at work treat her to lunch or something awesome like that. Happy Birthday Mom! ...