Here's a little video update from Buenos Aires using Photobooth. Not entirely sure why I was doing the Stevie Wonder while it was going on, but whatever. I also said my Spanish lessons are $90/month, when they are more like $90/week. But, enjoy! If people like these kind of updates I'll try and do more of them. Video Update: Day 16 in Buenos Aires from Duane Storey on Vimeo. ...

I've managed to do a weekly update on the past two Fridays of the month, so I think going forward that's going to by my goal for the rest of the trip. First off, I've been here a little over two weeks now. The total length of my time in Buenos Aires is about 12 weeks, so that means I have around 10 left I think. My first week here was a bit challenging, mostly for the language barrier. I spent a bit of time brushing up on my spanish, and week 2 definitely was a bit easier. Spanish This week I finally found a private spanish teacher and have been meeting her for two hours a night on Monday, Wednesday ...

A few years ago, the government opened up a new investment vehicle for people looking to save for retirement, the tax free savings account (TFSA). An RRSP is effectively a tax-deferred investment account. When you contribute to it, you are doing so out of pre-tax dollars (or, if you get a tax refund due to your contribution, you are getting the tax you paid on that amount back). Eventually you have to pay the piper, so when you start pulling money out of your RRSP to fund retirement, you will pay tax on that amount. The upside is that you're able to invest pre-tax money (hence you have more of ...

The country of Uruguay is just a short ferry ride away from Buenos Aires. It's always been on my list of things to see while I'm down in Argentina, but I didn't have any definite plans in my mind for when I would go over. Usually people go over to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, since it's just a short ferry ride away. However, an even greater adventure is the city of Montevideo, which is at least a 2.5 hour ferry ride away from Buenos Aires (if you take the fast ferry, longer if you take the slow ferry). So this weekend I've decided to head over to Montevideo with Gus and Russ. We've paid ...

I came to Buenos Aires with an iPad, a Macbook Pro, a Canon DLSR, a 28mm lens, a Kodak Playsport HD camera, and a Canon something or other point and shoot camera - quite the load. Here's a little update on how it's going. The Good The iPad is great for reading at home, but it's not so good for reading out in public in a city with a lot of petty crime. In fact, I don't think I've seen a single iPad down here since I've arrived. As a result, I'm thankful I brought my Kindle with me, since it blends into a coffee shop scene far easier. Right before I left Canada I purchased (or rather, my dad purchased ...

This last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the world renowned Japanese Gardens in Buenos Aires. Outside of Japan, they are some of the largest Japanese Gardens in the world, and I have been looking forward to visiting them ever since I arrived. The Japanese Gardens are located in Buenos Aires, just north of the Palermo area and the Buenos Aires zoo. I walked there from my apartment near Paraguay and Gurrachuga, and it took me about 30 minutes or so to get there. This was the first real trip I had done in Buenos Aires where I decided to take my digital SLR along with me. At the advice of ...

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. At some level I'm almost relieved that it's out of the way. Somehow yours truly lost his bank card today. I made two trips to the bank today, one to HSBC near Alto Palermo and one to CitiBank. At HSBC I took out 1000 pesos and at CitiBank I did the same. I made it back home, did some work, then went to a little coffee shop where I read for an hour or so. When I got home from there I opened my wallet, and was surprised that my bank card wasn't in it. I actually have every other card in the safe in my apartment, but because I had gone to the bank earlier ...

Well, it's been 9 days since I arrived in Buenos Aires, and I thought I would give an update. So far, I'm really enjoying myself here, although I haven't been too far from Palermo Soho yet other than to set up my cell phone. Today marked a pretty important milestone in my journey - laundry. In Buenos Aires they don't really have coin operated laundromats, they have what are called lavaderos. They are usually small shops where you drop off your laundry and pick it up later after it's been washed and folded. I managed to muddle my way through some dialog to drop my clothes off this morning. I walked ...

Obtaining money has little idiosyncrasies in every part of the world. In the Caribbean for example, it's easy to obtain money in US dollars, but hard to get anyone to break any of the bills the ATM machines give out. When I was in Costa Rica, we had issues because many bank machines only allowed 4-digit pins, while some banks in Canada (notably Royal Bank at the time), used five digit pins. So we had to drive nearly 60 minutes out of town to find a bank machine that would take five digits. Buenos Aires is no different, although the situation is slightly better. I commented on another post how ...

Had you asked me a few months ago about what language they speak in Argentina, I probably would have just said Spanish, assuming (erroneously of course) that all spanish speaking countries all speak the same form. Now that I'm here, I know what a lot of people in North American probably don't - in Argentina they speak a fairly different form of spanish based on Voseo, and also have some very unique pronunciations. The main change in voseo that the second person singular (equivalent to you in english, i.e. you are) is changed from tu to vos. Unfortunately very few books even make mention of this ...

Here are a few photos from the little apartment I'm renting in Palermo Soho. It's located near the corners of Paraguay and Gurruchaga if anyone is interested. There are a few more on Flickr. In terms of location, the apartment is about a 5 block walk to the area of Palermo Soho with all the fancier restaurants and pubs (although, there are lots of little ones all over the place). About three or four blocks north of here is one of the main subway lines in the city, which will be nice (as soon as I start to use it). The only real downside is they are doing renovations on the apartment downstairs, ...

I've been walking around spending pesos like they were going out of style this week, so I thought a post about money would be an interesting subject. I picked up around 1200 pesos when I arrived (which is about $300 CAD), and that's lasted me until now. I'm starting to get a little bare (I think I have around 300 left or so), but I've stocked up the fridge, eaten out a few times, and gone on a few drinking adventures. First, the 100 peso bill. It seems to be the main one that banks and currency exchange places dish out. The only problem is many of the smaller establishments don't seem to want ...

I just got back from a little walk around Palermo Soho. It's about 32C right now, and it sure is a nice change to wear shorts and a t-shirt compared to the rain and cold gear I had on back home. Without further ado, here's a little video I shot today with my new HD Kodak Playsport: I spent yesterday trying to get a SIM for my cell phone down here. I basically walked all the way from Palermo Soho to Recoleta, which took me about 45 minutes each way. It was quite the adventure, and it's still not quite over. I'll post more about the cell phone situation once there's a bit of resolution to it. Truthfully ...

I landed in Buenos Aires yesterday (it seems like a lot longer based on how much I've done since then), but so far it is shaping up to be an amazing experience. The flight from Houston was fairly uneventful. I popped a few anti-anxiety pills and then did my best to sleep for as much of the flight as I could. We hit a fairly long bit of turbulence right as we were passing the equator (not sure if that's the reason), so that kept me from sleeping for a while. But after that was done, the rest of the flight was fairly smooth. Once we were on the ground, I slowly made my way to the customs area. ...

While SMS is great when you have a package that includes unlimited SMS messages, it can be extremely expensive to either send or receive international SMS messages, often to the tune of $2/message. Here are a few alternatives that are available for the iPhone to help reduce costs. Kik Messenger A few days ago, my friend John recommended that I grab a copy of the Kik Messenger application on the iPhone. Kik is an SMS-like application that allows you to have real time text chats with your friends over data or WiFi. Because it supports push notifications, it's as real-time as SMS is, which makes ...

Today is the day where more than four months of planning finally comes to fruition and the journey finally begins. First, about 20 friends came out for a little going away dinner last night. I had promised myself to only have a few drinks such that I wouldn't be hung over in the morning. Unfortunately, one drink often leads to another, and before I knew it I had a nice little chorus line of empty glasses on the table. I still felt fine, but I knew I was probably going to have a rough sleep and wake up feeling like garbage. I randomly ran into one of my co-workers from my previous job who just ...

I'm down to the 15 hour mark right now, and am just enjoying a beer in my Vancouver hotel room prior to heading out and meeting up with a few friends for dinner. I went out yesterday and bought a few more things to take along on the trip, so I wanted to highlight those here. Marmot Jacket I originally went to MEC in Vancouver to buy a nice jacket for my trip. I was looking for something really light that I could possibly wear in the evenings, and also something to add a bit of warmth if I'm in Europe later next year. I found the perfect jacket at MEC, but they unfortunately didn't have the right ...

I posted a blog entry on my personal site detailing how I was feeling last night. Since that time I've migrated to Vancouver and have checked into a nice suite at the Coast Plaza and Suite Hotels in Vancouver. Coast Hotels has supported various trips I've made over the years, and I'm definitely thankful to them for helping put me up from time to time. I'm actually in a suite on their top floor right now, with an absolutely amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from my window. If you're looking for a great Vancouver hotel, then make sure you check out the Coast Hotels in Vancouver. I'm about 36 hours ...

Tonight is my last night in Chilliwack. It's been nearly two full years since I packed up my apartment in Vancouver and moved my entire life back to the small town I grew up. At the time, I was in desperate need of a break from city life, and welcomed the thought of having some family around as well as a slower pace of life. Since then I've spent the last two years working from my apartment here in Chilliwack, visiting old friends, having dinner with family, and doing a little bit of soul searching. Not long after I arrived back in Chilliwack my family started commenting to me about how much ...

Gary Taubes shook up the world with his controversial 2002 New York Times article, "What if it's all been a big fat lie?", where he questioned the scientific basis for the claim that fat makes us fat. Nearly five years later he followed up that article with Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage), one of the most thoroughly researched and well-written books I've ever read in my life regarding the history of food and nutrition, and the fact that most of what we now believe in the field isn't based on anything scientific. Last ...